Waste Heat to Electricity? 330
Darwin_Frog writes: "Recent advances in thermionics at MIT lets waste heat generate electricity, thus pushing entropy one step further down the chain. These devices work at a temperature around 250 deg. C, instead of around 1000, so cars can augment the alternator by using the waste heat in the exhaust system to produce power for onboard electronics and A/C."
Matrix style (Score:4, Funny)
Introducing... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Introducing... (Score:5, Funny)
thermodynamics, and entropy, and all that (Score:5, Funny)
- You can't win.
- You can't break even.
- You have no choice about playing.
Any closed system ends up in the state of most disorder, and all systems are closed if you look at the boundaries carefully. No matter how hard you try, no matter what ingenous things you do, in the end, the dealer wins and everything is dust. Cold dust, at that. The more energy you expend enforcing order, the more chaos you cause. There are no wins in technology, only a prolonging of the inevitable loss. So while I'm sure this new doohickey is neat, somewhere, Carnot is laughing and his cycle is tapping you on the shoulder snickering to itself.Re:Hmm... (Score:0, Funny)
Reversing entropy (Score:2, Funny)
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
But there was no one to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer---by demonstration---would take care of that, too.
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, "Let there be light!"
And there was light---
Isaac Asimov, The Last Question
You down with Entropy? (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, you know me!
For the unintiated, MC Hawking [mchawking.com] lyrics follow.
MC Hawking is Stephen Hawking, physicist and gangsta rapper. Despite three critically acclaimed albums and nearly ten years on the mic, Stephen Hawking remains virtually unknown as a musician. mchawking.com [mchawking.com] is devoted to Stephen Hawking's career as a lyrical terrorist [ampcast.com].
Harm me with harmony.
Doomsday, drop a load on 'em.
Entropy, how can I explain it? I'll take it frame by frame it,
to have you all jumping, shouting saying it.
Let's just say that it's a measure of disorder,
in a system that is closed, like with a border.
It's sorta, like a, well a measurement of randomness,
proposed in 1850 by a German, but wait I digress.
"What the fuck is entropy?", I here the people still exclaiming,
it seems I gotta start the explaining.
You ever drop an egg and on the floor you see it break?
You go and get a mop so you can clean up your mistake.
But did you ever stop to ponder why we know it's true,
if you drop a broken egg you will not get an egg that's new.
That's entropy or E-N-T-R-O to the P to the Y,
the reason why the sun will one day all burn out and die.
Order from disorder is a scientific rarity,
allow me to explain it with a little bit more clarity.
Did I say rarity? I meant impossibility,
at least in a closed system there will always be more entropy.
That's entropy and I hope that you're all down with it,
if you are here's your membership.
Chorus
You down with entropy?
Yeah, you know me! (x3)
Who's down with entropy?
Every last homey!
Defining entropy as disorder's not complete,
'cause disorder as a definition doesn't cover heat.
So my first definition I would now like to withdraw,
and offer one that fits thermodynamics second law.
First we need to understand that entropy is energy,
energy that can't be used to state it more specifically.
In a closed system entropy always goes up,
that's the second law, now you know what's up.
You can't win, you can't break even, you can't leave the game,
'cause entropy will take it all 'though it seems a shame.
The second law, as we now know, is quite clear to state,
that entropy must increase and not dissipate.
Creationists always try to use the second law,
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!
That, in a nutshell, is what entropy's about,
you're now down with a discount.
Chorus
Hit it!
Doomsday, kick it in!
Re:Meteor? (Score:3, Funny)
Four smaller ones? Imagine reclaiming the heat from a cluster of these...
Re:Hmmm... - might ruin smokestack effect (Score:2, Funny)
But not long enough to learn how to spell the name of the city, apparently.