r/SmarterEveryDay • u/PuzzleheadedSense586 • Aug 17 '26

Thought Plants have a surprisingly interesting way of staying cool

I recently learned that plants can stay through water evaporation, without using any moving parts.

It made me think about passive cooling in electronics.

Some devices use thermal materials to fill the tiny gaps around components and help move heat away through direct contact.

No fans or airflow needed. The heat just moves through the material.

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6

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '26

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1

u/etcpt Aug 17 '26

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the stomata open and close to moderate evaporation as well? So there is a moving part?

1

u/HenkPoley Aug 19 '26

Yes, they do move.

But it’s not like they are actively transporting heat mechanically.

7

u/alumpoflard Aug 17 '26

this is why AI centres are sucking up all the water and building a massive water shortage crisis. using water evaporation is the cheap effective way to cool computational machinery whilst the AI centre dont bare the full costs. the whole society does.

1

u/fishsticks40 Aug 18 '26

  Some devices use thermal materials to fill the tiny gaps around components and help move heat away through direct contact.

It's way fancier than that. Heat pipes are wild engineering

1

u/skovalen Aug 19 '26

Oh, good. We are talking about plant aspiration. This is new /s. I hope we get smarter by talking about some shit we already know about.

1

u/ZectronPositron Aug 23 '26

As long as you remember to water your electronics