"Uh, guys, Edison used hair for the filament in a series of his attempts at producing a commercial light bulb. OK, didn’t work all that well, but it did work…"
@teqjack Hi. The source I read says that he tried many materials such as paper and cloth, thread, fish line, spruce, hay, cork, and "hair out of a red-headed Scotsman's beard" but the fact that he tried these materials doesn't mean any of them are conductors. Edison did experiment with *carbonized* filaments made from different organic materials. I am absolutely positive that human hair isn't a conductor at the voltages mentioned in this article. One additional comment: It looks to me like the filaments interconnecting the gold-like posts in the photos are thin metal wires, not hairs. I am not certain,but I think the black material behind the plastic backing is the human hair. My guess is that the gold-like posts just connect the cells together. Hard to tell from the photos.
Aw c'mon you guys! This is clearly a hoax. Human hair is non-conductive. To take advantage of melanin's properties as a semiconductor you'd have to isolate it chemically from the hair. Since hair isn't a conductor, clearly you can't just string a bunch of it in a loop. And just to check, I measured a lock of my wife's jet black hair. Non-conductive. No energy produced under UV illumination. Here is a photo: http://sites.google.com/site/edwardcraighyatt/CraigsProjects/gizhair.jpg?attredirects=0 At best, this boy is fooling himself. At worst, he's a liar. Shame for publishing this without any fact checking.
This was so cool, I had to try it at home. :) I am very interested in self-organization, so I tried replicating the ANL experiment. I posted some instructions and a movie so you can give it a try yourself. Have fun!
@teqjack Hi. The source I read says that he tried many materials such as paper and cloth, thread, fish line, spruce, hay, cork, and "hair out of a red-headed Scotsman's beard" but the fact that he tried these materials doesn't mean any of them are conductors. Edison did experiment with *carbonized* filaments made from different organic materials. I am absolutely positive that human hair isn't a conductor at the voltages mentioned in this article. One additional comment: It looks to me like the filaments interconnecting the gold-like posts in the photos are thin metal wires, not hairs. I am not certain,but I think the black material behind the plastic backing is the human hair. My guess is that the gold-like posts just connect the cells together. Hard to tell from the photos.
http://sites.google.com/site/edwardcraighyatt/CraigsProjects/magnetic-snakes
P.S. If you try it or have any comments on my results, please drop me a line.