Cool Science

Can RF be used to dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen gas? Well this guy thinks he's done it and this is all over the various news organizations. The key is salt water, and presumably the right power and frequency of RF. RF heating of salt solutions is no surprise and is well known - but purportedly generating hydrogen is surprising and some skepticism needs to be applied. If true, the main benefit would be in delivering energy in a much cleaner and environmentally friendlier fashion. Thermodynamically it will be a loss since it would have to be viewed as a cyclic process (dissociating water followed by combustion to reassociate it) and every real cyclic process is lossy by definition (second law of thermodynamics).

And it's a rough segue but i've got to put in a good word for the awesome headphones that I've been using for something like 10 years now (wow). They're the Grado 60's and they're incredibly rich and detailed and have surprising bass. They follow the open air design so everybody else will hear your music too. In the last several years I added a second pair, the Grado 80's. Their sound is crisper and even more detailed but interestingly not quite as rich as the 60's. I love going back and forth between them. These two headphones are some of the best buys I've ever had and I decided it was time to write about them.