this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2010
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ashleyw 88 points89 points 2 months ago* [-]

A nuclear submarine can go 25-years without the need for a refuel. And even that uses the fuel it has in a very inefficient way, effectively being a modern day steam engine powered by the heat generated via nuclear fission. That blows my fucking mind.

Nerdlinger 47 points48 points 2 months ago[-]

Yeah, but you can't roll down the windows.

AuhsojSivart 27 points28 points 2 months ago[-]

That's what the AC is for. Too bad using it really hurts your nuke mileage.

hex 8 points9 points 2 months ago[-]

I couldn't afford AC after buying a sub, so I just installed a screen door.

deadapostle 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

I don't need AC for my nuclear sub because I live in the north. It's a bitch to put the snow chains on, though.

tzakrajs 6 points7 points 2 months ago[-]

We don't have AC in our nuclear sub because it's all direct current on this hoopty.

SecretBrotherInLaw 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Fix your SSTGS you lazy ass.

SirKeyboardCommando 9 points10 points 2 months ago[-]

My great grandfather had a Stanley Steamer. It was a fucking train on wheels.

evrae 21 points22 points 2 months ago[-]

Unlike those wheel-less steam trains...

SirKeyboardCommando 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

Maglev :P

frukt 6 points7 points 2 months ago[-]

Steam maglev? Now there's an idea I can get behind.

NowIAmBecomeShiva 22 points23 points 2 months ago[-]

One does not simply steam maglev into Mordor

reddithorialist 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

Why , why is this so funny

mindbleach 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

External combustion engines are fantastic for their flexibility. Anything flammable is fuel.

netactor 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

fission.

ashleyw 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Ah, thanks! I'm no physicist as you can tell. :)

drzowie 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

Oh yeah? It's even better than that. After those 25 years you can chemcally extract the remaining fissile material from the cruddy, neutron-absorbing waste products that pile up in there, and you'll find you have more fuel than you started with... No, really -- typcal reactors use only about 10% of available fuel before neutron absorbers in the fuel make it unusable. But they also convert U-238 (not a fuel) to Pu-239 (a fuel) at the same time.

Tames 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

23 years buddy, get that shit straight

cp5184 51 points52 points 2 months ago[-]

What's surprising is how easy it is to push a 1 ton plus vehicle on wheels.

solarswordsman 114 points115 points 2 months ago[-]

Do you realize how incredible wheels are?!

Nerdlinger 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

Ball bearings are the shit, yo!

maynoth 22 points23 points 2 months ago[-]

Fucking WHEELS how do they WORK?

magusg 14 points15 points 2 months ago[-]

Magic, that just how they roll....

cheeeeeese 13 points14 points 2 months ago[-]

Yes, how do they work?

[deleted] 6 points7 points 2 months ago[-]

Wheels roll on these things called "roads," but where did the "roads" come from ? I keep asking this, and everybody treats me like I'm some sort of idiot but I think it's a reasonable question.

takinter 8 points9 points 2 months ago[-]

Rome, because they all lead there.

lengau 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Surely then they don't come from Rome? They're all leading TO Rome.

yoda17 0 points1 point 2 months ago[-]

Magci

sarcastichorse 18 points19 points 2 months ago[-]

same as magnets.

px403 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

Someone should invent an engine that rotates the wheels of a car using magnets.

CrossP 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

It probably wouldn't work unless brushes were somehow involved

freshmas 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

The magnet goes in the wheel and the wire goes around the wheel. Brushes are averted, but it's still a crappy design.

wackyvorlon 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

Magic!

sfanetti 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Jesus power

BillBrasky_ 15 points16 points 2 months ago[-]

I bet when the first caveman invented wheels he showed everyone else and they were like "Dammit! That was my idea from, like, 5 years ago I just never got around to putting one together!"

squegie 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Nah, he was probably mocked. "Okay Ig, just what piece of ground are you going to roll that over? Oh we should make the ground flat so you can roll your wheel? Yeah, like that will ever take off.".

BillBrasky_ 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

And Ig's all like "Okay Ug, I hear you pointing out a lot of problems but not offering any solutions. Why don't you just butt out until you have something positive to contribute."

jkswiss 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

Yeah, when the ground is flat. Say that again when there is any kind of incline.

happywaffle 6 points7 points 2 months ago[-]

Still amazing. I'm cruising in my car, I start up an incline and put it in neutral. I might cruise a quarter-mile uphill with no additional energy. Compare that to a wagon from the middle ages. Advancements like ball bearings are pretty damn important to the whole car thing.

iamnotatroll 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Ball bearings are like wheels within wheels. Maybe that's what Ezekiel was seeing when he was trippin on whatever it was he was trippin.`

thisispeace 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

I worked at GE Rail in Erie, PA. We put locomotives on air cushions and you can push them around with your fingers.

Toukakoukan 48 points49 points 2 months ago* [-]

I always wonder what the health and safety people would say if the car were invented today.
"You want to sell a 1.5ton machine, powered by explosions, capable of 130 mph, to the general public? Fuck off!"

tripleg 25 points26 points 2 months ago[-]

oh... and by the way it will kill roughly 500,00 people per year.

IndigloJoe 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

You want to sell a 1.5ton machine, powered by explosions, capable of 130mph, to the general public? AND it'll kill 500,000 idiots per year?! Fuck Yeah! I'll take 2 with extra explosions please!

Peaker 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

How many of those killed in car accidents are actually responsible for the accident?

WecksyRex 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

Well if it wasn't YOU, it was SOMEBODY.

Spaz0ut 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

You are a dick.

gfuller23 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Your misplaced comma confuses me. Was that 50,000 or 500,000?

[deleted] 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Well was 42,000 a year in U.S. alone for years. Only 34,000 last year though. So worldwide 500,000 probably not far off. From WHO "Of the 5.8 million people who died of injuries in 1998, 1,170,694 died as a direct result of injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident."

OhTheHugeManatee 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

I love thinking like this. My favorite came up in a recent discussion about GE foods, which go through very rigorous testing by multiple government agencies before they are released to the public. The Kiwi would never make it through the process, though. It's got a toxin in the skin, presents a choking hazard, and something like 1% of people who eat it will experience potentially fatal swelling in their respiratory tract. Peanuts, bananas... lots of common food would never make it by our safety inspections now.

Curious byproduct of living in an age where the death rate has dropped precipitously in just a couple of generations. We went from a world where death was a normal thing that could happen at any time, to a world where death is actually pretty unusual for the majority of your life. Interesting stuff.

czyivn 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

Technically they are combustions, not explosions (detonations). If your car has detonations, it's doing it wrong.

ChiperSoft 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

Technically it's both.

Combustion or burning is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species.

Detonation involves an exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front propagating directly in front of it. They are observed in both conventional solid and liquid explosives, as well as in reactive gases.

toastydeath 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

The terminology being used in this discussion is not correct from any standpoint.

The words are detonation and deflagration. Combustion refers to a reaction between an oxidizer and a fuel and has no bearing on the characteristics of that reaction.

The combustion in an automobile engine is deflagration - thermally driven subsonic combustion without a shock front.

A detonating combustion will be chemically, instead of thermally, driven and is characterized by a supersonic combustion front.

wazir 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

Buuuuurn!

jmkogut 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

I read this in Robin Williams voice.

causticmango 21 points22 points 2 months ago[-]

How about this? One gallon of gasoline contains around 31,000 kcal of energy. An average human laborer expends about 3,585 kcal for day of work. One gallon of gasoline represents approximately about 8.5 days of human labor. One barrel yield about 28 gallons of gasoline and represents about 238 days of human labor which is pretty darn close to one man year.

Ever wonder where the increase in wealth and standard of living that started with the industrial revolution came from? It wasn't from "efficiency", capitalism, or financial innovation; those are the consequences, not the cause. It came from fossil fuels, in particular oil and its derivatives like gasoline.

http://www.roymech.co.uk/Useful_Tables/Human/Human_work_energy.html

http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/weight-loss/calorie1.htm

http://www.eia.doe.gov/ask/gasoline_faqs.asp

NowIAmBecomeShiva 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

I often think of the Civil War as a battle between the engine and the human being as sources of energy for labor.

throwaway123454321 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Holy shit. Kinda makes you see why the govt is so damn insistent on keeping a good oil supply line for a cheap price, even to the point of making up wars. From their perspective, thousands will die, and will lose hundreds of billions, but without it, we'll lose TRILLIONS.

QuestionedWisdom 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

So very true, and the implications are shocking. Agriculture alone uses the petroleum equivalent of 22 billion slaves working around the clock, 24/7/365.

When disparities in supply and demand start to show up in the later part of this decade, the already strained global economies will simply collapse. Every facet of modern life is fundamentally dependent on a source of energy that is entirely unsustainable, and with an infrastructure so ubiquitous and difficult to replace, a global collapse of society is almost guaranteed. No amount of human ingenuity will solve the oil crisis -- it is simple thermodynamics.

Mr_Smartypants 214 points215 points 2 months ago[-]

assume that your car is 25% efficient. That means there is potential to have 80 miles to the gallon.

No, it doesn't.

There are theoretical limits to the efficiency of work generated by moving hot gases around.

oh_no_my_eyes 132 points133 points 2 months ago[-]

There's something about thermodynamics that makes me feel like its the wet blanket of science.

some of my favorite themodynamics quotes:

  • No, it doesn't.
  • No.
  • Not like that.
  • It doesn't work that way.
  • Not really
  • That's impossible.

anonymous-coward 141 points142 points 2 months ago[-]

That's why no one invites thermodynamics to parties. Quantum and GR are like hippies handing out weed and acid tabs, while thermo is there sipping his tonic water whining 'OMG that's illegal someone should call the cops' in an unpleasant nasal voice.

AndreTI 7 points8 points 2 months ago* [-]

Relativity has kind of a stick up his ass about about causality, though.

bitter_cynical_angry 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

Actually I see Thermodynamics as being more like a upright Victorian gentleman with a sword cane. He doesn't need to call the cops, he can handle this just fine on his own thank you.

A_Pickle 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

Wow. I love this comment MORE THAN LIFE.

pssvr 17 points18 points 2 months ago[-]

I'll post it again if you kill yourself.

A_Pickle 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

D:

sirbruce 29 points30 points 2 months ago[-]

Actually a summary verion of the Three Laws of Thermodynamics are:

  1. You can't win.

  2. You can't break even.

  3. You can't quit the game.

withnailandI 9 points10 points 2 months ago* [-]

This guy I knew, a college-educated, otherwise fairly intelligent guy, was talking about a news story about an ancient Roman or Greek invention that used a spring to move a little cart. (I think it was a toy or something.)

Anyways, he said "They could have used that spring to power another smaller spring, then added another spring and made an actual useful transport that could go for much, much longer." I tried explaining conservation of energy and how the total energy in a closed system would be the same no matter how many springs you used. Finally I had to just say "No it doesn't work like that it's impossible." He didn't believe me and I think even resented me for calling him on his bullshit.

animea90 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

People hate being told they are wrong. Even if they do concede they are wrong, they will still resent you for it.

hypelightfly 8 points9 points 2 months ago[-]

Unfortunately you're wrong. It doesn't work that way.

evilhamster 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

GAH, you're such a dick!

omnieiunium 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

I consider thermodynamics (and especially entropy) to be the most difficult area of physics to understand. I still don't understand what entropy is despite studying it in some detail and reading many different accounts. It's just a hard thing to grasp. It is also very easy to be lead astray and make incorrect statements.

aristotle2600 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

I think of it mathematically. When stuff moves around randomly, it ends up spreading out. Nothing special about it; it's just numbers. Say you have two masses of particles, with nothing keeping them apart, but there are lots more in one mass than the other. Each particle is moving around at random, and has a certain chance of going over to the other mass. The thing is, each particle, no matter which mass it's in, has the same chance of switching; the particles in the larger mass DO NOT have a "better chance" of switching over. But, simply because there are more of them, you get more switching from big --> small than the other way around.

roconnor 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

The confusion lies in the fact that thermodynamic is only half about physics (Liouville's theorem) and half is about statistical inference (Principle of maximum entropy). Jaynes clears up the mystery.

roconnor 1 point2 points 2 months ago* [-]

I still don't understand what entropy is

I realize that I can probably give a short explanation about the second law here.

Zerothly and most importantly, throw out any ideas about entropy having anything to do with order or disorder.

Firstly and very importantly, entropy is not a quantity of any physical state. Instead it is a quantity a description of a physical state. A description of a physical state specifies a set of possible physical states that meets that description. For example, I can describe a box that contains a given volume of an ideal gas at given pressure. There are lots of states of molecules moving with various momenta that can satisfy this description.

Given a description of a physical state we can look at the subset of the phase space that satisfies this description. This set will occupy a certain (hyper-)volume of phase space. The logarithm of this volume is the entropy of the description. Actually the entropy is the logarithm of this volume times Boltzmann's constant, but the constant isn't very important and is only there for historical reasons.

Liouville's theorem says that the volume of a subset of phase space is preserved under time evolution of the system. Therefore if you want to build a system that reliably takes you from any state satisfying description A to some state satisfying description B, the volume of phase space of states satisfying B had better be larger than the volume of phase space of states satisfying A. In otherwords, the entropy of B has to be greater than the entropy of A.

As an aside, it may be possible for a state with description A to evolve into a state with description B where the entropy of B is less than the entropy of A. However, this process will necessarily be unreliable. And if you keep trying again and again with random starting states satisfying description A, the probability that you will end up in a state satisfying description B is at most (and likely much smaller than) exp((S(B) - S(A))/k) where S(A) is the entropy of A and S(B) is the entropy of B and k is Boltzmann's constant. Jaynes, in "The Evolution of Carnot's Principle" notes that if S(B) is only smaller than S(A) by (1 microcalorie / room temperature) then the probability of reaching a state satisfying B from a random state satisfying A is less than exp(-10^15) which is approximately 10^(-400000000000000), which is an astronomically low probability. Stated differently, this is an upper bound on the probability of being able to extract an extra 1 microcalorie of energy than the second law says you are allowed from a heat engine operating in an environment at room temperature.

Hmm, I'll probably turn this into a blog post.

scsp85 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Entropy is a difficult thing to explain. Think of it as the natural progression of order to disorder. Here is an easy experiment, wet your hands with water and take some rubbing alcohol and give your wet hands a splash and rub together. Feel that heat? That is the energy being released due to the forced mixing. Consider how much energy would be required in separating the alcohol water mixture back to two pure substances.

All things in the universe are moving from higher to lower energy, and entropy will spread all energy equally throughout the universe. Given enough time of course.

omnieiunium 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

I understand what entropy is supposed to represent, but a deep understanding of it takes years to build up. I still have yet to truly get a good grasp on the concept. To quote the great Sommerfeld

Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don't understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don't understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, so it doesn't bother you any more.

freireib 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

I wasn't satisfied w/ my understanding of entropy until I learned stat mech. Now at least I understand how someone would have come up w/ the concept.

ZippyDan 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Entropy is not about order or disorder. This is a common fallacy. But I guess it works to try and explain the concept to laymen :(

ZippyDan 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

http://entropysimple.oxy.edu/content.htm

Scroll down to briar patch #3 if you are lazy

gannon6790 155 points156 points 2 months ago[-]

LISA! In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

silenceofnight 21 points22 points 2 months ago[-]

I think that his point was that the energy available from a gallon of gas is what it takes to drive a car 80 miles, not exactly to run an engine that drives a car 80 miles. It's still impressive either way, though.

nasty_nate 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

This is what I thought too. The energy density of gasoline is amazing.

itx 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

By mass Uranium has 1853448 times the energy density of gasoline...

drzowie 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Which is why Ford prototyped their "nucleon" family car that was meant to be powered for the life of the frame by a nuclear reactor module ("no user-serviceable parts inside!"). Oh those wacky optimistic 50's...

youngluck 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Wouldn't a nudge on a slight downward grade for 80 miles do the same thing?

forever_erratic 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Yeah, gasoline's not impressive, I could make a car go too if it was all downhill.

/facepalm

youngluck 6 points7 points 2 months ago[-]

HAHAHAHAHA... I can also throw a baseball 1250 ft... from the top of The Empire State Building.

helm 8 points9 points 2 months ago[-]

You don't have to use the Carnot cycle to extract the potential chemical energy of gasoline. Theoretically, you can make a fuel-cell that is more efficient.

LocutusOfReddit 15 points16 points 2 months ago[-]

And here at reddit, we move a lot of hot gas around.

ShrimpCrackers 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Why you're correct, I emit them from both ends, sometimes simultaneously.

purplefistmixer 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

There are, but it's also entirely possible to have 80 miles to the gallon.

roconnor 1 point2 points 2 months ago* [-]

Based on my undergrad physics courses I calculate the theoretical maximum efficiency of an idealized gasoline composed of pure octane running on an engine operating in 290 Kelvin environment to be about 90%. But my thermodynamics is pretty rusty.

(edit: replace log with natural log).

(edit2: Of course this can't be realized by any combustion engine of any reasonable kind. It would have to be some sort of fuel cell like helm suggests.

diversionmary 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

As part of my dissertation I did the same research and came to 94.95%, and a big 'Type R' sticker.

Cepheid 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Can we all agree that it contains a lot of energy, regardless of how impossible it is to convert 100% of it to kinetic energy?

NomNomDePlume 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

6 upvotes and 5 down? What the fuck people, this is a fact.

Relevant

xcyez 18 points19 points 2 months ago[-]

Facts don't mean much on reddit. Emphatic statements and appeals to emotions, do.

HydroCabron 25 points26 points 2 months ago[-]

Fuck you, reddit! Just FUCK YOU!

Reddit, you sick fuck: You stole my girlfriend, humiliated my parents, and poisoned my city's water supply! Prepare to pay the price!

newbornbeatnik 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

And left snakes in my boots!

flip69 14 points15 points 2 months ago* [-]

Yes and it's old technology. You know what's really amazing?

Solar cells and an Electric motor.

Solar can now capture 35% of the suns light energy and the electric motor is 98% effective in energy transfer. Tesla's coupe will travel for 300 miles before recharge or switching batteries (5 minutes) That's faster than filling your gas tank.

That's amazing.

FUCK OIL. FUCK COAL FUCK THE OIL COMPANIES

Baeocystin 21 points22 points 2 months ago[-]

One of the things you learn pretty quickly when studying MechE is that hydrogen would be a great fuel source, but storage is a problem.

But, if you, say, bond those wily hydrogens to a carbon backbone, you can store a tremendous amount of chemical energy in a form that's both liquid and stable at room temperature.

One of the reasons 'alternative' energy had been such a difficult row to hoe is that hydrocarbon fuels are damn hard to beat.

Just something to think about.

sfanetti 8 points9 points 2 months ago[-]

Yeah - I hope we will have to end up growing cyanobacteria that can output octane ultimately.

mindbleach 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

I'd settle for ferns that drip paraffin.

flussence 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

Yeah, but imagine the forest fires...

mindbleach 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Like bacteria that poop rocket fuel are less scary?

LarrySDonald 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

I'm sure they'll eventually sort it, though yeah, hydrocarbons for mass energy storage will probably be around. Even "other" like Ethanol, biodiesel and veg oil in general is just hydrogen on a carbon chain. Just need good ways to put them there. "But fossil oil is so convenient" is only true as long as it's around. I'd assume later storage (as is does now) will mostly revolve around hydrocarbons. It's no coincidence most animals and plants use it while very few store in Li ion.. Hard to compete with "it's happened already" of fossil will become "so.. how do we make this shit".

spongejimsquarepants 60 points61 points 2 months ago[-]

I agree its impressive how much energy is contained in a gallon of gas.

This will really blow your mind : What do you thing the actual source is? Dont say 'fossil fuels', go further back... Where did the bio matter that became fossil fuels get its energy? From the sun! Were burning ancient stored sun energy.

SLDeviant 45 points46 points 2 months ago[-]

Push it further, we're burning ancient stored sun energy, and what are we? We're made of exploded sun matter, so we're exploded suns burning ancient sun energy.

Midas7g 444 points445 points 2 months ago[-]

Hydrogen, in sufficient quantity and given enough time, will end up thinking about itself.

admiralteal 36 points37 points 2 months ago[-]

"Hydrogen is a light, odorless gas, which, given enough time, turns into people." - Edward R. Harrison

son-of-chadwardenn 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

It only did that once.

jrblast 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

That we know of... Though, I guess the odds of any extra-terrestrial life being similar enough to humans to be considered people, are pretty slim.

BioSemantics 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

Its almost guaranteed that we wouldn't consider them people. Look at how strains of humans react when they meet each other.

"What? Brown skin? Not people." = Past

"What? Grey with tentacles? Not people." = Future

glennbeck-ss-bot 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

I think it went a little more like "what? brown skin? can we have sex with their women? oh wait, their men have gigantic penises. not people." Don't be fooled people!

jacobgold 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

I appreciate the original.

DarkSideofOZ 48 points49 points 2 months ago[-]

Woah...

selflessGene 27 points28 points 2 months ago[-]

Dude...

Neebat 30 points31 points 2 months ago[-]

Right now, I'm bits from exploded suns thinking about bits from exploded suns burning ancient sun energy.

diversionmary 26 points27 points 2 months ago[-]

Sup dawg

KousKous 15 points16 points 2 months ago[-]

Hydrogen, given enough time, will come up with so many internet memes that it chooses to revert to its simpler state.

rio258k 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

Don't die :(

iamnotatroll 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

How many layers deep does the simulation run?

Sabotage101 19 points20 points 2 months ago[-]

I've always loved the similar idea, that sentience is the way by which the universe comes to know itself.

Titties 10 points11 points 2 months ago[-]

That is beautiful.

Radar_Monkey 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

Mind = blown

mattshields 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

Carl Sagan. The actual quote:

"These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution. It has the sound of epic myth, but it is simply a description of the evolution of the cosmos as revealed by science in our time. And we, we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, we have begun at least to wonder about our origins -- star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth, and perhaps throughout the cosmos."

[deleted] 8 points9 points 2 months ago[-]

The correct quote is "Hydrogen is a light, odorless gas, which, given enough time, turns into people."

-John P. Wiley Jr., quoting Edward R. Harrison (a cosmologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Smithsonian Magazine, December, 1995.

ojoil 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

-Michael Scott

hayzooz 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

I'm saving this quote.

Aperculum 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

I saw this poster once. I'd really like one.

PookySan1 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

golf claps

pi_e_phi 1 point2 points 2 months ago* [-]

If there is nothing in the beginning there is no law of causality, thus Hydrogen can appear in sufficient quantity for no reason. Given enough time it thinks about itself and other things which in turn thinks about nothingness. Thus nothing ,for no reason, ends up creating something to think about itself.

spongejimsquarepants 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

omg... that is AWESOME.... upboat my deep friend

Deacon 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Is that A.C. Clarke or Asimov?

anon_and_on 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

Sagan

thefresher 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

we're like... star cannibals...

kcops 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

"We are stardust..." -Joni Mitchell

XNormal 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

Were burning ancient stored sun energy.

Unfortunately, we're burning 100,000 years of ancient stored sun energy every year.

furlongxfortnight 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

Carmac 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

"We are star dust, we are golden" - truly.

hyp3r 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

And how about this?

The bio matter is a result of thousands of tons of dead vegitation and animals that was heavier than water and sunk to the bottom, to be compressed by enormous amounts of preassure and heat over millions of years to convert it into a liquid (and gas) that is lighter than water and eventually float to the surface. Now how did THAT happen?

dittoalex 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

Jesus is into Petroleum Engineering.

IndigloJoe 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Chemistry...wait I'm doing this wrong...SCIENCE!

ithkuil 31 points32 points 2 months ago[-]

give it a few years, everyone will realize how incredible it is when it cost $25/gallon.

Gulliveig 32 points33 points 2 months ago[-]

They will give you a free car, though, if you subscribe to one brand only!

ouroborosity 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

Frankly, I'm surprised that hasn't happened already.

thisamericanlife 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

I am skeptical of speculation about wild gasoline prices. There is an economic limit to the pricing of gas in a totally free market. Each wave of significant price increases breeds efficiency and changes to consumption patterns. However, we clearly do not operate in anything like a free market and if China continues to subsidize pricing to maintain consumption while production falls you may very well see 25 a gal.

jevon 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

Alternative fuels are much cheaper than oil at $150/barrel. Without additional taxes and adjusting for inflation you will never see $25/gal for gas (or the most popular form of energy).

ithkuil 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

you're right it will be all China's fault

I was exaggerating anyway.. people won't buy it that high.. probably will have something else by then

OldLifeForm 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

don't think so. Sasol claims it can produce liquid hydrocarbons at $10/gallon.

Sasol's primary business is based on CTL (coal-to-liquid) and GTL (gas-to-liquid) technology and this differentiates it from other petrochemical companies. CTL and GTL plants convert coal and natural gas respectively into liquid fuels.

Gruk 30 points31 points 2 months ago[-]

nice try BP

dave_casa 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

What's more impressive are trains. CSX is a freight train manufacturer that has only used one line to advertise its product for at least the past decade or so...

CSX trains move a ton of freight ___ miles on one gallon of fuel.

The number is of course steadily increasing, I believe it's 430 now.

kylestoned 14 points15 points 2 months ago* [-]

Was watching PBS Energy narrated by Morgan Freeman and they were talking about gasoline. Every day the typical car uses 100 times its weight in ancient plants that were converted inefficiently to gasoline. They also talked about how 7/8ths of the fuel energy in a tank of gasoline gets lost before it gets to the wheels. Only the last 6% of the fuel energy accelerates the car and heats the brakes when you stop. Yet 95% of the mass you are moving is the car. Barley 1% of the the energy in a gallon of gasoline is used to move the driver in a forward direction.

Justg66 6 points7 points 2 months ago[-]

Up vote for barley!

qwertyitis 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

THere was this old show called the secret life of machines that demonstrated how powerful gasoline was using a mortar. Found the link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS_2JD5whRY

yoda17 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

1 gallon gasoline: 121 MJ weight: 7lbs

1 car battery:4MJ weight: 60lbs

Ratio for equivalent energies: about 280:1

IndigloJoe 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

We need better batteries.

clumma 3 points4 points 2 months ago* [-]

We have them - lead sulfate car batteries aren't built for energy density. Lithium-ion batteries today are approaching 1MJ/kg.

The theoretical limits of chemical batteries are known, with Li-air at the top. If you only weigh the Lithium, you get about the same energy density as gasoline. If you weigh the air too, about half the energy density of gasoline. Unfortunately, these cells can be very dangerous. They are also not field-rechargeable (yet).

Fortunately, in a field-rechargeable chemistry like Li-ion, the Lithium isn't a consumable fuel. The fuel (electricity) weighs essentially nothing, especially if you make it from Thorium in a breeder reactor. And when the car is junked, the Lithium can be recycled.

IndigloJoe 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

While Li-air cells sound good, they obviously are not usable outside the lab for practical reasons. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, our real-world battery tech is still no better than Li-ion and they fall pathetically short of gasoline in terms of energy density. We need to get cracking on better batteries!

Btw, is lithium from batteries really recoverable? I know that a lot of material is "recycled" but still ends up in landfills anyway because the cost of recovery isn't worth the recycler's time and effort (e.g. a lot of plastics). This is not a sarcastic question.

clumma 2 points3 points 2 months ago* [-]

There are people who believe Li-air cells can be made safe. And don't neglect LiCr and LiS. But Li-ion is already good enough, since there's a full-size luxury sedan coming out next year that's more than price- and range- and performance-competitive.

Yes, it's recoverable. Though Lithium is so plentiful it may not be economical to do so. I showed earlier that every human being alive today could sit in those sedans without even using up the known deposits in Bolivia and Chile.

ParanoydAndroid 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

We do have quite a few batteries that have better energy density than car batteries (still not nearly as good as gas though).

We still use lead-acid batteries in cars though because of the insane number of recharge cycles one can get out of them.

Rhomboid 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

That means there is potential to have 80 miles to the gallon.

Actually, no, that's not how it works. It's impossible to get 100% efficiency out of a heat engine due to the second law of thermodynamics. The best you can ever hope to achieve is the Carnot efficiency which for a gasoline engine operating in Earth conditions is on the order of 73%.

divv 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

Thats still 60 miles :D

this_barb 7 points8 points 2 months ago[-]

Do you realize how incredible a U.S. quarter is?

Let's be generous and assume you have an equal amount of anti-matter. That means there is potential to destroy Hiroshima 8 fucking times with a single quarter.

Thank about that. How hard would it be for you to destroy Hiroshima 8 fucking times with conventional bombs. A quarter can do that. Blows my fucking mind.

Neker 4 points5 points 2 months ago* [-]

The 80 mpg hypothesis is far outstreched and not relevant.

But yes ! It is incredible how much energy it packs in a limited volume.

Specifically, that's 32 MJ/L (wiki:gasoline)

An average human casually riding a bike produces a power of 100 W and is exhausted after five hours. (Howstuffworks)

I did the maths for you : if you were to produce a much energy as there is in one liter or gasoline, you would have to pedal five hours a day for 18 days ! (of, if you are a first class athlete, 8 hours a day for 3 days).

IndigloJoe 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Thank you for doing the math for me. My brain, she doesn't work so good. Enjoy your orange arrow.

uyfuitf5757 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

To be fair though you would go leaps and bounds further than the car since the bike/human combination is a disgustingly efficient machine.

cryofan 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

one reason why, as a former nuclear power plant operator (navy), I support nuclear power. Oil is too wonderful a substance to be used when there are good alternatives. Save our oil for when we need it. There will not likely be a power source as wonderful as oil for many hundreds of years, if ever.

Timmetie 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Yea or that a thing like a combustion engine works. Small explosions pushing a cylinder up and down driving the wheels. Weird.

Emolotricity 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

Pushing a piston inside a cylinder, actually.

Timmetie 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

see! so weird I have no clue what happens there.

Emolotricity 5 points6 points 2 months ago[-]

The engine is spun by the starter motor. As the crankshaft turns, it pulls the conrod and therefore the piston downwards. Just before the piston begins travelling downwards, the inlet valve begins to open and the pressure in the inlet manifold forces a fuel-air mixture into the combustion chamber.

I can go on. All day.

tapnclick 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

adisgod 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Don't apologize for being American.

lengau 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Yeah. Don't apologize, fix it!

tastywheat 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Agreed.

dghughes 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Blow your mind more read about diesel.

In a diesel engine there aren't any spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributor and at least double the efficiency of gasoline engines which far more torque.

Less pollutants and easier to refine too.

muchachoburacho 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

according to csx, their freight trains get 460 miles to a gallon per ton of freight. thats pretty amazing to me.

funknut 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

FUCKIN' FOSSIL FUELS, HOW DO THEY WORK?

I0I0I0I 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Fuckin' hydrocarbons, how do they work?

vict_r 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Now think small uranium caps. They are thumb-sized and could power thousands of houses for days!

atomicthumbs 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

Nice try, BP.

tommytwotats 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

fucking gas, how does that shit work?

sfanetti 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

Jesus magic

jotaroh 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

lots of magnets

Shiba-Shiba 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

The energy stored in a gallon of gasoline is one of the most efficient. The volume of any other available source of equivalent energy would be much greater.

ericanderton 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

Kerosene is a good example of something with a higher energy density.

baconcatman 3 points4 points 2 months ago[-]

Don't forget the Double Downs.

terafunker 2 points3 points 2 months ago[-]

Yes, but one cannot run anything off a Double Down.

geon 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

nuclear?

pork2001 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

There have been experimental engine designs that decouple the cylinders so they can run just one if necessary (the others would be an energy drag and fuel waste once the car has accelerated to speed, and at speed it needs only to overcome wind resistance (on a level road anyway). So it is possible to make an 80 MPG highway- rated car but the engine would have to be quite different.

cp5184 4 points5 points 2 months ago[-]

Those are on the market today.

takinter 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

And a golf ball size of uranium can power a city. Makes me blow my fucking load.

proffinger 1 point2 points 2 months ago* [-]

last year , at the Shell Eco-marathon, a vehicle built by a french team proved to have a fuel eviciency of 3771 km / liter (8870 miles per gallon). This beats the previous record from 2004 which was 3410 km per liter (8000 mpg) Reference here and here. EDIT, as of this year its 10,549 MPG THAT blew my mind.

troller10 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

It's like super concentrated sunshine.

Sycosys 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

Get a Turbo Diesel VW. Get 50 hwy 40 city

Vimzor 1 point2 points 2 months ago[-]

DIESEL IS BETTER!

[deleted] 2 months ago* [-]

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