Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune;
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of hearing William Tucker speak at a conference in Washington, DC. His explanation of E = mc2 was the best I had ever heard. Even better, Tucker explained how Einstein’s equation applied to renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydro. His lecture was a revelation. It showed that the limits of renewable energy have nothing to do with politics or research dollars, but rather with simple mathematics. During a later exchange of emails with Tucker, I praised his lecture and suggested he write an article that explained E = mc2 and its corollary, E = mv2.
To my delight, he informed me that he’d already written such an essay and he agreed that we could publish it in Energy Tribune.
I love this essay. And I’m proud that Tucker has allowed us to run it.
Continue reading Understanding E = mc2, and then send it to everyone you know.
borrow this from your local library:
‘Einstein’s Big Idea’. a dramatization of the centuries of progress in mathematics, some chemistry and a lot of physics to the moment Einstein put it all together.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0476209/
Im still trying to figure out why it is the speed of light squared and not some random arbitrary colossal number. why that number? obviously a connexion but no explanation yet. even from physicists.
jt, my name is Robert Marr. You can look my up at the University of Calgary, Dept. of Geoscience. Have at ‘er.
Well Robert Marr, I did and guess what – I didn’t see your name in any of the categories listed on their website as “people” and the sub-directories, or graduate students, or faculty etc. You should speak to the U of C about that.
Try again. Look under support staff.
Nail. Hammer. Head. Direct hit!
First commentator got it also. The Western world is now currently be run by hyppies and their silly ideas; this reasoning isn’t just not fitting to their ideologies, it is beyond their intellectual clouds of smokey comprehension.
Jt: I googled RM and yes he is at the UoC. Again, so what?
Keynes was an economist as was Galbraith and lately Jeffrey Rubin. And they are completely mistaken on their understanding of economics. There is no reason why a Phd in Geology can’t be completely wrong on fossil fuel reserves – especially as it pertains to estimating what is and what will be the economically recoverable reserve.
also: we need to factor in the cost overruns of building nuke plants, the historic record of much longer than expected down time, the factoid there is a helluva lot more radioactive waste coming out than uranium fuel rods ‘you can handle with a pair of gloves’ going in.
Im still jaded by the qty of bullshyte that came from the nuclear industry. I still recollect in my early teens going to the nearly completed bruce nuclear plant and hefting a rather dense pc of concrete that was described as part of the radioactivity shield somewhere part of the construction. found out eons later they did no such thing, it was all claptrap propaganda to defuse opposition based on safety issues.
c’mon people !!! you do yourselves a disservice by glossing over the -ve aspects of the debate.
Yes, I could be wrong. I’m just stating opinions here. I just find it amusing that people who applaud the original article which says, in effect, that so-called renewable energy sources aren’t really renewable, insist that finite resources like oil and uranium will last forever.
The properties and value of c, Curious George, were determined by James Clerk Maxwell and then later applied by Einstein, along with Lorentz’s equstions, to the problem of non-Galilean relativity. You can read more by following the 1864 link here.
Great article. It captures very succinctly the reason so many “green” energy favorites can never be more than token sops to a political lobby and makes a further, compelling argument for nuclear power.
Um, sorry – hate to be pedantic (actually, that’s not true…rather the opposite), but E=mc^2 is not correct…and when talking about solar (i.e., photons), the correct expression is rather important.
The more accurate equation is
E^2 = p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4
where p is the momentum, and m is the rest mass. A photon has no rest mass, so the expression reduces to
E = pc = hf
where h is Planck’s constant and f is the frequency.
This establishes the limit on the highest temperatures that you can achieve on earth using solar concentration, effectively limited by the surface temperature of the sun (that is, by the frequency distribution).
I think solar furnaces exist that can hit 3000k
Why, that’s hot enough to melt steel!
George:
“Im still trying to figure out why it is the speed of light squared and not some random arbitrary colossal number. why that number? obviously a connexion but no explanation yet. even from physicists.”
The simplest explanation is that Einstein didn’t originally phrase it that way. His first relevant observation was that if an object gives off X amount of energy as radiation, it’s mass decreases by X/c^2. The reason it’s related to light is because the radiation being generated travels at the speed of light. Basically, mass is being turned directly into pure energy, or, to put it another way, is being turned into particles without mass which are traveling at the speed of light. So the energy contained in ANY particular mass is equivalent to the amount of energy which would be released by it if it became massless particles traveling at the speed of light.
Or, at least, that’s the way I understand it 🙂 If you want a better explanation, talk to a real physicist!
Oh, and I should mention that the actual formula is:
E^2 = m^2c^4 + p^2c^2
It’s just shortened to E=mc^2 for mass at rest.
Illiquid Assets, we have no shortage of shape-shifters here on earth. Quite a few work in Washington, D.C.
RM Wasn’t trying to be a pain, owned some U stocks at one time and did due diligence. I was surprised to find out how common it was and then was flabbergasted at how much Sk. had compared to other operations.
So it seems there are energy fuel cells more effective than traditional battery designs and which can lower the capital cost of
every energy source including the ones we have in operation now. This is profound.
Energy efficiency may be the only thing that can reduce the cost of new energy systems given how high the capital costs of all new types of construction have become.
We humans are so smart it’s hard to keep up with ourselves. 🙂
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=1012&idli=3
Vitruvius, did you hear that they found a crystal compound that contains magnetic monopoles. Now they will have to revise Maxwell’s equations. Gauss’s Law for magnetism no longer equals zero, but that is OK because now there is symmetry with Gauss’s Law for electricity. And you know how physicists love symmetry.
Time will tell, Qwerty1; so far though I’m not convinced that what they’ve seen isn’t just the phenomenon that would be produced in said crystal structure if magnetic monopoles existed even though the phenomenon is simply a property of the crystal in that context, independent of the existence of magnetic monopoles. As I said, time will tell.
One of the amazing ways that the media and many environmentalists demonstrate their ignorance is by getting their knickers in a twist about minor incidents, such as at Chalk River. Two issues here:
One, coal fired power plants pour out radioactive pollution every day in doses exceeding by far the minor leaks reported from reactors. No protesters, or press coverage.
Two, the most knowledgeable people in the world about safety issues at Chalk River or our nuclear power plants are the scientists and engineers working there. They are perfectly happy to punch in daily and to raise their kids in the neighbourhood. When they start to panic, I’ll panic!
I concur Vitruvius. When I read the article last week, there was only one guy in the office where I work who knew Maxwell’s equations and the importance of the monopole. I still remember from my E&M class in university where the prof got all philosophical about the beauty of the symmetric equations. He figured that the “=0” portion was God playing tricks on mankind.
George, it may also help to understand that the energy, mass and speed of light are need to be expressed in a consistent set of units. For example:
E (in joules) = m (in kilograms) multiplied by (299,792,458 meters/second)2
Alex…”I’m still trying to figure out why it is the speed of light squared…..”.
Perchance the “speed of dark (squared) might fit the equation??..!
“Aaron, I have a Ph.D. in geology, do you?”******
Well RM I can’t play bagpipes but I can identify talent in that enterprise just by listening.
If you are indeed a PHD in geology—-You are being dishonest and not just intellectually.
Ehrlick made now debunked predictions about population, food supply and “peak oil”. “Peak Oil” is basically rubbish as more proven reserves of conventional oil keep appearing regularly and oil fields once thought depleted mysteriously are replenishing—common knowledge.
It is also common/general knowledge that uranium is perhaps one of the most common elements….it is the main factor in “background radiation) detected long before “Trinity”. The KT boundary (60 millions years back) beside being heavy with iridium is also very rich in uranium—-which a geology PHD would be well aware of.
My impression is that like Keynes’ economics—you are very off key….your political agenda is showing Tovarich
Sasquatch – do you have a PhD in geology, though? Because RM does and like, that should be enough for you if you are a layman on the subject.
However, as a geologist and only a BSc one at that from 30 odd years ago, I am impressed with how you handled Sir RM with the PhD in geology. It emphasized my point about PhD’s in geology – good for the theory, but not in the field.
I also noticed that one of the faculty at U of C listed a geologist that used to work for me. My previous post applies. The statement “those who can do, those who can’t teach and those that can’t teach, teach teachers” applies as well.
This conversation brings back a memory of a TV ad for some photocopy machine, where a young gentleman is handed a stack of paper to photocopy by an office lady, and drawls: “I have an MBA” and she says : “good, you should be able to run this machine, then”.
I’ve been saying this for a long time. If the enviromenalists and all those waste of skin hippies hadn’t blocked us from building nuclear power plants back in the late sixties and early seventies we would be paying a lot less for our power today . Plus with the cheaper electricity car manufactures would have been building electric cars a long time ago. Way to save the planet by the hows that global warming working out for you
Sasquatch, has this become some sort of political litmus test? I always thought that was a tactic used by the koolaid-drinkers on the left. Conservatives are supposed to be more open to alternative points of view without questioning one’s ideological purity.
> article which says, in effect, that so-called renewable energy sources aren’t really renewable
RM, the article did not say anything to that affect.
Did you read it?
It said that the so called renewable sources are whole lot weaker than nuclear.
I agree with the above assessment of your posts here as dishonest at best.
Also, I knew a PH.D. in geology. He specializes in the plate tectonics, whatever it is. I asked him once about oil and he said ‘what?’ Oil, I said, like in a thick black liquid that gasoline is made of. He replied that he had no clue about it, except that it existed. Specialization is something every scientist should strive for – he knew nothing other than his plates and could speak endlessly about them.
So, next question is: are you in specialized in oil? 🙂
RM, we might be running out of cheap oil, but we are certainly not running out of oil. I am a geologist, working well site, and we are still finding “virgin” oil in an area that has been poked and stroked since 1954. It is expensive to get at but not $50-a-barrel-expensive. And as the price goes up, technology seems to have a way of bringing new techniques and practices that increase production.
Same thing with uranium. If the resource has not been discovered, it is pretty silly to say it will not be. It may not be, but it might be too. When Uranium City was built, the world had 30 years of reserves when nobody was using the stuff. 70 years later we still have 30 years worth of reserves.
Aaron, I have a Ph.D. in geology, do you?
That’s a logical fallacy called Appeal to Authority. An educated person should know that.
We noted you didn’t dispute a thing Aaron said.
Oil production peaking while demand grows is not the end of the world as we know it. As the relative supply of oil falls, its price rises. As its price rise, the relative prices of substitutes decline. There is a normal, natural, efficient, and timely transition from one energy supply to the next. The bottom line is that we will NEVER run out of oil. We will have substituted for something else long before that happens.
Furthermore, the higher the price of oil, the greater the incentives for oil and gas exploration. What Aaron was saying, which you didn’t bother to address, is that there is likely plenty of oil which is not commercially feasible to reach now, but WILL BE when oil prices rise.
I have a PhD in Economics. Do you? I didn’t think so.
You might have a PhD in Geology and be an electron microprobe and petrology TECHNICIAN, but I doubt you’ve found as much oil as Exxon, Chevron, BP, et al have found.
You’re nothing but a $^%&ing lab geek who has been inserting his microprobe in the wrong borehole.
POWinCA – The Hubbert analysis incorporates advances in technology and rising commodity prices and the result is still the same. Incidentally, I never said anything about the end of the world. I don’t think peak oil will be catastrophic, although it will be expensive and it is inevitable. It has already happened with conventional oil and it will happen with unconventional oil, natural gas and eventually coal.
As to your first point, you’re right. It was a error in judgement on my part, and if I had it to do over again, I would. Aaron insulted me and I responded in a rather unprofessional manner.
Gord, if you think that AP1000 is a passive safety design compared to existing technology, you really need to go back and do your homework. While we’re on the topic of accidents, Gord, go read “Project GaBE: Severe Accidents in the Energy Sector”, Hirschberg, Spiekerman and Dones, Paul Scherrer Institut, and stop wasting our time with silly fantasies about accidents in Romania. Who do you think trained the Romanians, and why is it that they’re members in good standing with CANDU Owners Group? It just so happens that Cernavoda is one of the best run plants in eastern Europe, not to mention the best built.
Well, Curious George, be specific. What was rubbish about what you were told about containment construction at Bruce? Either back it up or crawl back under your rock. Too many of us here are sick and tired of antinukes like you throwing around meaningless statements. Yes, there were indeed cost overruns at the time of construction, for example. Today, those same plants with huge construction cost overruns produce electricity at less cost than anything else. Darlington, double the construction cost to build, produces electricity at a cash cost of less than 2 cents. Nuclear is something for the long term investment.
RM, “if I had it to to do over again, I would”?? So not only do you not rebut points put to you, you will also repeat errors in judgment. Perhaps this is why you are a technician in a university and not an actual practicing geologist.
What is this Hubbert analysis that you write of and what are its results still the same as?
Whoops you got me, it was a typo. I meant to say I wouldn’t repeat that mistake. Clearly, new mistakes are still possible.
As to rebutting other arguments, Aaron simply accused me a reading newspapers and starting wars. There’s nothing to rebut, really. Yes, I do read newspapers and obviously I just started a war right here.