Daylight Investigations

DAYLIGHT EXPRESS

Students

Jiayi Xu, Jinsi Xia, Zehui Peng, Yuxuan Huang

Teachers

Junjie Li

School

Beijing Jiaotong University

Country

China - Mainland

DAYLIGHT EXPRESS
Scroll

Project Description

There is an old idiom in China, which is “Kuafu chasing the sun". It means that Kuafu, an omniscient legendary figure in ancient times, was racing against the sun and wanted to catch up with it before the sunset so that the sun would be subject to Kuafu’s kin, who would be emancipated from the ordeal brought by the heat at the same time. When I was a kid, I often wondered why Kuafu would sacrifice his life to chase the sun. Since the sunrise and sunset is uncontrollable for us human beings. Nowadays, thanks to the invention of electric light, people have got rid of the dependence on the sun and are able to achieve a better life with electric power. Then, isn't it a joke to tell the legend of Kuafu Chasing the Sun? My quizzical thoughts are solved till I have leaned the facts that according to the incomplete statistics, the global consumption of outdoor public lighting electricity accounts for 8% of the total global electricity consumption and generates at least 1.47 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. Meanwhile, many people, living in the underprivileged regions, are unapproachable to the stable lighting conditions. This precarious circumstance leads to the pernicious crimes in these regions. It turns out that the inequality is existing. When people get one kind of happiness, they will lose the other. Why not regard Kuafu as a paradigm?we found that due to the planetary theory, there are 24 time zones on the earth. The total amount of time that each time zone receives direct daylight is the same, but there existing time sequence. So why not introduce the daylight received in the east time zone to the west one that enters into the night? Each additional hour "borrowed" from the sun will reduce the emission of 61.25 million tons of carbon dioxide. This will brings beneficial impact, such as mitigation of the greenhouse effect, deceleration of the melting speed of icebergs. Through the optical fiber, luminous energy can be shared globally. Theologically speaking, daylight can reach any part of the world through total reflection in optical fiber. In that case, people of any kind living in any region in our Earth Village will enjoy an extra hour of daylight. Thanks to the accelerating revolution of advanced technology, we human beings are hopeful to get rid of the shackles of electric lighting and stride into the upgraded era of photoelectricity... So today, 5000 years after the occurrence of the legend, Kuafu Chasing the Sun, we turn this myth into the reality by transmitting daylight across regions of different time zones through optical fiber.