Environment & Energy
In reply to the discussion: ERRORS in rebuttal to "Pandora's Promise" [View all]PamW
(1,825 posts)I've been through this with kristopher before; and he just does NOT "get it".
kristopher desires that we turn heat 100% into work without the "waste heat".
Unfortunately for kristopher; Mother Nature FORBIDS that!
Here is a page from the Physics Department at Georgia State University:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/seclaw.html#c2
What kristopher wants to do is what is depicted in the right half of the above graphic; which is to have ALL the energy transformed into useful work.
But look what the Professors of Physics at Georgia State University say about that:
Extracting heat QH and using it all to do work W would constitute a perfect heat engine FORBIDDEN by the second law.
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that "waste heat" is NECESSARY for a heat engine.
What kristopher wants to do is FORBIDDEN by a Law of Physics.
That SHOULD be the end of any such consideration; but kristopher doesn't understand it.
That is why I always say:
The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson
PamW