Using only milk, water bottles and smartphones, the Japanese man created a survival lamp to help him create a light source during a power outage due to Super Typhoon Hagibis.
As has been reported by the media for a few days, Japan was hit by Super Typhoon Hagibis on October 12. This is the biggest super storm in 60 years that the country of the rising sun has faced.
Last month, Japan was hit by another typhoon, leaving millions without power. In this super typhoon Hagibis, many people were mentally prepared for a large-scale blackout.
Faced with this risk, the Japanese guy posted an article on Twitter instructing people to make a survival light using smartphone flash, water and milk bottles.
This guy tried placing the water tank on top of the flash, but the scattering was so poor that the light produced was negligible. Then he tried adding a little milk to create a milky white liquid solution, creating the lamp like the one below.
The survival light produces enough light to sustain operations during a power outage. (Photo: Twitter).
This phenomenon is explained by an effect called Tyndall: when light passes through a liquid solution made up of many different substances, the light rays will be reflected at different angles by different particles in the liquid. That produces scattering. Therefore, the solution created by milk and water helps to create a brighter light source than milk or water alone.
Tyndall effect: solutions made with different mixtures of substances have better scattering of light. Besides, the opacity also affects the brightness. (Photo: ThoughCo).
This method has been known and used popularly in many places. The Japanese guy’s tweet has received tens of thousands of likes and retweets. When it comes to emergency situations, highly applicable and easy inventions like this survival light come in especially handy.
Japan is a country frequently affected by typhoons, its people and government have a lot of experience and plans to deal with similar disasters. Before Typhoon Hagibis, people’s smartphones “vibrating continuously” because of storm warning messages.