4 ms·
Is it possible to do this without violating the second law of thermodynamics?
by jetrink 6y ago
Is it possible to do this without violating the second law of thermodynamics?
- reasonabl_human 6y agoI can’t think of a reason it would violate any basic physical laws. Use a peltier cooler in reverse as the transducer from heat to electricity, apply to an appropriately spec’d solid state laser. Surely the devil is in the details somewhere..
- vincnetas 6y agoPeltier generator would need somwhere to transfer the heat to. But there is nothing around.
- titanomachy 6y agoDefinitely possible to put some of the heat into a laser. It's simple to turn a temperature gradient into an electrical potential [0], and if you use that electricity to power a laser it will convert away some of the hat. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocouple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocouple
- m4rtink 6y agoAFAIK it is not and IIRC the author even mentioned it somewhere afterwards, possibly in the next book.
- c1ccccc1 6y agoIn theory, I think it is possible. The laser light just needs to carry away entropy, which can be achieved by modulating the beam so that it contains information. Of course, you'll deplete your batteries to power the beam, and the laser itself will have inefficiencies. So with current technology, the system would likely generate more heat than it removed. A civilization with really good engineering could probably make it work, though even in that case, it would still use many joules of free (i.e. usable) energy to remove 1 joule of thermal (waste) energy. A much more efficient method of heat removal would just be to have radiating fins. So you're still converting heat into photons, but you lose much less energy in the process, because the photons you're radiating have a higher entropy.