Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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If a machine is never 100% efficient transforming energy into work because part of the energy is converted into heat, does it mean an electric heater is 100% efficient? [@[email protected]](h (social.graves.cl)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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If a machine is never 100% efficient transforming energy into work because part of the energy is converted into heat, does it mean an electric heater is 100% efficient? @[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I mean if you want to go that route, we could just say that every speaker, light source, motor, etc is 100% efficient at generating heat because all of its energy output will eventually become heat.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 8 months ago (2 children)

That is also completely true, but meaningless because heat generation is not the purpose of these devices. However, if you use them in a building heated by a thermostat-controlled electric heater, you’re effectivhly running them for free.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

I‘m was using two old servers with folding@home running as space heaters in the winter. I got them for dirt cheap and thought if I convert electricity into heat, I might as well do something good with it. Also nice opportunity to run a minecraft server for the kids during that time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

You double-posted this comment, FYI

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

One for each server.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

It's still efficient because both those comments will end up as heat anyway.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed so in the grand scheme of things, everything is 100% energy efficient one way or another.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I suggest we submit proposals to define "100%" and "efficient" before we design the experiment