Isn't some energy still dissipated as light instead of heat?
this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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Which travels to a location, hits it and is eventually converted to heat.
Noise would be a small but non-zero form of heat loss that shouldn't contribute to temperature increase
Noise would turn in to heat as it’s absorbed, so it’s just heat with extra steps. Same deal with lights
Perhaps this is a dumb question, but perhaps it is not:
If you just had, in say a studio apartment, or a single bedroom, basically just a large container of water, where the container is made of something fairly to considerably thermally conductive...
Would or could this act as something like a thermal regulator for the room, to a potentially useful degree, such that it could ease the overall power usage of an AC/Heating system?
The water doesn't do anything, in like a designed machine sense; its not part of plumbing or heating, its just a big ole tank of water, sitting there.
The idea I am going with is something like how large static bodies of water act as regulators for nearby climate zones, through a day night cycle ... they tend to keep temperatures in the surrounding area a bit more stable, though of course humidity and the water cycle have other effects in a more open weather system.
I also realize there are a lot of potentially confusing or confounding variables at play here.
But my thinking is that maybe, at some scale, in some conditions, this could basically normalize your day-night temperature cycle, at least somewhat.
Obviously in real world, just a simple tank of water would potentially freeze in winter, or boil in summer, in more extreme environments, that you'd at bare minimum have to have some mechanical system to prevent problems... but uh, ... yeah.
You see this with normal heating systems. My house has hot air heating with a big burner and vents in the rooms. It is great for instant heat but once it turns off you lose the heat just as fast. And if you dont have a vent in the room it can be pretty cold.
But the house I grew up in had water filled radiators in every room. Took ages to warm up the house but it would transfer an awful lot of heat into the brick walls so it would stay warm for a really long time after the heating shut off.
So in the old house in winter you really didnt notice the heating turning on and off but in my new one it is painfully obvious. I really want to rip it out and get a better system.
Yes, this is called thermal mass, or more scientificly, heat retention. The more stuff you in have a space, the more resilient to change it'll temperature it is. Insulation, is basically putting a bunch of high retention materials in perimeter of a building so that it stays more consistent
Hrm.
What about:
Radiant Barrier.
Basically, as I understand it, this stuff is extremely good at reflecting heat... not... absorbing and containing it. And it is relatively stupidly cheap, for how effective it is.
Like, its so effective that the industry that makes traditional US home insulation batting... basically did everything they could to make it so as few people know this stuff exists as possible.
Radiant barrier is a different insulation mechanism and is also good. The nice thing about radiant barrier is it requires very little material to do its thing. The best solution is a combination of the 2, but most insulation is still opperating by thermal mass.
That is in line with my understanding as well.
I don’t think it’s a dumb question at all. I’m not a physics person but I think what you’re describing is a thermal battery. It’s the reason people put tiles in their ovens for smoothing out hot and cold spots and moderating temperature swings from the oven cutting on and off or opening the door.
Sounds like adobe sorta.
Lots of places in the desert with big walls.
Large brick/stone fireplace+chimneys do similar in colder climates, holds heat in the winter and stays cooler in the summer.
Oh, I hadn't even thought of that. I always thought stoves were just way more efficient, but a giant old school hearth-thing actually makes a lot more sense now.
Useful? No, mainly because you need circulation of the air to feel it.
I didn't downvote you, but:
Ok, then... have a ceiling fan above it?
A very slow one, that uses little energy?
Secondary thought! What if you attached a bunch of processor heat sink type fins to the mass? Might not be good for long term regulation, but it would smooth out temperature curves daily.
Yes but then the downside is you have a giant porcupine that will draw blood, in the middle of the room, lol.
You could buff that out a bit though?
...?
No need to apologize for someone else. But I appreciate the thought.
And you are absolutely right. A ceiling fan, plus a thermal mass would work.
Electronics teachers generally clarify "other than resistive heaters"
Or light.
Every electric device is a heater. Some just do other things too.
Indeed we’ve plugged in a bitcoin miner to our central heating and now heating is “free”. I’m not sure how profitable it is when you’re not using the heat though.
A brushless motor only converts ~5% of its input to heat. That's low enough that you can reasonably call it a side effect.
Now, a computer, that's a heater that happens to produce math as a side effect. 100% of its input ends up as heat.
math as a side effect
That's a funny way of spelling porn
Fun fact! Your porn machine can also be used to shitpost.
It all becomes heat eventually in the end though. Sometimes it's just a multi step complex process outside the physical bounds of the heater.
Wait a sec, is the universe just God's space heater?
Depends on the god.
In god’s universe it is winter and that’s why the earth is heating up. It says so right in Ecclesiasties. Boom, toasted climate change nerds.
It might output the results of a computation once in a while though
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Aren't computers damn near 100 percent efficient heaters?
No, they're damn near as power-efficient as electric space heaters though if I'm not mistaken, but these are not 100% efficient.
Forgive me for being argumentative, not my intention to be combative but now that I'm thinking more about it, isn't everything a 100% efficient heater? Like sound hits an object, and is turned into heat. Light hits an object and is turned into heat. Electricity travels down a wire and is turned into heat(usually).
A heat pump will drop to 100% efficiency in cold enough weather.
Can heat pumps drop below 100%?
They can drop all the way to 0 if the temperature difference is high enough. You can't heat your house with a heat pump if it's 0K outside.
Heat pumps generally come with an electrical resistive backup in case it's too cold outside, so even at arbitrarily low temperatures a heat pump can only drop to 100%
At that point, the heat pump is off and you're using a resistive heater. You can't just glue an LED to an incandescent lightbulb and call it a 50% efficient incandescent lightbulb.
True. You know, the moment I left that comment, I thought that was pedantic, I shouldn't have said it, but by that point if I had deleted it it would just sit there saying deleted forever and that would bother me even more
Software engineers fixing a prod-down bug on Friday afternoons operate at 100%
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Any resistance heater, but the most efficient ≠ the most cost effective.
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