The future of our planet lies in the hands of our children and when a 13-year-old boy, Aidan Dwyer, uncovers the mystery of how trees get enough of sunlight in a crowded forest and applies it to solar energy you know that all is not lost.
On a walk through the forest Aidan, from Long Island, New York, pondered on how all the leaves get enough of sunlight. Nature had designed them in a way to maximize the use of sunlight and Aidan figured out that trees spiral up using the Fibonacci sequence. Pretty bright for a 13-year-old.
The fractal nature of trees allows each leaf to get sunlight and he pondered on why we don’t use the Fibonacci sequence in the placement of solar panels for us to harness energy from the sun.
So he came up with his little invention to generate the maximum amount of energy using the fractal principals of nature.
As Aidan explains, his design is like a tree, but instead of having leaves it has solar panels at the ends of the branches.
Not everybody is buying the idea that this is something new – see post HERE – or that the solar panel tree that Aidan designed will work that well. But it is a healthy situation when youngsters care and try to bring change.
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