>From:    "March, Jim" <[log in to unmask]>
 
>>4. On the basis of what goes in must come out, 120 lbs is quite a large
>>pile of poop in the corner :)
>Now, I know that's not right...*most* of it never leaves the fert, it gets
>"spent" in energy... How efficient is a fertgut, anyhow?
 
I guess that 3 semesters of physics here at Cornell haven't been a TOTAL
waste...
 
Jim, you are correct that some mass is "spent" as energy.  The relationship
between energy (E) and mass (M) is E = MC^2 (E equals MC squared).  The
problem here is that C (the speed of light) is a very big number, 3x10^8
meters/sec.
 
For a ferret to use up 120 lbs, or about 55kg of mass as energy would
require "spending" 4,950,000,000,000,000,000 Joules of energy.  At 1 million
Joules a day, it would take about 5 trillion years to burn that much energy.
That's one hyper ferret.
 
Bill - "Ok Cedric, say you and Alex are moving in opposite directions at .6C
towards a raisin.  If you each weigh 5kg, what is the mass of the resulting
fuzzball when you collide.  Assume that the raisin is massless."
 
Alexander - "Did someone say raisin?"
Cedric - "It'd be like 13kg.  13kg fuzzballs are cool!"
[Posted in FML issue 1746]