Hubby says it's nanos fareds

(March 13, 2017 at 6:30 pm)Jenny A Wrote: Hi, my husband and I have a project. Neither of us know much about electronics beyond household wiring. But we want to build an LED that flashes at 40 megahertz.

Why? Well we recently heard on Radio Lab about a study in mice in which a 40 megahertz flashing light reversed alzhimerz symptoms in mice. His mother and my step-father are both suffering from dementia. So we'd like to try this out as we can't imagine it could hurt and it will be years before it's cleared to test on people.

We have two small breadboards, 9 volt batteries, and LED's. We've tested with other capacitors, but to get a 40 megahertz flash we need 500 Ferdinand capacitors with at least a 9 volt capacity. I can't buy them locally. On line I keep finding them in quantities of 1000 or so. Any suggestions for where to purchase 10 capacitors or less?

You should be able to get some sort of oscillator/ clock freq. generator to work at that freq. However you would probably need fiber optic grade LED's. looking online though most seem to say 40 HZ...not 40 MHZ

40 HZ also does fall within the brain gamma waves they mentioned.... but so does 60 Hz, which if you have fluorescent lights they are flickering at that rate in the US

(March 13, 2017 at 6:33 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: So, basically, unsanctioned human experimentation?

So, basically, how you learned to perform surgery?

Boru

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(March 13, 2017 at 6:52 pm)chimp3 Wrote: Curing Alzheimer's disease before you have learned to spell it would be an amazing feat.

Why? Edward Jenner cured smallpocks.

Boru

(March 13, 2017 at 7:13 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(March 13, 2017 at 6:33 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: So, basically, unsanctioned human experimentation?

So, basically, how you learned to perform surgery?  

Boru

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(March 13, 2017 at 6:52 pm)chimp3 Wrote: Curing Alzheimer's disease before you have learned to spell it would be an amazing feat.

Why?  Edward Jenner cured smallpocks.

Boru

Amazing!

Jenny, my background is in electronics.

I don't know what website you were looking at to calculate capacitance values to give you 40 MHz in an oscillator but there are several issues:

At that frequency, it's going to take more than just plugging the right parts into a breadboard. Stray inductance from wires and leads and stray capacitance from a number of sources can cause problems. I'm not confident that you and hubby could build a 40 MHz oscillator even if you had a schematic and all the parts in front of you.

Whatever oscillator you use must either directly output enough current to drive the LED or it must be used to switch a transistor off and on which will drive the LED.

I'm not sure if just any LED can be switched at that frequency. Forty MHz is well into the radio spectrum, above the HF band. Driving one at that rate is unusual to say the least.

You should also be aware that even at a few kilohertz, the LED will appear to be on steadily with no appearance of flashing at all. This is because of a phenomena called persistence of vision. Because of that, I don't see how the brain could get a 40 MHz signal from your eye. I don't believe the human eye could differentiate from 3000 Hz and 40 MHz. Sounds very fishy to me.

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Here is a complete 40 MHz oscillator from Mouser Electronics for $1.76 in single quantities. This is pretty much plug and play. It needs to be powered by 5 volts. It says it is rated at 45 milliamps which is plenty of current to drive an LED. You would need a current limiting resistor so as not to fry the LED. To calculate the value, divide 5 (the voltage of the output) by whatever the current rating of the LED is. For example, an LED rated at 5 milliamps would need a 1000 ohm resistor (5/.005 = 1000).

(March 13, 2017 at 6:33 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: So, basically, unsanctioned human experimentation?

They do  it at Kamar-Taj all the time.

(March 13, 2017 at 7:13 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(March 13, 2017 at 6:33 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: So, basically, unsanctioned human experimentation?

So, basically, how you learned to perform surgery?  

Boru

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(March 13, 2017 at 6:52 pm)chimp3 Wrote: Curing Alzheimer's disease before you have learned to spell it would be an amazing feat.

Why?  Edward Jenner cured smallpocks.

Boru

Who told you that?

Oh, wait.  I did.

Okay, I found the study here. It is forty hertz, NOT forty megahertz. Now this makes more sense.

Recalculate for 40 hertz. You should be able to build that no problem.

This is relevant to my interests. Both my parents had ALZ.

And, come to think of it, so did my mother.

(March 13, 2017 at 6:49 pm)Jenny A Wrote: The mice weren't very far along.  Unfortunately our parents have reached the memory care center stage. If it works I'll be shocked.  But we will remember this should one of us begin to lose it. 40 megahertz is the frequency that our brains put out when thinking through directions or math.  What it made the alzhimerz  mice do is clear out plaque in their brains#.  Ceasing to clear plaque is one of the causes of Alzhimerz.

You understand that it only effected plaque in the visual cortex, up to this point. 

http://news.mit.edu/2016/visual-stimulat...eimer-1207

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v54...20587.html

Good luck!