Chemists Turn Gold to Purple -- On Purpose: Color Change Confirms a New Way to Harvest Energy from S

Chemists Turn Gold to Purple -- On Purpose: Color Change Confirms a New Way to Harvest Energy from Sunlight

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2011) — Professor Richard Watt and his chemistry students suspected that a common protein could potentially react with sunlight and harvest its energy -- similar to what chlorophyll does during photosynthesis.

The story of how they proved it sounds as colorful as the legend of the leprechaun who hid his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

They started with citric acid from oranges and mixed it with the protein. Next they dissolved gold powder into the solution. Then they put vials of the yellow-colored mixture in direct sunlight and crossed their fingers in the hope that it would turn purple.

MODS - As always I searched and did not find this topic. If its already up please lock / move - Thanks!

Another step in the right direction. Just the probability of numbers says at some point we will get lucky and find an alternate energy source that is cheap, clean, abundant and free.

The process involved looks pretty cool, borrowing atoms, creating nanoproteins and effecting a transfer of energy.

ANyways, thought this was intresting and thought I would share.

Yeah, but the system requires gold powder to work, so it's kind of expensive, but...

Maybe that's why the ancients valued gold so much???

reply to post by harrytuttle


True but its still a step forward... At least this theory has been confirmed though. It makes it easier to look at other elements that are more abundant that might be able to do the same thing. At somepoint in the history of everyting, its failed. Whether it be mans attempt to fly, to cross the ocean, to head into space, to alternate forms of energy.

A failure in one industry posibly means a breakthrough in another.

reply to post by Xcathdra


i will believe this when my poop turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbet Wait can they change that as well?

Originally posted by pcrobotwolf
reply to post by Xcathdra

 

i will believe this when my poop turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbet

Wait can they change that as well?

edit on 29-1-2011 by pcrobotwolf because: (no reason given)

Of course they can... but first we need to get you back to your room. The Doctors...err physicists will be along shortly to give you some medicati...errr uhm... gold powder that will allow them to medica...errr make your poop purple. After 15-20 minutes when you pass o, errr start smelling rainbow sherbert you will know it worked.

So for now, lets put the scissors down and get you back to your room. We just had the, uhm, pillows on the walls fluffed so you can have a blast.

In all seriousness though this is a good step. An efficent and quick way to capture and transfer energy. Who knows maybe this breakthrough is the lynchpin for other experiments / theories that have so far failed.

i wonder what this implies in the context of hermetic alchemy...hmm...anyone on this train with me? this sounds like exactly the kind of thing that hermetic practitioners describe when they talk about the transmutation of metals, which of course is an allegory for transmutation of the soul.

Yes air is all you need due to 100 to 500 ions per cu cm made from cosmic rays.
What is as free as that.
Ions can be made from radio active waste as well as helium I would suppose in some
cases.

reply to post by metalshredmetal


oops

oO nice work there science.

Wait

What?

Will not be talked about anymore.

What?

Wait and see.

A chemistry teacher I had last year had a little vial of red gold.

He said it had something to do with the arrangement of the electrons, but I can't remember exactly how he described how it worked.

Originally posted by splittheatom
A chemistry teacher I had last year had a little vial of red gold.

He said it had something to do with the arrangement of the electrons, but I can't remember exactly how he described how it worked.

Ive seen blyurbs here and there where scientists have messed around with precious metal at the atomic level, building and deconstructing..

Who knows....

the fulltext pdf of the journal article for those without access, and supplementary material pdf.