Coffee powered engine!

[Robin Hood]

Runs on hot coffee or ice cubes! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd7nLOEsqj8

[spidergoat]

I wonder how much energy you could get from a $1.50 bag of ice from the store.

[mikenostic]

I wonder if it would run harder/faster if they put espresso in it instead of regular coffee. Haha.

[EmmZ]

So if energy is naturally entropic what does that mean in terms of the universe? Does it mean it isn't really expanding but sort of melting, or that it's expanding in a non uniform way, much like the way the ice cube was melting? Does it mean that once the entropic energy of the universe is exhausted it will all just collapse in a big sloppy mess? And is this a stupid question?

[Oli]

So if energy is naturally entropic what does that mean in terms of the universe?
One possibility:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe


Does it mean it isn't really expanding but sort of melting, or that it's expanding in a non uniform way, much like the way the ice cube was melting?
It is expanding, but different parts are in different states.


Does it mean that once the entropic energy of the universe is exhausted it will all just collapse in a big sloppy mess?
Not exactly a "sloppy mess" but everywhere the same (low) temperature, all smoothed out in terms of energy.
No usable energy anywhere.


And is this a stupid question?
No.

[ElectricFetus]

Stirling engines have been around for a long LONG time.

[EmmZ]

I realise this is may be the wrong place to ask this, but it can be moved if it is.

So, assuming the energy in the universe is entropically expanding (if that's even the correct term) what is it expanding into? Is space infinite? Once this universe expands to a point all the energy is in a state of a "dilute gas of photons and leptons" will this cause the universe to stay in that state indefinitely or will the gas begin to contact to an infinitesimal point and then explode again? And so on and so forth. So in 10^100 years everything will die? Doesn't that contradict the law of conservation of energy? Or does it just mean the kinetic energy of the universe with slow down to a very low thermal energy? Again, I'm really conscious these may be very apparent and daft questions to you lot, bare with me. :)

[Oli]

Current theories are that the expansion will continue (but AFAIK it's a fairly close-run thing between that and possible contraction).
And yes, everything will die, the energy will be spread around everywhere and unusable.
It's not a contradiction so much as a confirmation: where energy is high (starts, say) it will eventually "flow" into volumes where it is low or non-existent - and average out over the entire universe.
Thus if energy at point A is exactly the same as it is at point B no work will be able to be done with that energy since it only goes one way to produce work - high to low.

[ptvo]

I wonder if it would run harder/faster if they put espresso in it instead of regular coffee. Haha.
Haha this is a good one