This could really mess up your day if you got too close:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 16,00.html

It is 21 billion times the size of our sun.

Z

I have been fascinated by this stuff since I was a little kid reading "Odyssey" magazine. I'd give just about anything to see one (from a safe distance, of course). And imagine being able to harness that sucker as a power source!

I might have seen skipped passed this in another science magazine. 21 billion times is truely amazing. I liked the artists picture as well.

Nice primer on the discovery but the article leaves a lot to be desired. The author doesn't seem to really be up on his astronomy either. Reading his whimsical "where would they go, after all?" phrase told me a lot about what he doesn't know.

Or maybe he didn't want to get into a discussion about Hawking radiation, the life-cycle of a black hole and the yotta scale to help keep numbers manageable. A 10 solar mass black hole would take 1x10^64 years to "die" (provided it didn't consume anything) by the Hawking process. Granted, it's a long time - but they do go somewhere.

Encryptshun wrote:And imagine being able to harness that sucker as a power source!

I see what you did there.

^lol.

Bah! Black holes will never die living that long, they would just get smaller. But, I dont know alot of the math behind it.

That was totally an accidental pun.

suuuuure. I believe you, really I do...

But really, even just harnessing the suns light through a magnifying glass creates heat that melts steel instantly. And why are we not using that?

alms24sebring wrote:But really, even just harnessing the suns light through a magnifying glass creates heat that melts steel instantly. And why are we not using that?

We are ... see http://us.sunpowercorp.com/ for one example and http://www.technologystudent.com/energy1/solar4.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_furnace for a closer example to what you asked about. I remember reading about the French solar furnace as a child and being fascinated by it!

The real limitations are that the solar energy is (a) only available during daylight hours, so you have to have an efficient storage mechanism for night use, and (b) is not a lot of actual solar energy per square meter - and there are conversion losses. So, to get real power, you have to take a lot of land/area to make decent enough energy to do anything with it.

Z

And (c) our electrical grid is old and inefficient so that transmission of the power created by centralized solar (and wind) sources can't get to where the consumers are unless you build the generation site so close to densely populated areas that the land is prohibitively expensive.

Imagine being able to use solar collected in space, where the conversion is essentially lossless....

Agreed!

FWIW, I am hoping that fusion is the answer in the future - in my lifetime would be nice!

It can, in theory, provide far more energy than solar or wind ... and really make our lives quite spectacular.

Z

Well, I hear it's only thirty years away.

Also, Z, this company is interesting, though I don't know nearly enough to tell if they're whackos:
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/09/141931203 ... -on-fusion

NPR wrote:"Other fusion uses a very complex way of producing energy — superconducting magnets, laser beams, all sorts of expensive and complicated and pricey stuff," he says. "It costs them billions and billions of dollars, so it's not so practical in my opinion. Here, what the energy source is, is compressed air. Compressed air is dirt cheap."

IBCoupe wrote:Well, I hear it's only thirty years away.

That is outside my lifetime, I suspect.

Z

IBCoupe wrote:Also, Z, this company is interesting, though I don't know nearly enough to tell if they're whackos:
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/09/141931203 ... -on-fusion

NPR wrote:"Other fusion uses a very complex way of producing energy — superconducting magnets, laser beams, all sorts of expensive and complicated and pricey stuff," he says. "It costs them billions and billions of dollars, so it's not so practical in my opinion. Here, what the energy source is, is compressed air. Compressed air is dirt cheap."

Hmmm ... an interesting read for sure.

I dunno ... will have to see where they end up. I hope it is practical!

Z