>-----Original Message----- >From: Erik Reuter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 1:19 PM >To: Killer Bs Discussion >Subject: Re: Picking apart the Matrix - spoilers > > >On Mon, Jun 09, 2003 at 10:19:21AM -0700, Chad Cooper wrote: > >> An ounce of flesh has more energy than an ounce of solar material, I >> think, by a magnitude. > >This is nonsense.
I did get this wrong. What I should have correctly said is a cubic centimeter of flesh contains more energy than a cubic centimeter of solar gas. Dan's assumtion about mass was correct. A cubic centimeter of gas does not weigh near what a cubic centimeter of flesh does. > >> A body needs few things to create energy - Water, Oxygen, Carbon, and >> Hydrogen - most of which can be extracted from water and the ground. > >A body does not "create" energy. It can convert energy to another form, >however. Chemical to mechanical, for example. As you said, it converts chemical energy to mechanical energy, and heat is a by-product. > >> Flesh is quite efficient at generating heat - > >This is misleading. Heat is easy to generate, just burn something. In >fact, combustion is one common way to measure the chemical energy >content of a substance. There are lots of good ways to convert chemical >energy into heat. I believe that the assuption made in the movie is that flesh was a renewable resource, and could be feedstocked. There is no mention in the movie about where the foodstock comes from. I presumed that in order to create food from basic elements they would need a HeeChee style food factory (See Fredrick Poul's 'Gateway' and 'Beyond the Blue Event Horizon"). Can anyone tell me what the name of food factory was? It was the initials of the common elements used in creating food. > >> in fact, without catalysts used during protein synthesis, the >> operating temperature of the chemical reactions could range >in the 300 >> degree F range(IIRC). > >I don't know about your fact here, but it is irrelevant. Do you think >300F is hotter than a burning piece of wood? (Hint: there is a >famous SF >story that gives you the approximate temperature) Regardless of the temperture, we would burn up very quickly if is was not for the enzyme catalysts used in releasing the free energy from the chemical reactions. Generally, as the amount of free energy goes down, heat/entropy go up. My point was that there can be ways to get greater amounts of heat from flesh that what is currently produced, if one plays around with the enzymes used in catabolic and anabolic reactions. > >> Biological heat engines could be very efficient at converting these >> elements into energy, > >This is nonsense. The best a heat engine can do is an efficiency of 1 - >T1/T2. So you want T2 to be very large and T1 very low, which >is not the >case with an animal. This is correct since 2nd law of thermodynamics resists being violated. Modifying biological process to create heat can be more efficient than mechanical processes. Many man-made mechanical processes depend upon the energy stored in biological products (like petroleum). > >But it is nonsense because a heat engine is NOT a good model for an >animal converting chemical energy to mechanical energy. Certainly the >body doesn't convert the chemicals to heat and use the heat to power >muscle contraction. The muscles are powered directly from chemical >reactions -- waste heat is just an undesired byproduct. The body is a >chemical engine, not a heat engine. I agree, In the case of the movie, it adds to the drama to think of the wasted human potential, where humans are used as heat engines (as efficient as it is). > >> and would probably be difficult to duplicate. > >No more difficult than interfacing a computer seamlessly with the human >brain. But why would you want to duplicate it? You can do much better. > >> The reason humans were selected, was because it was found that only >> humans had the adaptability to survive for a lifetime as a heat >> engine. > >This is nonsense. Hey, I didn't write the screenplay - I am only specifying the premise in the movie of why humans over something else. > >> A human body generates 100 Watts of energy at rest. > >No. Watts are power, not energy. And this is just a rough >approximation. OK OK... on AVERAGE... about 100 watts = 100 Joules/per sec.. >Consuming 2000 food calories per 24 hours averages out to about 100W of >food power consumption. Some of that will be converted to >heat, and some >to mechanical work. For example, pushing a turnstile that is resisting >with 100 Newtons of force (equivalent to about 22 pounds) at a velocity >of 1 meter per second requires 100W. But you can't do that >indefinitely. > >> The United States today uses 3.5 Gigawatts. > >No. The average ELECTRICAL power consumption over a year in the US >is close to 350 GW, not 3.5. If you include all power (not just >electrical), the number is about 2800 GW. Crap, I won't fight you on this. My point made in my original post is that they could not get enough bodies to generate the power they would need without turning to alternative methods of power generation. I attempted (and not too well, mind you) to show that while the plot of the movie _may_ have a basis in principal, the possibility and economics of it are outlandish. I did not write the movie. I did not rip off the idea from P.K. Dick. It wasn't my idea.... <Sheeesh....> Nerd From Hell Reminds me of another story... stop me if you've heard this one (true story). Three guys are asked what they would bring on a trip to the Sahara Desert if they could only bring _one_ thing. The first one replied " I would take a large canteen full of water, in case I got thirsty", the second," I would take a pack full of food, in case I got hungry,." and the third one said," I would take a car door. When asked why, he said "Well, in case it got hot, I could just roll down the window!" (sorry, had to do it!) > >-- >"Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ >_______________________________________________ >http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l > _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
