No way a teacher wouldn't know this!
this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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I mean isn't this wrong? It may be near 100% but there's never 100% conversion to a single kind of energy. For example, even if it's just a tiny faction, magnetic field convert electrical energy to kinetic energy, no?
100% of that tiny fraction still returns to heat.
Ah so we count following convertions. That clarifies things, thx.
I guess we could also say that eventually that heat will escape outdoors and be radiated back into space, a tiny fraction of that will end up on the sun, and be sent back again.
Isn't some energy still dissipated as light instead of heat?
Which travels to a location, hits it and is eventually converted to heat.
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When light is absorbed by surface, the material temperature increases and remits light at a longer wave, ussually in the IR spectrum. So its safe to say all light is heat enegry.
The entropy machine has a 100% efficiency
Power-line losses before your house, so a electric heater is only 96%-85% effecient. When the heating for bird feets is accounted, it's 100%.
Unless it makes a noise or a light that escapes the house
Blaming the heater for losses in the power lines doesn't seem fair.
Well it is heat. If we count power lines as part of an electric heater I'd say that's still effective.
You're assuming this heater is on grid power. We just need to power it by solar panels that are inside the house, under a skylight. Now we've got a 100% efficient heater, just don't ask about PV efficiency...
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induction losses:
Every electric device is a heater. Some just do other things too.
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.
Main effect of a brushless motor is moving matter really fast, which, on a molecular level, is same as heating it.
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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
Resistive heaters still suck though because Heat pumps give you 200-400% efficiency. So heating wise, “100%” still less than maximally efficient.
(Not a violation of thermodynamics btw. Heat pumps use electricity to move heat energy that already exists, so the electric power in is often significantly smaller than the heat coming out of the device)
Did someone say heat pumps?
I'm so happy this man nerded out about heat pumps for a few hours.
But now, all I see is inferior heaters.
It's the burden of knowledge
Having been on long term sick leave for 15 years means you have to do something with your time and I spend a lot of it learning new things to various depths. I now understand why some (though not all) older people are angry: when you know a lot about a lot you see how bad many things are. There's so much inefficiency, shit design, shit quality, shit shit everywhere. It hard to not let it get to you.
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Resistive heaters still suck though
- Resistive heaters are much more portable and flexible. (edit: and quiet)
- Resistive heaters are a viable backup when heat pumps fail in extremely cold weather.
- Resistive heaters are less money upfront for if you only have to use them occasionally.
One is not directly beneath the other. Both have their place.
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Software engineers fixing a prod-down bug on Friday afternoons operate at 100%
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Yep, every electric device is a toaster, some are just super inefficient at it.
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I'm not well-versed on this topic, but doesn't the AC frequency cause alternating fields in the heating element, making it vibrate slightly? If that's correct, then you're losing an incredibly stupidly tiny amount of energy as sound too.
Even sound energy eventually ends up as heat, though!
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This kid is going places.
Not really, reality will hit him rather hard
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.
I've seen someone do something slightly like this with a greenhouse. It had a large tank of water in the middle. It was black, so it absorbed sunlight during the day, heating the water, and then that kept the temperature up at night.
I think it also had something to do with an aquaponics setup? Like there were either fish in the tank, or in a "pond," and fish shit water would be cycled out to the plants because fertilizer?
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.
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