
94-year-old Lithium-Ion Battery Inventor Introduces Solid State Battery - andruby
https://news.utexas.edu/2017/02/28/goodenough-introduces-new-battery-technology
======
hwillis
I'm scanning the paper really quickly. I'm not a chemist but I do know a thing
or two about batteries and the standard caveats apply here:

When they say 3x volumetric energy density, that is the actual energy density,
which is energy per liter (normal density is mass per liter). Normally people
use energy density to refer to energy per kg. Because this is a solid state
battery, it is much denser than normal batteries (which are roughly as dense
as water). Solid state batteries are smaller but much heavier and this is no
exception. It is 33% the size of a lithium battery, but for the same energy
it's about 2.5x heavier. Weight is still a much bigger problem for batteries
than size- batteries are much smaller than the exhaust, engine and
transmission of a car, but also much heavier.

The main limit on specific energy(kwh/kg) for this battery and for solid state
batteries in general is voltage. Li-ion is 3.7v nominal, this battery is 2.5v
nominal.

1,200 cycles may seem low, but it is actually very good; around 3x the life of
current batteries. This cycle life is the time to degrade to 80% maximum
storage, at a certain discharge depth and speed. Current batteries only last
300-400 cycles at their specs, but last tens of thousands at 30% depth of
discharge.

Problem with the above: in this particular battery, the chemistry breaks down
very strongly after it reaches the end of life. Normal lithium does this too,
but not as strongly. This stuff may potentially last longer, but it fails much
less gracefully. Not in a dangerous way, but in the same way as a normal car
often does; once its broken it'll just work worse and worse until it is barely
limping.

The temperature capabilities may seem irrelevant, but they are actually a
decent problem for li-ion and are the reason lead acid is still used in cars.

Another interesting possibility for glass solid state lithium batteries is
that recycling would be very easy. In organic batteries the electrolyte burns
or reacts pretty much no matter what you do, but with glass you can plate and
unplate cells. Unfortunately due to specific energy, polymer solid state
electrolytes are much more likely than glass (also much cheaper).

Edit: IMPORTANT NOTE: this is NOT a fundamentally new type of li-ion battery!
Solid state batteries have been around a while (glass, ceramic and polymer),
and have specific advantages but low specific energy and power. This
particular implementation is a bit higher power and possibly lower cost, but
it's just a little blip of progress. Solid state batteries are a good
candidate for the future, but they aren't there yet.

~~~
rattray
So... these are too heavy for use in cars etc, too low-voltage to displace Li-
ion in ¿many situations?, but would last a long time?

What applications, if any, would this kind of battery be useful for then?

~~~
benjaminjackman
Anywhere you need a small but longer lasting battery and don't care about
mass. The primary issue with a larger mass is accelerating and decelerating
it. However with the larger capacity, it would be less efficient but perhaps
could still lead to longer range in the car if the extra energy stored
overcomes the added cost of moving it around. Probably not a good thing but
could be useful then in something like an electric race car or something.

Submersibles (which may not care about weight due to ballast anyhow),
Batteries for Solar Storage (price dependent likely bad at first), Pacemakers,
Hearing aids, once it's invented if robotics outpace man engineered human
biology, maybe smart blood.

Perhaps also Nanobots, Active 3d Glasses, Cell phones, Laptops, Tablets, Smart
Watches that go for smaller space vs weight.

Outside of that perhaps home appliances like a portable bread machine, or a
hand-held wireless electric apple peeler, very small things like a rock that
has a hidden microphone / camera in it for spycraft, perhaps a heated travel
mug to keep your cider warm, or an electric bowl for keeping great-gravy from
coagulating on the dining room table, maybe a warm pie plate because who
doesn't like warm cherry pie? Perhaps some sort of autonomous mud tunneling
microbots, rather have a large boring machine just let these small guys go and
be patient and in a decade or two you'll have your tunnel, electric candles in
churches could cut down on unnecessary wax use, and helmet lamps used for
stuff like lead mining could also find a use (added neck strain not
withstanding). Not sure if the added weight would be too much for a target-
practice duck that swam around in a lake or not, but if not, that might be the
right answer.

~~~
seanp2k2
I think that in many cases, smaller but heavier with more power is a good
trade-off. Think cell phones, cameras, bike lights, camping lights, laptops,
etc. while lightweight is a feature for all of these, they're also useless
without a charge, so IMO the battery life and size together are more important
than weight as long as it's still reasonable. Glass isn't light at all, yet
they use that a ton in phones. The iPhone 6S Plus is really heavy and I
haven't heard anyone complain about it. The efforts around consumer
electronics I've seen in the past 20 years have mainly been about reducing
size, with reducing weight as a nice typical side-effect.

This would be really great if it ever hits production, but given past battery
progress vs what's actually available, I'm not holding my breath.

~~~
danudey
> The iPhone 6S Plus is really heavy and I haven't heard anyone complain about
> it

A significant amount of that weight is the battery, so making the battery 2.5x
heavier would make the phone substantially heavier, even with the same overall
charge. You'd be hard pressed to sell someone on 'This new phone we made is
great, you get the same battery life as before but it weighs 40% more!'

I suppose the question is, in which cases would people be willing to accept a
_lower_ charge capacity if their phone could charge to full in, say, minutes
rather than hours? I feel as though those USB battery packs that are
everywhere these days would be a great candidate; plug it into the wall for a
few minutes and you're fully charged, and you can charge anything else from
there.

~~~
jon_richards
>You'd be hard pressed to sell someone on 'This new phone we made is great,
you get the same battery life as before but it weighs 40% more!'

It's actually super easy, you just say things like "solid construction",
"substantial", and "build quality".

~~~
rangibaby
> It's actually super easy, you just say things like "solid construction",
> "substantial", and "build quality".

"Beats By Dre headphones teardown finds metal parts included just to add
weight"

~~~
Findy3ti
I know of a hardware manufacture who used to put concrete into their DVD
players to give them that quality heavy feel

~~~
marcusjt
Are you sure that wasn't to dampen vibrations which might affect (or even
themselves be caused by) spinning the disk and movements of the read head?
(Same reason there's concrete blocks in the base of a washing machine)

------
nimos
The greatest travesty in the world right now is there doesn't exist a multi-
government 10xManhattan sized project to develop a really really good battery.

It would enable a huge reduction in CO2 emissions(bye gasoline), allow
developing countries have stable electrical sources and low cost renewable
distributed generation, cut costs(good includes cheap), and enable renewable
energy sources to make up a larger mix of our energy production.

Always exciting read about new developments, wish I knew more about
chemistry/physics, hopefully we get there sometime soon!

~~~
afsina
Governments cannot invent or develop technology, they only hinder it.

~~~
pjc50
.. said literally in reply to a comment about the Manhattan project.

~~~
jMyles
GP's post is oversimplistic, but I think there's something there. Maybe it's
better stated as, "Governments tend toward invention of things that, in the
long term, are destructive and divisive rather than peaceful and
collaborative."

If "technology" is defined (or construed) to more closely follow successful
human evolution (which I think is reasonable), then weapons of mass
destructive are a differently (albeit obviously related) phenomenon and not
"technology."

It depends on how you view the age-old political question of means and ends.
If the latter grows out of the former, and if governments, as monopoly-holders
on initiation of violence, use force as their means, then naturally we can
expect things that come from government to grow toward those ends.

------
danm07
Is it just me or is Goodenough an amusingly paradoxical last name for an
inventor?

~~~
radioactivist
He's also well known in solid-state physics for the "Goodenough rules" [1]
(more commonly called the Goodenough-Kanamori rules, but that has less of a
ring to it).

[1] [http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Goodenough-
Kanamori_rule](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Goodenough-Kanamori_rule)

~~~
Arizhel
What's really astounding is reading that, and looking at the dates. He first
formulated this rule in _1955_. And he's still working and making real
contributions!

We really need to work on greatly extending human lifespans, if for no other
reason than to keep people like this alive.

------
philipkglass
The press release says "the researchers’ cells have demonstrated more than
1,200 cycles with low cell resistance." That's nice, but rising cell
resistance is just one way the battery might cycle poorly over time.

Skimming the actual paper, I don't think they demonstrate 1200 cycles for
_any_ parameter. Eyeballing the graphs, it looks like they did
charge/discharge testing for maybe 1200 _hours_ (Figure 3a), but with really
slow charge/discharge cycles of 10 hours each. Anyone publishing in this space
would highlight 1200 cycles of stable cycling in the actual paper, if they had
data to demonstrate it. They'd also show off faster cycles if high-rate
performance looked good.

Looking at the data the authors _did not_ present in the actual paper, I'm
guessing that this battery doesn't handle rapid charge/discharge cycles well.
(Their cycling test is at only 0.1C, paper claims "acceptable charge/discharge
rates" but does not further quantify it... implication is "not a strength of
this design.") It may not have great capacity retention either. I don't see
any graphics specifically highlighting capacity retention vs. cycles. So at
present I'd call this a solid research effort, but even if it could be
commercialized immediately it's not clear that it would be a winner. The
demonstrated charge/discharge rate is too slow to be practical for EVs or
portable electronics. The demonstrated cycling stability is too low to be
attractive for grid tied storage.

People who found this paper interesting may also be interested in this related
publication about solid state sodium ion batteries that Goodenough was also
involved with:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5269650/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5269650/)

~~~
djsumdog
I really wish they'd publish more of the limitations as well in the paper. I
wonder how much of it got cut out in editing.

Publishing limitations and negative results that lead to dead ends can help
other scientists when they attempt to replicate and improve on tech like this.

~~~
philipkglass
I agree that publishing negative results would help the whole enterprise of
science, but the prisoner's dilemma is pretty clear. I would guess that the
authors have been "trained" well enough by publication incentives that they
didn't bother to highlight limitations even in their original manuscript. That
kind of information shows up in the paper only by absences and implication;
it's only informal chats with peers where people talk honestly and thoroughly
about the negative results and limitations of their approaches. It's a shame
that scientific publication ended up this way. It's one of the reasons I left
research to write software.

------
ChuckMcM
I have put a note in my calendar a year from now, and a year after that to
read the story about how these laboratory curiosities could not be made in
production quantities.

Something I would really love to see would be a solid state battery that
exploited the fact that we can draw silicon features at 7nm. How about a
couple trillion equivalents of a FLASH cell which we can drain in rows or fill
in rows. Sort of a bucket brigade of capacitors at that point but it would not
have any recharge issues and since its just charge flying about no dendrites
to speak of. At some point I predict that will become a useful way to build
energy storage devices.

~~~
beambot
> story about how these laboratory curiosities could not be made in production
> quantities

Why would you just want to be cynical about fundamental battery research? This
is how all big breakthroughs happen: in fits and starts.

~~~
ChuckMcM
It is more battery breakthrough fatigue. Last time I looked there was
something like 17 - 18 battery "breakthroughs" over the last 8 years of which
exactly one made it into production for a relatively small (10%) improvement
in charging performance.

These laboratory curiosities usually fail because either you can't reliably
manufacture the precursor material or reliably make the structures needed at
production rates (which translates into the cost of the resulting battery)

It came up in a discussion with some Tesla enthusiasts on the ground breaking
of the Gigafactory where I wondered if there would be a break through that
would make the batteries the Gigafactory would produce obsolete before they
finished building the factory. That didn't happen :-).

As a result I recognize its a really hard slow slog through chemistry which is
well understood to change batteries. And you're correct there have been a
number of improvements in manufacturing which have resulted in incrementally
better batteries and that is all good, but so far, starting with a basic
battery and making a new battery that is significantly better, has been
disappointing.

------
andruby
The researchers published the paper, titled "Alternative strategy for a safe
rechargeable battery" in the Energy & Environmental Science journal [0]

[0]
[http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2017/EE/C6EE02...](http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2017/EE/C6EE02888H)

~~~
chmaynard
Thanks. I wish more science writers would provide a link to the relevant
journal article.

------
rebootthesystem
A comment that I think is relevant in a community of startups that often,
explicitly or de-facto practice age discrimination:

This engineer is 94 years old. Few, if any, SCV startups would have hired him.
Yet, here we are, he might have just developed the key technology to push
electric transportation through the hockey stick curve past the inflection
point.

Three times the energy density, many times more cycles, no shorting, high
charge and discharge rates. Yeah, this is more than just about laptops and
cars, this is about planes, boats, trucks and ships.

Think about that before you reject a 50+ year old. Experience has real value.

~~~
mikekchar
I don't want to take anything away from Dr. Goodenough, but there is a slight
caveat with respect to academia. Older, established, and respected researchers
are able to attract large teams of of highly talented people. They are also
able to secure funding. It is usual that this leader is given top billing on
all papers and press interactions, even if they are mostly coordinating the
work. This is good for everybody because the lab can continue to attract good
talent and _especially_ it can attract funding. Brilliant young researchers
working by themselves in obscurity can't really make much headway because they
have neither the man power, nor the money to tackle big problems.

So, while I agree with you in principle, older researchers offer more in
academia than just their experience.

------
bluejekyll
> Braga began developing solid-glass electrolytes with colleagues while she
> was at the University of Porto in Portugal.

Slightly orthogonal to the content: this is why it's important for the US to
allow people to come to this country. Continuing research and development with
the worlds best gives the US a leg up. Past ease of immigration is the reason
the US has led in so many areas, constant flow of new and innovative ideas.

~~~
Oxitendwe
Literally no one is arguing to the contrary. The problems people have with
immigration into the US typically involve the sheer scale of it, the fact that
many people who come to the United States do so illegally, difficulty with
integrating, and difference in values from native citizens. Nobody is arguing
against small-scale immigration of highly skilled scientists, there aren't
even enough of them to make a demographic difference.

~~~
hoppa_liza
A few days ago some Indian engineer was shot dead because he "looked Iranian".
There is a very strong political reason why people like this killer do what
they do.

~~~
Oxitendwe
Perhaps I should have clarified: by "literally nobody" I meant "virtually
nobody", as in "the number of people who believe that we should accept no
immigrants whatsoever is very small and statistically negligible".

------
rhodin
Interesting footnote: "The UT Austin Office of Technology Commercialization is
actively negotiating license agreements with multiple companies engaged in a
variety of battery-related industry segments."

I recommend the book "The Powerhouse: America, China, and the Great Battery
War"[1], it goes into some detail about the legal issues around (one) li-ion
design and Thackary's work with/without Goodenough and attribution.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Powerhouse-America-China-Great-
Batter...](https://www.amazon.com/Powerhouse-America-China-Great-
Battery/dp/0143128329)

~~~
qilo
Since reading the excerpt about Goodenough[0] from the mentioned book, I was
waiting when he will finally announce his new battery tech. Good read.

[0] [https://qz.com/338767/the-man-who-brought-us-the-lithium-
ion...](https://qz.com/338767/the-man-who-brought-us-the-lithium-ion-battery-
at-57-has-an-idea-for-a-new-one-at-92/)

------
agentgt
I have not examined the article yet but I was somewhat impressed with Mike
Zimmermans work: [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/tech/new-damage-proof-
batt...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/tech/new-damage-proof-battery-has-
higher-energy-density-wont-explode/)

Yes the linked Nova show has that goofy host but it still pretty interesting
and is young adult / kid accessible.

I highly recommend seeing the whole Nova show if you can.

------
logfromblammo
Basically, the battery has a lithium (Li), sodium (Na), or potassium (K)
metallic anode, a _solid glass electrolyte_ , and an "ink" cathode of sulfur
(S8), ferrocene (Fe(C5H5)), or manganese oxide (MnO2) on a copper (Cu) current
collector.

So it's not _entirely_ solid. The cathode may have a tiny bit of liquid
electrolyte between the glass and the copper.

View a helpful diagram at
[http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/12/20161213-braga.html](http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/12/20161213-braga.html)
.

~~~
gravypod
I'm not a materials guy but can this "shatter"? What does this mean for
applications that need IP67, battery compartment stabilization?

~~~
logfromblammo
I would guess that microfractures in the glass would impede the movement of
charge carriers, even if it didn't shatter outright.

It wouldn't be good for the battery to hit it with a hammer, I think, but that
really applies to any high-energy-density battery. Not all glasses are created
equal, either. It all depends on the composition and the cooling regime. Some
glasses can shrug off small-caliber bullets, and others will crumble under
your fingertips.

------
callesgg
Seams like his age is irrelevant, this is a battery with 3 times the density
of Lithium-Ion batteries.

To me it sounds like the biggest breakthrough in battery technology that we
have seen in years.

That should be the story.

~~~
nul_byte
I agree the battery density is the main story here, but you also cannot help
but be inspired by the mans age. Just today ironically enough, I was
questioning if my age might have meant I was not as sharp as I was, and then
this story pops up with a man over double my age, still very active and at the
top of his field. Cannot help, but be inspired.

------
angryasian
I hope when I'm 94 I'm still as productive as this man is

------
hourislate
Wouldn't it be great if this could get to market. Almost sounds to good to be
true. Maybe I missed it but are there any working prototypes out there in a
vehicle or some kind of device or is this just in a lab?

You would think there would be folks all over this if it were the case. I
wonder what is holding it up?

~~~
gizmonty
It's taken 25 years for Li-ion batteries to get from the lab to the current
level of industrial production. If this technology pans out it will probably
take a similar time to do the same - maybe a bit faster given the greater
interest in batteries now.

~~~
kbenson
I imagine (hope!) that the much larger industry and greater need for large
scale commodity batteries (electric cars) can speed this up considerably, and
not just a bit.

~~~
elastic_church
and cheap credit in Europe! Make it happen!

------
epistasis
An easy-to-consume overview of some potential areas of battery improvement,
which briefly mentions solid state.

[http://www.visualcapitalist.com/future-battery-
technology/](http://www.visualcapitalist.com/future-battery-technology/)

------
grhmc
Sounds like John Goodenough wouldn't leave goodenough alone.

------
fndrplayer13
This may be a silly question to ask, but forgive me, I dont know much about EE
or battery technology:

Its my understanding that current batteries found in mobile phones, laptops,
etc make use of rare earth minerals which are limited and expensive and only
available from big players like China. Does anybody know if this technology
also makes use of rare earth minerals?

~~~
ASpring
> Another advantage is that the battery cells can be made from earth-friendly
> materials.

~~~
fndrplayer13
thank you, I totally missed that.

That's awesome!

------
DigitalJack
If you are interested in more details about solid state battery design and
chemistry:
[https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/documents/file...](https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/CSESS%20Lee.pdf)

------
amelius
There's already a Wikipedia article about solid state batteries. I found it
interesting to read that in such batteries, ions are still allowed to move
around.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-
state_battery](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_battery)

------
dafrankenstein2
anyone noticed windows xp in the picture? why people still use windows xp in
laboratories?

~~~
theandrewbailey
Yes. Labs have lots of old specialized hardware that might only work on XP.
Also, the photo might be a few years old, but I can't verify that.

~~~
dafrankenstein2
got that..

------
huula
Hmm, the article mentioned nothing about the weight. For a medium sized
quadcopter, 3 times more energy (given the same weight) means as long as 3
hours of flight time which would make all these drone delivery dream come
true.

~~~
eridius
Unfortunately, as hwillis explains in another comment
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13779143](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13779143)),
it's not 3x energy for the same weight, it's 3x energy for the same size. It
seems to actually be about 2.5x heavier for the same energy.

------
nyolfen
not trying to be smarmy, i genuinely know next to nothing about batteries --
are li-ion batteries not considered solid state?

~~~
nickff
No, solid-state usually refers to a component that undergoes no mechanical or
chemical change while in normal operation; conventional batteries undergo
redox reactions while charging and discharging.

------
vvanders
Sounds awesome. Now the real question, what's the path to mass-production?

If they can pull it off, it'll be a huge game-changer.

------
33a
This sounds like it could be really nice for off grid solar set ups if it was
cheap enough.

------
dvt
A fantastic article for those thinking they might be "over the hill" :)

------
remx
Will they be making these in Elon Musk's so called 'Gigafactory'. I hope so

[https://www.fastcompany.com/3052889/elon-musk-powers-up-
insi...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3052889/elon-musk-powers-up-inside-
teslas-5-billion-gigafactory)

------
danilocesar
Is it good John? It's Good enough.

------
maxerickson
So sodium-ion battery grid storage?

------
ainiriand
I am really looking forward to see this in the market. And cell phones that
can be used as throwing weapons, that as well.

------
imdsm
Goodenough? It's great!

------
valuearb
We really are going to run out of jobs for young people if 94 year olds refuse
to give them up.

~~~
fuzzfactor
Turns out that occasionally an inventor appears who gains more lifetime
experience than over 99.99 percent of their "peers".

This always requires more decades than most people expect.

And some of these technology creators are the kind that can go from nothing to
something in only a couple years, not unlike the way a software developer can
sometimes go from learning basics to an incredibly effective breakthrough app
in just a couple years themselves.

Then you give them decades and it's amazing.

With some of them it's so natural that they get better every year, until there
is no way anyone else can compare in only just a single decade or two.

These are the operators who if properly capitalized can create the most jobs.

------
roemerb
What an absolute hero

------
paws
TL, DR: This tech utilizes solid-glass electrolytes vs today's liquid
electrolytes. This apparently brings us:

"at least three times as much energy density as today’s lithium-ion batteries"

"greater number of charging and discharging cycles, which equates to longer-
lasting batteries, as well as a faster rate of recharge (minutes rather than
hours)."

The team lead is Dr. Goodenough, making things better!

(sorry, couldn't resist. that's really his name)

If true, that first point especially sounds awesome!

~~~
mod
I used to always be excited about new battery tech, but let's be honest: we
see nearly these exact claims ALL THE TIME, and they never come to market.

I don't know what's to blame, but I'm to the point of "believe it when I see
it."

~~~
maxerickson
The batteries shipping today are considerably better than the ones shipping 10
years ago.

~~~
mod
Which feels like normal, incremental improvement.

The news is always game-changing. Instant charging. 3x capacity. Biggest
breakthrough in years. Huge capacities for pennies on the dollar. Blah blah.

------
bitmapbrother
I was watching a Nova episode on batteries and they showed a new type of
Lithium Metal battery that used a plastic material that separated the positive
and negative halves. The unique thing about this new Lithium Metal battery was
that it was not prone to the existing problems of Lithium Metal batteries and
did not catch fire when punctured. They even started cutting portions of the
battery off with a scissor and it continued powering an iPad.

~~~
hwillis
Yup, same principle. The problem all solid state batteries share is that the
solid electrolyte isn't a good conductor- plastic isn't great for that.
Despite that it's the current favorite for reasons of cost. NB that the
plastic is very very special.

------
djsumdog
> Maria Helena Braga

I don't want to diminish what this guy has done, but I hope all the other
people involved get the credit they deserve.

The sole inventor is for super hero movies. In reality, there are teams,
sometimes just 6 ~ 12, but sometimes dozens of engineers and scientists, grad
and undergrad students, that work together to figure out all the little parts
to make technology like this work and make it viable.

It's never just the first author, but the next six or so authors on a paper
that helped make a project what it is.

All that being said, it's still cool to see research institutions working to
make stuff like this.

~~~
temp246810
I don't understand, the first 2 lines of the first two paragraphs:

>>>A team of engineers led by 94-year-old John Goodenough, professor in the
Cockrell School of Engineering

>>>Goodenough’s latest breakthrough, completed with Cockrell School senior
research fellow Maria Helena Braga

Further down:

>>>Braga began developing solid-glass electrolytes with colleagues while she
was at the University of Porto in Portugal. About two years ago, she began
collaborating with Goodenough and researcher Andrew J. Murchison at UT Austin.
Braga said that Goodenough brought an understanding of the composition and
properties of the solid-glass electrolytes that resulted in a new version of
the electrolytes that is now patented through the UT Austin Office of
Technology Commercialization.

I understand the sentiment, but I don't think it was needed in the context of
the article. And while you don't want to dimish from what that guy has done,
in a way you diminish the message of the article by singling out a name that
the article did not.

Hope this doesn't come across as overly antagonistic, just thought it was odd
considering the article seemed pretty good.

------
andi_satria77
94 tahun Inventor Lithium-Ion Battery Memperkenalkan Solid State Battery

------
clockmedown
Damn

------
trveskyll
John Oldenough

------
Infernal
And he's still got Windows XP running in his lab, based on the photo. An
interesting juxtaposition.

~~~
tedsanders
Even today, my physics lab has multiple computers running Windows XP or 2000.
It's the easiest way to keep running old and sometimes proprietary software.
We keep them off the network, of course.

(Coincidentally, our work overlaps with John Goodenough's. He's a legend, and
impressively prolific even in old age.)

~~~
fuzzfactor
It's not just the software, it's also the instruments themselves.

The most worthwhile function of Windows turns out to be its backward
compatibility.

This became most apparent after Microsoft leveraged their software engineering
leadership by pivoting into an anti-recycling company to make most of their
money.

There are incredible numbers of irreplaceable laboratory instruments made
years ago which depend completely on the version of Windows that was
"supported" when the instrument was issued.

Since Microsoft has failed at their truly most worthwhile function, it is now
necessary to put incredible effort into preserving older versions of Windows
and even more difficult to preserve the older PC's. These cheap office
machines, which were built to spend as little useful time as possible before
progressing into their primary target duty as landfill, as electronics go were
built especially crummy, just for you.

Anyway, I'll be restoring a mass spectrometer shortly to operate as designed
on Windows 3.1.

Yes, it will cost a few thousand for the PC effort alone, but we're not going
to spend 100x that amount to get a new(er) spectrometer just so it will
operate using a more modern Windows version like XP or W7.

There is also a great possibility that a brand new instrument compatible with
Windows 10 will be completely useless in less than 20 years due to this
Windows deficiency alone.

