• 4 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • Assuming

    • cylindrical human, 2m tall, 25 cm diameter.
    • air displaced from the point you teleport to is instantly moved to form a monolayer (1 molecule thick) on your surface.
    • The displacement of air is adiabatic (no heat is transferred, which will be true if the displacement is instantaneous)

    Volume of displaced air: ≈ 100L = 0.1m^3 At atmospheric conditions: ≈ 4 mol

    Surface area of cylindrical human: ≈ 1.58 m^2 Diameter of nitrogen molecule (which is roughly the same as for an oxygen molecule) : ≈ 3 Å Volume of monolayer: ≈ 4.7e-10 m^3

    Treating the air as an ideal gas (terrible approximation for this process) gives us a post-compression pressure of ≈ 45 PPa (you read that right: Peta-pascal) or 450 Gbar, and a temperature of roughly 650 000 K.

    These conditions are definitely in the range where fusion might be possible (see: solar conditions). So to the people saying you are only “trying to science”, I would say I agree with your initial assessment.

    I’m on my phone now, but I can run the numbers using something more accurate than ideal gas when I get my computer. However, this is so extreme that I don’t really think it will change anything.

    Edit: We’ll just look at how densely packed the monolayer is. Our cylindrical person has an area of 1.58 m^2, which, assuming an optimally packed monolayer gives us about 48 micro Å^2 per particle, or an average inter-particle distance of about 3.9 milli Å. For reference, that means the average distance between molecules is about 0.1 % of the diameter of the molecules (roughly 3 Å) I think we can safely say that fusion is a possible or even likely outcome of this procedure.




  • Some languages - specifically Norwegian that I know of, don’t have separate words for “boyfriend” and “girlfriend”. In Norwegian we have the word “kjæreste” which can be directly translated to “dearest”. To me it always feels a little weird to use “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”, i guess the same could be true for other non-native english speakers.



  • If we’re able to make hydrocarbon-synthesis from CO2 efficient… we’re still going to need to source the hydrogen somewhere.

    But if we do that using electrolysis (with renewables), and are able to create more energy efficient CO2 capturing processes, I could see synthetic hydrocarbons as a viable fuel option in the future. The thing is: They’re stupidly good at being stable, energy dense, energy carriers. We also have a lot of infrastructure in place to handle hydrocarbons already.

    In principle, synthetic hydrocarbons could be part of a zero-emission cycle, where we capture CO2 and electrolyse hydrogen with renewable energy, and use the hydrocarbons as an energy carrier. But if we go that way, we’re definitely going to have to research efficient hydrogen production, and probably storage as well.


  • One of the advantages of hydrogen is that tanks and fuel cells can withstand a large number of “charging cycles” much better than batteries. Additionally, for ships, the amount of energy needed to move is so enormous that I fear we’ll have a hard time creating batteries that are feasible for long-distance shipping.

    For short distance ferrying (including large, car carrying ferries) on the other hand, Norway has already implemented quite a few electric stretches. The major issue there is building the infrastructure to charge the ferries.






  • I can see why you would say that, but my point is that in any reasonably large group of people there’s going to be diversity regarding how often people prefer to be at the office (if ever). It’s also well documented that things like training and meetings are much less efficient if people are remote. Together, I think this means that the solution to having as efficient and satisfied employees as possible is to do some coordinating, such that everyone has their needs met.

    I don’t think it’s realistic to have some companies consisting only of people that prefer to work from home every day, and others where everyone wants to be in the office every day. Flexibility and coordination is key.


  • I absolutely agree that flexibility is the way to go. I also have to admit that a large part of what makes me function better in the office is that my coworkers are there as well. As such, I think a compromise that everyone can be as happy as possible with is the best thing.

    Remember: Some people would prefer to work from home everyday, and function best when the do. People like me would prefer that as many as possible people are in the office as often as possible, and function best when that is the case. The optimum (both regarding satisfaction and productivity) is clearly somewhere in-between.

    That means flexibility is very important, but “full flexibility”, i.e. everyone always working from where they would prefer, is probably not the global optimum.


  • I recognise that I’m probably a minority here, but I have a much harder time staying focused at home. At my office I share a room with a couple others, on a floor with a couple dozen more. Pretty much everything I do (outside 1-3 meetings a week) is individual work.

    For me, something about physically “going to work” helps me “switch on” much more. Taking breaks with other people, rather than alone, also helps me structure the breaks, and it’s not uncommon that we get good ideas or resolve something that’s been bugging someone during a break. Lastly, I really appreciate the option of “just dropping by” when I want to ask someone about something, and the fact that they can do the same to me. In my experience it’s never gotten to the point that it happens more than maybe once or twice a day, so it’s not really that disturbing either.