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Paula Hammond on Solar Energy

MIT Professor Paula Hammond talks about the promise of solar energy and why MIT is uniquely positioned to help realize that promise. Interview recorded 4/27/2009.

Comments (1)

Hi Paula,

A friend sent me the link to your video. Yes, harnessing energy from the sun can provide enough energy to the people of the world but it has a lot of drawbacks. Things that you have to take into consideration before designing a product are factors like efficiency, redirecting sun light, is it evening or day?, Do we want our main source of energy hovering at the top of the world generating energy 24/7? And how are we going to bring that energy from space down to earth? Shoot it down on a beam onto a sponge like system? The most important thing about sun light is that it provides humanity with the ability to create remote energy sources, which can be mobile as well, without the need for gigantic structures. We can’t take a dam out of the ground and take it to grandmother’s yard right? Above all, if every grandmother had a dam in her back yard, then we are going to need a really immense flood department. Moving on…

Yes, over all, sun light gets 2 out of 3 on accomplishing your goal. But;

The question is about power. We need power, and we need it now, and we want it all the time now. I haven’t opened an engineering book in 2 years, but for what I recall power can be translated as:

A mass is situated at point X1. Moving the mass to point X2 at whatever distance away at a certain speed, takes power. The faster the mass moves from one point to another necessitates more power.

So the question is… What is the one force that we know of that moves the largest masses at the fastest rate?

I believe that this force is Magnetism. This I believe from observations, with no need to do any computations. There are other strong forces, but when we talk about moving steady state mass (meaning none exploiting/contracting or expanding mass, though it can have some of these three characteristic, but this some is negligible)nothing beats magnetism within this feild, that I may know of.

Magnetism is what lets our solar system work. Translating or rotating the earth takes a lot of power. Translating while rotating our planets takes a lot of power. One last one, translating while perhaps rotating our galaxies takes a lot of power, and it is magnetism that keeps it all in equilibrium.

So now you are saying in your mind Jhonatan I have a Ph.D and I already know all of this, and I know you do, but it needs to be mentioned. So your question is, where are you going with all this simple knowledge that some of us know?

Well, I have an idea that involves magnetism which beats the power delivered to us from harnessing a star that is meant to run out of energy some day. So what we are going to do, travel all the galaxies in the universe until we deplete every star. I don’t think so… That would be insane.

As crazy as the idea may sound, it is very simple, and I’ve known about it since my third year in college. I was going to release the idea for my senior project, but I was too smart to do that, as naïve as I was then I still am today, so if I think something is important I don’t disclose it that easy (with respect to inventions). However at some point it needs to be disclosed. I would like to meet with you and share this idea, after you sign an NDA and all the spy phones in the world hear the idea. Which makes me reluctant, and I don’t want a douche bag from the energy industry to benefit from this, in some ways I rather die.

With that being said, I would like to close you with how feasible the idea is. So we are going back to the fundamental knowledge that a few of us know about. You tell me, if masses like the earth can travel such long distances while staying in equilibrium why can’t we create a tiny system here on earth that replicates what happens in the heavens. Well, that’s all I can say, I don’t know if you would get to read this. But, if you do, feel free to contact me at: or 978-601-0738.

NOTE, if you are willing to do an NDA you must also be willing to do a patent. I don’t have any money so I’m not paying for that patent. Lastly, I’m not disclosing anything, even if you sign an NDA, unless a patent agreement is present there will be no disclosure.

Posted 5 years by enricuyo


MIT Alumni Association

MIT Alumni Association

Category: Education | Updated 17 days ago

June 16, 2009 16:09
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