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From WIRED, again. Sometimes they have good stuff.
In the early 1970s, people studying general relativity, our modern theory of gravity, noticed rough similarities between the properties of black holes and the laws of thermodynamics. Stephen Hawking proved that the area of a black hole's event horizon—the surface that marks its boundary—cannot decrease. That sounded suspiciously like the second law of thermodynamics, which says entropy—a measure of disorder—cannot decrease.
Yet at the time, Hawking and others emphasized that the laws of black holes only looked like thermodynamics on paper; they did not actually relate to thermodynamic concepts like temperature or entropy.
Then in quick succession, a pair of brilliant results—one by Hawking himself—suggested that the equations governing black holes were in fact actual expressions of the thermodynamic laws applied to black holes. In 1972, Jacob Bekenstein argued that a black hole's surface area was proportional to its entropy, and thus the second law similarity was a true identity. And in 1974, Hawking found that black holes appear to emit radiation—what we now call Hawking radiation—and this radiation would have exactly the same "temperature" in the thermodynamic analogy.
[...] But what if the connection between the two really is little more than a rough analogy, with little physical reality? What would that mean for the past decades of work in string theory, loop quantum gravity, and beyond? Craig Callender, a philosopher of science at the University of California, San Diego, argues that the notorious laws of black hole thermodynamics may be nothing more than a useful analogy stretched too far.
After what Hawking said about philosophy, I think that astrophysicists need a bit more perspective.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday September 12 2019, @06:51PM (15 children)
When you buy socks for your feet, buy a bunch of pairs that are identical. Don't just buy one of a particular style, but buy about a dozen pairs.
On topic:
Socks disappear into block holes. In a reverse Hawking Radiation like phenomena. Only one sock disappears behind the event horizon. The other sock remains where you can find it.
At a macroscopic level, you may not notice this increase in entropy, nor the missing sock. That is, when you have a dozen or more pair of the same identical sock.
(This also makes it easy to pair-together clean socks when they come out of the dryer, just like all gold atoms of the same isotope are identical.)
When pairing clean socks, you may then notice a missing sock, unless you are now at the point where an even number of socks have gone missing. Over the life of the universe, the total number of socks you have will decrease. But you can still easily pair them together and have enough pears between laundry days.
This theory does not explain what happens to ball point pens and plastic hair combs, which do not come in pairs, yet still spontaneously disappear into block holes at random times.
In the epitome of laziness (aka efficiency) have two dishwashers. One named Clean and one named Dirty. Remove dishes from Clean, use them, then place into Dirty. When Clean is empty and Dirty is full, then run the dirty dishwasher and flip their names. You never have to unload dishes, and save cabinet space.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:04PM (10 children)
Might work if you live alone and only eat the same type of food every day. For anyone else it rapidly breaks down.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:24PM (6 children)
Family of four here, would work for us most of the time - might have to run twice a day, but that's true with the single dishwasher as well. When it's time to run "Dirty" any dishes remaining in "Clean" can be put away, but most of the time for us there's be precious little left in "Clean" by the time "Dirty" gets full.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by vux984 on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:47PM (4 children)
"Anything clean can be put away" means it has a place to go that isn't in a dishwasher, which according to the plan it shouldn't need. It's always in a dishwasher.
And that's where it breaks down. We go through enough dishes like you that we might have to run it daily, if not twice a day. But we don't eat soup everyday... so either the soup bowls stay in a dishwasher all the time taking up space or they get put in a cabinet, and if they go in a cabinet, then we now have to 'unload' the dishwasher after having soup. Same goes for pots and pans, mixing bowls, salad bowls, cutting boards, cheese graters, strainers, measuring cups, cake pans, tupperware...
Either we have to unload the dishwasher daily; or we don't own all that stuff, because there's no way we're going to use all that stuff every day. But a family of 4 IS going to run out of plates and need to do another load pretty quickly -- long before all that other stuff has been used. So either we're unloading the dishwasher daily, or we don't own that stuff. Unloading the dishwasher daily violates the rule, and getting rid of all that so that we can just rotate daily without unloading *dramatically* reduces what we can eat. Either that or you need two enormous dishwashers, and a weeks worth of plates and bowls (dozens for a family of four!)... which is also not practical. :p
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 12 2019, @09:33PM (2 children)
Well, any theory of everything is full of holes, many of them black.
I do think the storage space occupied by a 2nd dishwasher might be a good trade for the otherwise general storage space. I don't think that maintaining two functioning dishwashers sounds like a good idea.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @02:46AM (1 child)
Are you taking into account the energy cost? Dishwashers are like 1 kW. It is much easier and cheaper to just wash your dishes.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday September 13 2019, @06:07PM
Actually, dishwashers use less energy (and less water) than washing by hand.
Assuming you wash your dishes by had properly, of course. And of course assuming you actually fill your dishwasher, instead of turning it on when partially filled.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @11:05PM
In that case, get 4 dishwashers. Divide dishes up into more and less frequently used.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday September 13 2019, @12:16AM
If you need to run Dirty and you still have Clean, you're doing something terrible wrong. Like refusing to have your icecream serve from the stockpot or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday September 12 2019, @09:26PM (2 children)
I don't know about you, but I eat vastly different types of food from the same of plates.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday September 13 2019, @05:27PM (1 child)
Not only do I eat different food from the same plates, I quite frequently eat the same food from vastly different plates. I think the original idea is excellent. (I already do the sock thing.)
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 13 2019, @06:23PM
Try this one that I remember from years gone by:
The vegetable part of my stomach is full, but the french fry part of my stomach is empty.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:11PM (3 children)
It has been established: socks disappear while hangars increase. Thus: socks are hangar larvae.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @10:46PM
Paper clips are hanger larvae. Hangers are abandoned bicycle larvae.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 13 2019, @06:25PM (1 child)
Hangars? As in buildings?
I think you mean: Hangers. As in closet / clothes hangers.
Or what I once in my youngster daze called "hookers" because of the characteristic hook.
That doesn't work so well in certain situations. What, only three? I'm going to call the front desk and demand they send at least a dozen more hookers up to our room right now!
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 13 2019, @06:41PM
Closets are for hangers, winners use the door.
🌻🌻 [google.com]