STEM Crisis - Light Bulb & Electricity Videos, Are People So Naive?

With excitement one evening, my mum came up to me and said:

Do you know we can generate electricity from plants and even water? One man demonstrated and it worked, I saw the video. He wasn't doing it for money, or anything else, it was a proof of concept.

I was like, wow! This sounds cool, till I saw the video, it isn't exactly the video I am sharing here, but the same scam for views is still being propagated here:

Interestingly, these videos have millions of views, and the comment section is shocking, and I wonder, are people this daft? Then I thought about my mum, and I feel I should be nicer.

But let me crack the cheat here if I may. To get this trick to work you need these components:

• A battery powered electric bulb
• And a conductor (any material that can conduct electricity/allow the flow of electricity through it)

The Battery Powered Electric Bulb

These bulbs are very popular nowadays and can be easy distinguishable by their bright white colours, and half lighting area (as most of the base is covered to accommodate the batteries which are usually 18650 batteries).

Some of these bulbs on a single charge can last up to 3 hours, making them a good candidate for these scams that are all over the place just for the views.

These battery powered bulbs can operate on both AC current and of course since there are batteries inside, they operate on DC current in the absence of AC current.

On AC current, the two terminals act as life and neutral, and provides electricity to power up the battery management system and the main board that provides power to the DC powered LEDS and also charge the 18650 batteries within the system.

On DC current (that's in the absence of AC current), the two outer terminals act as a switch which when bridged turns on the lights which this time would be battery powered. I guess it's making sense now!

The Conductor

These lights usually come with a holder/hanger which can be used to suspend them in places other than a lampholder. This carrier/holder/hanger is usually a simple piece of plastic with metals inside, designed to be able to bridge the two outer terminals which if successful would keep the lights on as long as the batteries are able to carry.

However, an conductive material can easily get this job done, including water, human skin (especially when moist), bark of trees, or any metal.

Decoding the Scam

With the above explanation, I am sure these scams are now clearer. But lemme just address it further. These videos simply show people go through unnecessary and seemingly complicated processes to demonstrate and prove unreasonable lies.

All they do is to get a properly charged electric battery-powered bulb, some wires, and a conductor. They would connect this to the two terminals (which when on DC, bridging them would mean turning them on), so, the two terminals would be bridged by inserting/connecting them into/with a conductor such as water as in the first video, a metal as in the second video, and potatoes in the third video.

Please! Don't fall for these scams! They are harmless though, but just misleading.