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Joshua Gouled of Santa Cruz, CA has invented a way for us to amplify our fave jamz on the down-low. Get rid of those oh-so-obvious speaker boxes and replace them with a snazzy vase, sphere, or basically any container.
How it works:
A coil is wound around the vessel, which is filled with ferrofluid (an oil containing nano-sized magnetic metal particles)and suspends a large bar magnet inside the center of the fluid. Music signals from an amplifier are fed through the coil, creating a magnetic field in the fluid, which interacts with the bar magnet. The bar vibrates, causing the fluid to vibrate, which then causes the walls of the vessel to vibrate, allowing your hot jamz to blast out loud.
On top of all that nerdy awesomeness, lights may be used with clear containers, where they would pulsate along with the beat of the music.
via new scientist
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Comments
after reading the article and the patent, i don't quite understand the role of the ferrofluid. the oscillating current in the wires will create an oscillating magnetic field. if the bar magnet is oriented correctly within this field, AND it is attached to the vessel, it will oscillate at the same frequency, and will cause the vessel to oscillate also. i see no need for the ferrofluid. the patent states that the ferrofluid is used to transfer the oscillations from the bar magnet to the vessel, but is that really necessary? also, the patent states that LEDs may be placed in the ferrofluid, to light the vessel in time to the oscillations. but ferrofluid, unless they know something i don't, is highly opaque; i mean, it consists of solid particles suspended in a liquid. i don't think you'd be able to see light from an LED immersed in ferrofluid.
i understand their statements regarding higher power output from speakers; the ferrofluid will help that by dissipating heat, but other than that, why even use it? is it just to exploit the use of "ferrofluids" and "nanoparticles"? to be cool and different?