The objections DanielBMarkham are raising are literally high-school physics issues. I'm not expecting a QM explanation of what's going on, at this stage the researchers may not even be totally clear, but we know the efficiency is going to be bounded by thermodynamics, and in particular "generating electricity from waste heat!" rates dangerously high on the Science Bullshit-O-Meter. It can be done, but the bounds on efficiency are pretty dismal.

I'm not asking for a physics PhD level of coverage, but if you're going to cover this sort of thing giving us at least a high-school level of coverage would be nice. Just segment it off so those who are somehow interested in this but lack even that low bar of knowledge don't get too confused.

... or... not. I honestly can't say with a straight face this would increase your reader count, or any other interesting metric like that.

While it may not increase your reader count in the short run, it will probably make your readers come back, and let the article stay relevant for longer.

"High school" WOW! What distant planet did you just arrive from?

You didn't get the memo: "All content is to be at the level of a not very good student in the fourth grade. There are two exceptions: Math is to be at the second grade level or below. Sex is to be at the tenth grade level or above."

Now you have the memo and know not to expect anything as far out, absurdly advanced, totally unrealistic, super genius level as high school physics!!!!!!!

Yes, you may want to rush back to your home planet. Have any extra space on your ship?

The article did a pretty good job of explaining what a multiferroic material is. However, the first sentence states that this is a potential source of energy. So I expect the article to explain how this is a potential source of energy. In which case the relevant information is not how does it work, but how much electricity does it produce. You could write an article entitled "Material Transmits Engergy for Free!" and talk about cuprate-perovskite ceramic and superconductivity and how it works with electron pairs, etc. And it sounds great, especially if you don't mention that it only works if it is cooled by liquid nitrogen.

Frankly, this material sounds a bit like a thermocouple. Those produce electricity from heat, too, about several microvolts, which isn't even going to power my wristwatch. It isn't even going to power my nano-machine! The magnitude of the effect in question is kind of a key thing to know if you state "free, green energy", since I'm wanting 110V at 10A out of my green energy. Thermocouples are about 9 orders of magnitude away from what "free, green energy" requires, and 9 orders of magnitude is a huge thing to leave out of an article. It's like leaving off the fact that superconductivity requires temperatures slightly warmer than Pluto (and that omission is only 2 orders of magnitude).

"which isn't even going to power my wristwatch"

Not true, thermocouples can produces hundreds of watts, it 's all about the size of the thermocouple and the temperature difference used.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_gen...

I'm sorry, but this isn't exactly stuff that's going to go over most readers' heads. The efficiency of a new device like this is pretty much the most important information about it. At 0.4% efficiency, this is currently just going to make your devices heavier and marginally more efficient. If it were more efficient it might make things heavier and significantly more efficient.

I agree -- I wasn't suggesting that the efficiency would go over readers' heads. I was generalizing :)

I will add the efficiency of the technology to the story now.

My god man, at least mention the existing technology called thermocouples at least once, since they have better efficiency than this thing.