Bah, that graph needs antimatter.
this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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Is there enough paper on earth?
Antimatter doesn't really do anything by it's own, but if we let 1 kg react with 1 kg of matter (non-anti-matter), we get E = mc^2^ with m = 2 kg. So 1.8 * 10^17^ J, or 1.8 * 10^11^ MJ. If we assume that 10 MJ/kg is represented by about 1 cm, the bar would have to be 1.8 * 10^10^ cm or about 1.8 * 10^8^ m. A standard A4 piece of paper is about 30 cm tall, so 6.0 * 10^8^ A4 papers are needed. I.e. 600 million papers.
So we definitely have enough paper, but it would be a very tall stack.
That's only about 180,000km (~112,000 miles) or just under half way to the moon.
Also some quick googling says an average desktop printer can print about 30,000 pages per month, so it would take 20,000 months (~1670 years) to print that out. And a typical toner cartridge can print 3,000 pages and costs $80, so it would take 200,000 toner cartridges and cost $16 million.
Now, those aren't based on any specific model, just the first result in Google haha
Incorrect, if you aren't a bitch about it. Fuse that gasoline!
I was thinking the same thing. It's unfair compare chemical energy to nuclear energy. Coal still kind of sucks, but the hydrogen in the others could definitely be used in fusion...
It is perfectly fair in the context of "fuel", a resource used to produce energy. Whether energy is generated via chemical or nuclear reaction is irrelavent in this case.
Yup. If, for example, you're designing a deep space mission, where every gram counts, there's a conversation to be had about whether it's cost effective (and appropriate risk) to send nuclear reactors and fuel aboard those spacecraft.
Or using modern engineering, whether an aircraft carrier should be powered by nuclear fission or internal combustion of hydrocarbons.
Usually space craft have relatively light power needs so why bother with a whole-ass nuclear reactor when an RTG is smaller, lighter, and has no moving parts? They're a pretty common choice for space probes, for example.
We're actually running into shortages of Plutonium 238. Which is seriously compromising deep space missions.
Coal still has carbon in it. Carbon does have a lot of excess energy per nucleus. Just gotta turn it into iron.
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Weird thing I’ve noticed:
Logs are taught in high school. Absolutely no one seems to remember what they are after the unit test, much less high school. I’ve even reminded other math instructors about how to use them.
Why do people have such a hard time learning to use and understand logs?
I love this comic, and it’s going to replace my weird “let’s talk about how this makes the distance between us and Alpha Centauri, and us and Earendil easier to understand” bit.
I mean I think a lot of it is that at least in America when it comes to Math a lot of the teaching is more about how to use specific formulas and apply them to certain kinds of problems. They don't really teach you what it is you're actually doing or why you're doing it. It just turns into recognizing a type of problem and applying a certain tool to it rather than understanding what that tool is and what it does.
Jerry Hathaway still wants 5 megawatts by mid-May.