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Re:Engineers discover new class of materials that passively ... by TJSomething on Monday May 26, 2025 @04:37PM (#44101433)
Another part from the paper that a lot of people here seem to be ignoring: "Specifically, macroscopic water droplets isothermally form when the NP size is ≤22 nm, RH is >~90%, and ϕPE ranges from 0.05 to 0.35." and "Initial water droplets that are observable under optical microscopy (~1 μm in size) appear within a few seconds after being exposed to 97% RH."

This is really moist air that's only barely short of forming dew. A lot of people are focusing on sensational "violation of physics", when it's an incremental improvement on process that happens naturally.

Re:Engineers discover new class of materials that passively ... by TimByte on Tuesday May 27, 2025 @03:08AM (#44104609)
I think the interesting bit is less about "breaking physics" and more about how finely tuned the material is to encourage this behavior without external cooling.
Re:Engineers discover new class of materials that passively ... by vel0city on Tuesday May 27, 2025 @09:06AM (#44106595)
But there was external cooling, or am I reading "The temperature of the films was controlled" incorrectly?
Re:Engineers discover new class of materials that passively ... by bm62 on Tuesday May 27, 2025 @07:55PM (#44111655)
He likely means cooling it below the dew point rather than controlling the temperature in general.