The essay is a great example of a mindset that devalues the subjective and strives to rebrand it as objective. Paradoxically it shows insecurity. "My experience doesn't count unless it's The Truth."
You like a thing. That's fine. That's enough. There's no need to prove the worth of your own enjoyment by fantasizing that it conquers everyone else's brain too.
You're the adult now. You're allowed to like it just because you like it.
Scientific Reports is a junk journal fyi. Not conclusive, but indicative.
Despite saying the visible flux component is "small" and that the tungsten lamps "were not expected to [be used] as task lamps," Figure 6 (a) and (c) shows... desk lamps right at the work stations like task lamps! Not only is this experimentally unblinded, but the visible light immediately in front of the test subjects is noticeably brighter and warmer. The effect could simply be due to reduced eye strain.
What would James Randi do? "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof," and unfortunately this isn't it.
This would be more interesting if they add a visible light filter on the lamps so they only emit infrared radiation, and have an identical double-blind control with a 60 watt heater bulb so it emits no SWIR but the same radiant heat (which could confound and/or unblind).
"Krakow’s pollution stems from a mix of local and regional sources. A primary culprit is domestic heating, the burning of coal and wood in older, inefficient household boilers and stoves remains widespread in the Małopolska region (1).
Car traffic also adds nitrogen oxides and fine particulates, exacerbated by an ageing vehicle fleet. Topography and meteorology worsen the problem, Krakow sits in a basin-like region prone to temperature inversions and limited ventilation, allowing pollutants to accumulate.
Additionally, emissions drift in from surrounding municipalities and industrial zones, making regional coordination crucial to air quality. Despite a solid-fuel ban in the city since 2019 and the replacement of many coal boilers, compliance is uneven and some residents still use banned fuel."
Stirling engines are a perfect illustration of what I call Odum's Paradox:
The closer a heat engine/pump gets to maximum theoretical efficiency, the lower its power density.
This is a simple consequence of thermodynamics. By approaching the Carnot efficiency you're asymptotically approaching an adiabatic cycle, so there's less and less entropy gain to drive the system forward. At the Carnot efficiency the cycle becomes completely time-reversible and all power stops, so as you get closer and closer the power density drops toward zero.
Odum observed[0] that (for certain linear assumptions) the maximum power density is achieved at half the theoretical Carnot efficiency. He noted that both real engines and biological systems tend to cluster around this optimum.
What's interesting, but not terribly surprising, is that this implies a fundamental and unavoidable tradeoff between machinery cost and operating efficiency.
Yes! There is a similar thing happening in windmills that leads to Betz' law, if a windmill were to extract all energy in the wind it wouldn't work because the air has no place to go to behind the machine. In order to do meaningful extraction of energy you simply have to accept a minimum amount of loss, attempting to increase that fraction will increase the losses, not decrease them.
You like a thing. That's fine. That's enough. There's no need to prove the worth of your own enjoyment by fantasizing that it conquers everyone else's brain too.
You're the adult now. You're allowed to like it just because you like it.
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