Testing the TK Tar Baby

[mrsean2k]

mrsean2k,

Yes I agree.

But TK did say: "A Joule is a Joule even when it's sitting in a capacitor doing crossword puzzles or whatever they do in there and will be the same forever unless it leaks out." :-)

GL.

And he's right. What is it that strikes you as incorrect about that? I'm not having a go, I just want to understand what it is that seems odd - some misunderstanding I think that's easily cleared up.

[Rosemary Ainslie]

You DEMANDED that I retract my statement?  MileHigh?  Why would I do that?  Here's my answer to your challenge.

A Joule is a quantity of ENERGY. There is NO TIME INVOLVED, just as there is no time involved in a "mile" or a "quart" or a "rock" or a "mosfet" or a "bag of peanuts".

Not actually.  Joules represent the amount of energy that is delivered dissipated or stored - OVER TIME.  It is always computed as a product of the unit of watts calculated over TIME.  Outside of TIME one would not be able to compute Joules.  Joules delivered or dissipated OR even stored - can ONLY be computed OVER TIME.

POWER IS A RATE, not a quantity.

Not actually.  POWER IS NOT A RATE.  POWER IS ENERGY.  The two terms are interchangeable.  To determine the QUANTITY of power - which is the object of any power analysis - ONE FIRST determines the rate of wattage applied per second over time.  Which product is then represented as Joules.  Which - IN TURN - gives one the QUANTITY of energy which is INDEED - the object of POWER analysis.  Therefore Power is NOT a RATE as ALLEGED by TK.  It is ONLY a QUANTITY.  It is the sum of the product of watts per second over time - which PRODUCT or QUANTITY - is then represented as JOULES.  THAT is the definition of POWER.

There is TIME involved in POWER. That same JOULE of energy could be dissipated very quickly or dragged out over a long time. You can eat a bag of peanuts all at once (one bag per minute for one minute), or you can eat one nut per day for many weeks (one one-hundredth of a bag per day for one hundred days). The WATT is the RATE at which JOULES are dissipated. A WATT is one Joule PER SECOND. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. If you dissipate ONE JOULE very quickly you have a HIGH POWER LEVEL. if you dissipate that SAME ONE JOULE very slowly, you have a LOW POWER LEVEL. One Joule can be turned into KILOWATTS of power for a brief instant or it can be turned into microWatts of power for a much longer interval.

Not actually.  Not even close.  Here we have rampant and manifest confusions.  One JOULE of energy is BY DEFINITION the amount of energy dissipated or delivered over time. If you dissipated ONE JOULE very quickly you would NOT - be dissipating a 'HIGH POWER LEVEL'.  You would only be dissipating ONE JOULE.  The Joule unit represents the amount of energy dissipated or delivered over one second.  IF it was delivered faster than a second - then it is NOT self-evidently 1 JOULE.  And HOW - in God's name - can ONE JOULE turn into KILOWATTS of power if 1 Joule is - by definition - based on 1 watt and 1 watt is based 1 volt x 1 amp x 1 second?  The MOST than can be dissipated or delivered over a fraction of a second would STILL be 1 JOULE which is still only 1 watt.  That's a given.  It can't magically multiply it's quantity because it's delivered within a fraction of a second rather than over the full duration or period of 1 second.  This is an ABSURD postulate.

One WATT, though... is ALWAYS one Joule PER SECOND. If I go through a tenth of a Joule of energy per a tenth of a second, the power is ONE WATT during that tenth of a second (0.1/0.1 = 1). If I dissipate 1000 Joules of energy per 1000 seconds, the power is ONE WATT for that entire time of 1000 seconds. Observe: (1 watt) x (1000 seconds) == 1000 Wattseconds.... aka 1000 JOULES. Note the technical use of the common words PER, indicating a division operation, and FOR, indicating a multplication operation. One WATT FOR 1000 SECONDS == 1 x 1000 == 1000 Joules. One thousand Joules PER 1000 seconds == 1000/1000 = 1 Joule PER second == one WATT.

This is just a whole lot of fatuous nonsense that - AT BEST - is simply waving that hand around with an undue emphasis on the term PER.  Per is an IDENTIFIABLE UNIT - OF ANYTHING.  And you can multiply those units or divide them - or store them or do anything at all.   I've explained this before.  PER - the term - strictly means 'for'.  IT IS ALWAYS AND ONLY AN IDENTIFIABLE UNIT OF MEASURE OR OF REFERENCE.

[Rosemary Ainslie]

Continued/...

ENERGY, Joules, is CONSERVED.

Not actually. JOULES is the measure of what  may be delivered or dissipated or stored.  ENERGY may be 'transferred'.  But ENERGY is ALWAYS AND WHOLLY CONSERVED.  Joules - not so much.  LOL. 

ENERGY IN = ENERGY OUT. POWER, Watts, is not necessarily conserved.

Not actually.  The terms POWER and ENERGY are synonymous and interchangeable.  Therefore POWER like ENERGY is WHOLLY CONSERVED.  Watts is NOT POWER.  It is the measured UNIT of power delivered or dissipated or stored over time.

A peak level of 1 kW input power can result in peak output power levels of hundreds of kiloWatts or more if the energy discharges are made FOR very short durations.

Not actually. I kW of INPUT power would ALWAYS be restricted to that same quantity of OUTPUT power.  The only difference would be related to their rate of discharge.  Unless of course TK is accessing free energy.  And in my book there's no such animal.  Bear in mind that a watt is based on a defined unit of measurement.  It is applied in the computation of Joules at the rate of 1 watt per 1 second.  But TK is referring to WATTS in his Kw INPUT analogy.  NOT JOULES.

Take that paragraph to ANY PHYSICIST OR EE ANYWHERE ON EARTH -- or for that matter to 99 percent of the posters ON THIS FORUM --  and ask them to tell you what is right, and what is wrong with it. Go ahead, Ainslie... as you have said to me: I DARE YOU.

And again, MileHigh.   WHY would I want to parade this nonsense in front of anyone at all - let alone our experts?  I just do NOT see the point.  It is simply a whole lot of FATUOUS pretentious nonsense - with terms that are bandied around outside of their standard context.  It is ENTIRELY AND COMPLETELY WRONG.  FROM BEGINNING TO END.

Rosie Pose

[Groundloop]

And he's right. What is it that strikes you as incorrect about that? I'm not having a go, I just want to understand what it is that seems odd - some misunderstanding I think that's easily cleared up.

mrsean2k,

I was an attempt of humor. (Yes I know, my humor is dry like an old capacitor.) :-)

GL.

[Rosemary Ainslie]

@milehigh
The problem is that she is still conflating rate and quantity, or at least using these terms interchangeably in calculations and discussions, whatever her internal mental state of understanding is.

She keeps saying "Watts PER second" when what she actually means is "Watt-seconds". Her use of PER is not as per the dictionary, for this use case. I think she's failing to grasp that Watts is a figure which is always normalised to mean an equivalent per-second rate, and is therefore routinely applied to any period.

Not actually mrsean.  When I refer to watts per second it is in the context of computing JOULES.  There is NO OTHER WAY TO COMPUTE THOSE JOULES.  The calculation of WATTS is described in my post to you which you clearly CANNOT answer.

Rosie Pose

here's that post again for ease of reference.

Since you're now telling me what I think - then let me put in my tuppence worth.  If you are varying the rate at which the energy is applied to that bucket of water then CORRECTLY you would take the first 10 watts and then - over the next 10 seconds of the test under review, you would increase that wattage by 1 watt per second.  So that you would have 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 17 +18 +19 + 20 giving at total of 165 watts over a 10 second time period giving a total of 16.5 watts per second.  And then if you extended that time period and simply and continually applied 20 watts per second - then THEREAFTER - you could talk about a continual applied wattage.  At no stage during that 10 second period where you are adjusting that applied wattage can state that there is 10 watts of energy applied to that circuit.

To continue with this analogy.  IF you applied this 16.5 watts per every 10 seconds - and then stalled the application for a further 90 seconds - and then reapplied that EXACT same quantity of energy - and so on - repeatedly.  And you did this at each 100 second intervals, then the actual wattage would need be factored over that ENTIRE time period - being every 100 seconds.  Because during the 90 seconds when no energy is being applied then the water would NOT be heating at the rate of 16.5 watts per every 10 seconds.  If anything and without the required cladding to that bucket of water - IT WOULD ACTUALLY BE COOLING during 90 percent of that cycle.  Therefore CORRECTLY the ACTUAL wattage APPLIED to that element - in that bucket of water - would need to be factored as 16.5 watts per second for every 10 seconds.  And then zero watts for the next 90 seconds.  Which gives 16.5 watts every 100 seconds.  Which in turn makes the wattage delivered 0.165 watts per second and NOT 16.5 watts per second.  To EVER try and represent the wattage as 16.5 watts is ENTIRELY incorrect.

Watts is first and foremost a UNIT OF POWER OR ENERGY.  IF the term watt is defined as volts x amps - it is because that is correct.  But if the voltage varies or the applied current flow varies over time, that there is NO steadily applied voltage and amperage -  then that variation over time needs must be factored in.  And therefore the analysis of wattage explicitly and implicitly requires TIME.  Any attempt to determine wattage without factoring in TIME is also, by definition NOT therefore 'WATTAGE'.  IT IS THAT SIMPLE FOLKS. Watts and the concept of watts is defined as THE RATE at which energy is delivered or dissipated.  And if you apply a switched cycle - then you most certainly have a voltage that is varying over time.  And time is most certainly therefore required in the analysis of wattage. Instantaneous wattage analysis is ONLY appropriate to steady voltage and amperage values. 

If you are saying that I'm CONFUSED about this mrsean, then I BEG TO DIFFER.

Regards,
Rosemary
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