5 ms·
The Sun outputs 3.9 x 10^26W, but it weighs ~10^30kg, so that would mean 10^-4W/kg. Human beings are closer to 1W/kg at rest.
by forinti 3y ago
The Sun outputs 3.9 x 10^26W, but it weighs ~10^30kg, so that would mean 10^-4W/kg.
Human beings are closer to 1W/kg at rest.
- adrianN 3y agoNow do a lump of plutonium.
- conesus 3y agoHow did that lump of plutonium become a lump? That part wasn’t natural.
- forinti 3y agoLife is a great entropy accelerator.
- mensetmanusman 3y agocompared to a black hole though?
- forinti 3y agoIt might be too soon to tell. We might start creating them ourselves.
- mapreduce 3y ago"How did that lump of plutonium become a lump? That part wasn’t natural." Allow me to become a little philosophical but since human beings which are product of nature made plutonium, isn't the making of plutonium natural too? I mean everything that is happening in this universe is natural! I know the general usage of the words "artificial" for human-made and "natural" for everything else. But when we are talking at the grand scale of life and universe I think a human-made plutonium is as natural as bee-made honey.
- achierius 3y agoPerhaps a better phrase to have used would have been "not prior to a complex system" -- as the lump of plutonium exists only because of a complex system doing its thing, it should be considered a consequence of the complex system rather than an alternative.
- InitialLastName 3y agoTo attempt to pedantically clarify, is "exists only because of a complex system doing its thing" not true of basically any pure lump of material that exists? To me, the actions of stars fusing heavy atoms and then those atoms ending up in lumps of material somewhere sounds like a pretty complex system doing its thing.
- namaria 3y agoI love debating this with people but ultimately it's just playing games with semantics. The notion of artificial x natural is very recent and very localized. Some cultures would differentiate raw from cooked in a similar sense. But it's like talking about what is really green vs what is really blue. Completely circular since it depends on the definitions of the terms.
- jonhohle 3y agoIt's easily extendable to the animal world as well. Is a nest created by a bird or a den created by one of various mammals natural or artificial? Is a nest made by mice in my garage from synthetic fabrics, flexible plastics, and whatever plant matter it can find natural or synthetic? My wife was recently asked to make a meal for someone who didn't eat "processed" foods. What level of manipulation needs to happen before a food is "processed"? Can beans or rice be dried and put in a bag? Can chicken broth be used if it's homemade, but the chicken came from a commercial farm? Or is extracting broth from a chicken processing it? I've increasingly noticed many sub-cultures adopting odd definitions and interpretations of commonly used language with the expectation that everyone who interacts with their group understand their dialects. It's not really jargon or vernacular since the words are common to the language, just used to mean something different than the general population would understand. Similarly, artificial is now assumed to mean bad and natural good, when neither ascribe value by definition or in practice.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- JUNGLEISMASSIVE 3y ago[dead]
- bell-cot 3y agoWhich isotope? It makes quite a difference, and there's no "naturally occurring" with Pu.
- jmcqk6 3y agoWow, that's a great way of describing this! Definitely noted for future use.
- epistasis 3y agoReally brings up the difference between the energy density of the fusion reaction and the energy density of fusion plus the confinement system to enable the reaction!
- anticensor 3y agoHmm, then the challenge is to find a more efficient confinement for a fusion reaction.
- notfed 3y agoThis is enlightening. Has anyone posted some kind of comparison table somewhere?
- evanb 3y agoThe sun's power density is approximately the same as compost.
- drewrv 3y agoCan you elaborate on that or drop a link that explains more?
- s1artibartfast 3y agoLive/fresh compost creates heat as a byproduct of cellular metabolism during decomposition. I assume this is is using thermal output of this compost as a measure of energy. What more do you want to know.
- mr_toad 3y agoThe rate of fusion in the Suns core is actually very slow and gram for gram it is not producing much energy. But the core of the Sun is well insulated by the vast bulk of itself, so even a slow release of energy builds up to extreme temperatures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Structure_and_fusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Structure_and_fusion
- evanb 3y agoHere's a decent stackexchange discussion: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/370899/suns-power-density-compared-to-a-compost-heap https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/370899/suns-powe...
- worldsayshi 3y agoSo does that mean that making a fusion reactor makes as much sense as building a containment vessel for a compost reactor?
- lajy 3y agoStars have to have enough mass to have enough gravity to start and sustain a nuclear reaction that constantly blasts energy out in all directions. This limits just how energy-dense they can get. What they lack there, they make up for in size and lifespan. We can make sustained nuclear reactions in much less space using engineered pressure instead of gravity, so that skews the energy density ratio.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoThe average American also outputs about 125W/kg if you include our technology, and not metabolism. US Primary energy consumption = 30 Trillion Kwh/ year [1] 30 Trillion Kwh/ year / 8760 hrs = 3.3×10^12 W (watts) 3.3×10^12 W (watts)/ 330million = 10 kW/ person 10 kW/ person / 80kg = 125 W/kg https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/
- echelon 3y agoSo we really are batteries for the Matrix. Joking aside, this comparison is really beautiful.