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| Author: | InterruptorJones [ Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:10 pm ] |
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StrongRad wrote: Matter can be converted into energy, energy can be converted to mass.
But the whole point of the equation is that the energy never goes away--you haven't destroyed it, you've just turned it into matter, and that matter can (theoretically) be turned back into the same amount of energy. Edit: TOTPD! 
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| Author: | StrongRad [ Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:52 pm ] |
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InterruptorJones wrote: StrongRad wrote: Matter can be converted into energy, energy can be converted to mass. But the whole point of the equation is that the energy never goes away--you haven't destroyed it, you've just turned it into matter, and that matter can (theoretically) be turned back into the same amount of energy. True. But the traditional view is that Energy and Matter are seperate things as most people interpret "Energy cannot be created or destroyed" to mean that energy is energy. The amount in the universe today is the amount that was here a week, a century, and a millenia ago". Cosmologists will argue that they have evidence that proves otherwise. [science joke]Of course, whether or not they can be trusted is another thing. I gotta question the scientific credentials of someone who gets paid to publish papers on things that can't actually be proven through direct measurement)[/science joke] My point was that matter and energy are not seperate, and that, according to people who would revoke my nerd credentials, you can create energy from matter or vice versa. Of course, like you said, it isn't like one is destroyed, it's just changed into the other. So, yea, you're right. We both are. |
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| Author: | Norman Rorqual [ Fri Feb 03, 2006 6:08 pm ] |
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Yep. My point is that conservation of mass applies practically to our energy needs, not just as a cosmic law. We use energy, so we have to get it from somewhere. |
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| Author: | StrongRad [ Fri Feb 03, 2006 9:09 pm ] |
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Norman Rorqual wrote: Yep. My point is that conservation of mass applies practically to our energy needs, not just as a cosmic law. We use energy, so we have to get it from somewhere.
That IS true. Fo' sho'! So, yeah, we have to get energy from somewhere. The questions are "where?" and "from what?". Every alternative energy source (for the sake of this post, I define alternative energy sources as those that are not coal, oil, or gas) seems to have drawbacks from "you actually need quite a bit of wind" to "you have to have a HUGE area covered with solar cells to power your house" to "if we have a problem, the whole area is going to glow in the dark". Because of these reasons, I don't really think that we'll ever be "fossil fuel free", until they run out, in which case, we'll kinda have to be. Anyway, I watched the replay of Bush's speech, and since this is about the speech, I thought I would point out my "WTF" moment.. Human-animal hybrids... Is he talking about furries?!?!? |
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| Author: | Sarge [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 7:09 am ] |
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mmmm... no. E=MC2 does not mean that you can create energy. You can just convert matter into energy, or convert energy into matter. Nothing is actualy created or destroyed in the process, just converted from one qauntum state to another. Matter and energy are two sides of the same coin, so to speak. In a nutshell (A very convoluted, crazy, hard-to-grasp nutshell, mind you) you can think about the basic building-blocks of existence as the "Quanta" of Quantum Phisics. These "Quanta" make up the classic nuclear particles (Electons, Neutrons, Photons, etc.) as well as the relationships between particles that we see as Gravity, Space/Time, the nuclear binding forces, and so on. So, you can think of a change from "Matter" to "EnergY" as merely a reaction or a re-ordering of the Quanta that happen to be involved. Some of the Quanta change from one kind to another, some split apart to form two or more quanta, some combine together to form a different kind of Quanta, some transform from one kind of Quanta to anothe. All of this has an effect on the particle-level of existance, and through that all the other orders of magnitude. Trouble is, these Quanta tend to change their behavior when we observe them as opposed to when we're not observing them (it's called the Heisenburg Uncertenty Principle). This makes proving (or disproving) a Quantum theory darned difficult becasue you have to do it stricktly with math, with logical inference, or with indirect observation. If you directly observe a phenomnia, that's great... but what would that phenomina be doing when you're NOT observing it? Would it be the same, or would it be different? How can you know? It's questions like this that keep fusion theorists up at night. For our purposes (energy generation), lets say you're gonna design a fusion reactor: Well, you can't say that you "think" your design will work... that's not good enough. You have to convince your collueges that it will work, and if enough of them say it's a wrong idea, then there's too much doubt about your design for it to go much further that that. So, what do you do to prove your design without having the funds to actualy build it? You create models, and simulations, and mathematical constructs. In short, you do a whole hell of a lot of complicated math to try and get your design elegant enough that most of your fellow theorisers can't poke holes in it. Now, fission reactions are well-understood, but they are "messy" in that they are very inefficent designs, relitively speaking. That is, a fission reaction, even an uncontroled fission reaction (an a-bomb explosion), only converts around 0.1 percent of the original mass directly into energy. The rest escapes off as as radiation (that is, freed quanta and freed atomic particles), or re-combines in a fraction of a second back matter as non-reactive (lead, carbon, neon, oxygen, etc.) or radioactive atoms. This is still better than a mere chemical reaction, which at best can be expected to yeild as energy a mere millionth a percent of the original reacted mass. However, a Fusion reaction could, theoreticly, yeild somewhere in the range of 1-10 percent of the original mass directly into energy. The only more efficient reaction possible would be a matter-antimatter reaction. That would anhihilate all (or very nearly all) of the staring matter, yeilding a staggeringly high output for even a miniscule amount of matter. The trouble with Antimatter is that if it comes into contact with matter, even a mere atom or quanta of matter, it has this anyoing tendency to happily anhilate itself against the matter it touched. Not exactly a practical fuel source. Well, that and you need to make it in a very expensive partical acceleration lab, and doing so consumes more energy than will be released when the Antimatter anhilates. So, from an alternive enegery source standpoint, a fusion reactor seems to hold the most potential, and matter-antinmater reactors are a non-starter. The Tokamak fusion reactor design is perhaps the most well-known, and for a long time it seemed to hold the promise of soon producing cheap, clean, safe energy. It didn't exactly work out that way. The basic Tokamak design was aprantly a product of the secret atomic research done during World War II. Since then, it has been developed to the point where there are no less than nine fuctioning Toakamak-type reactors in existence, with another two either being planned or already in construction. However, all of these are experimental reactors, used not for energy generation but for research and design work. So far, the design challanges of building a comercial Tokamak reactor for electrical production have not been overcome, but it's not for a lack of trying. China alone has two Tokamak reactors, the newest one schedualed to go on-line in mid-2006. |
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| Author: | StrongRad [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 6:34 pm ] |
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I said that energy can't be created... Anyway, Tokamaks (or any other form of fission) haven't reached a "break even" point, where the amount of energy they put out is equal to the amount of energy required to start the thing (at least I haven't seen it PROVEN that they have). Anyway, I would like to see fusion work, and I think it will probably will, eventually. The problem is, they're still working on making fusion work. They haven't even begun working on "how do we convert this to electricity?" problem (at least that I'm aware of..) As for anti-matter, I haven't seen anyone actually working with it. Most of the papers you get on Google Scholar seem to be about theory. I don't think I've seen one describing an actual project or experiment. So, in short, Fusion=good idea eventually, but let's not pour all of our resources into it. I think that hydrogen fuel cell cars would be a great idea once the infrastructure is in place. I don't see solar cells ever being a viable solution to the energy problem (although it does have a place). Of course, energy policy is not my strong point. I'm an atmospheric scientist. |
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| Author: | Sarge [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 7:20 pm ] |
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StrongRad wrote: As for anti-matter, I haven't seen anyone actually working with it. Most of the papers you get on Google Scholar seem to be about theory. I don't think I've seen one describing an actual project or experiment. Antimater, like I said, is a non-starter. It's way beyond what could be considered technicly feasble, let alone practical. The Tokamaks should be able to be self-sustaining reactions (that is, you start the reaction, and then once it's going you just need to tap the energy output and keep a steady supply of fuel dribbing in.) So far, nobody's got it to work as well as it should, but I think this has more to do with technical and engenering challanges than an underlying theoretical flaw. As usual, real results are harder to produce than theory is, but that's not unexpected. Meanwhile, I think more of us could do our part by investing in solar or wind. We can buy shares in pubicly traded wind-farm companies or we can go the grass-roots way and start producing our own electricty with solar cells and smaller windmill generators. You can charge your laptop or your cell phone from a little solar generator that you can store in the glove box, and larger solar cells can power your house while you sell the excess energy back to the local power company. Well, at least you can where I live. They ain't cheap, but if you take care of them they'll eventualy pay for themselves by offseting your power bill. Another good technology to consider is geothremal energy. By exploiting the tempature differential between surface temperature and the temperature a couple hundred meter underground, an in-house geothrmal station can generate enough energy to heat or cool a typical american house all year 'round. They install these things as an option on many of the new homes in my area. Of course, if you live in FreeCounty USA your house may be Powered By The Cheat, in which case you only need a steady supply of The Cheat power. The rest of us aren't that lucky. |
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