Talk:Purdue University Reactor Number One

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A fact from Purdue University Reactor Number One appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 10 October 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Indiana's only nuclear reactor (pictured) has the energy output of a toaster?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2012/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Purdue University Reactor Number One.

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A toaster has no energy output friends — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.57.244.85 (talk) 17:53, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it does. The toaster takes energy from the electricity and outputs it via heat transfer to the bread and its surroundings. The reactor does the same thing, except that the energy comes from the potential energy within the nucleus instead of from electricity. And instead of bread there's a pool of water. Brian the Editor (talk) 19:54, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to add that the article doesn't even speak in the first place of the power output of a toaster. It says that the Purdue reactor's maximum output in comparable to the "energy demands" of a toaster (the requisite input in order to do its job), etc, which is to give the lay reader a familiar scale by which to comprehend the Reactor's magnitude of operation.

That said, what Brian the Editor said is spot-on: there's no such thing as power in without power out. Even in cases where power in does work on a system to store energy as potential, fact is that when the potential is summoned to do work on-demand there is clearly power out; furthermore the act of raising the system's potential energy won't be 100% efficient, so there'll be some heat loss to the environment -power out- even before the stored energy is put to work.

Generally speaking, a toaster cannot do work of any kind on a slice of bread without power going out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.130.60 (talk) 02:41, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]