Matrix and the third law of thermodynamics......

OK, I'm in a debate with my firend about the Third law of Thermodynamics and the Matrix He says

That the matrix violates the third law of thermodynamics as to maintain the system of humans would require every joule of energy released by the system to be put back into feeding the system.

If energy could be utilized by other sources (ie robots) and some lost as is inevitable (ie entropy) than the continued existance of the system would requre an input of energy, otherwise it would imply that energy was being created thus violating the third law of thermodynamics.

I say:-
That the earth is not a closed system, as assumed above. Other energies are available.

Penny for your thoughts?

There is always the energy of the sun, or electromagnetic forces/energy from the cosmos.
I do not know how they could be adequately employed in the Matrix world, but there are possibilities.

It wasnt said that it was employed but if they were what would be the benifit of maintaining the matrix a self sustaining system at the vert best, but likely in reality a energy draining system. Logicly the whole premise is bunk.

No, there's no such thing as a *completely* closed system.

It would be interesting to see some calculations, cause obviously, you can't prove anything without solid numbers to back it. numbers you can both agree on. Maybe gibbs free energy.

It could be that humans perform the conversion of an abundant resource to one that is not so abundant: Food->Energy.

Why is your friend assuming that the energy required to maintain the matrix is equal to the energy produced by the encapsulated humans? The machines most likely use some percentage of the energy to sustain the matrix, and are still left with some surplus for their own usage.

My Sexy Blue Feet said:

If energy could be utilized by other sources (ie robots) and some lost as is inevitable (ie entropy) than the continued existance of the system would requre an input of energy, otherwise it would imply that energy was being created thus violating the third law of thermodynamics.

Click to expand...

I believe it was established in the movies that the sun was no longer available as a power source through some action (undefined) of an earlier generation of humans. I think though, it could be argued that there are plenty of potential energy sources available to the robots (especially since concern for the environment at that point is moot). They'd have nuclear, wind, thermal (the same source accessed by "zion" if I recall) at the very least, that doesn't even account for newly discovered sources.

There are hundreds of plot-holes in The Matrix series but I don't think power for the machines is one of them.

If I am not mistaken, in the first movie (the only one I have seen) when Morpheus is showing Neo the "fields of humans" he mentions that this energy combined with fusion provides the machines all the power they need.

But the bottom line, using humans as power cells is a crappy and inefficient way of running anything other than a bicycle.

I guess the ultimate point is this:

With the many, many alternatives available to the machines (even without the sun), humans make a REALLY crappy power source. In the context of the movie, humans are the only biological power source that can actually fight back. Why not just destroy the matrix and use the other (better) sources?

Even if biological energy was needed (for whatever reason) why not use ardvarks? or sheep? ANY other animal would be better.

lol

Sheep would certainly be more pliable to the demands of the machines, true!

Neo, the aardvark.

humans are 1% energy efficient, are we good or what??

in the third movie, you see that the clouds dont go too far up, large towers could be built with solar panels in the top, maybe with lightning rods to harness the power of the lightning in the clouds

(btw, we need to put this thread in sci-fi, all those nerds'll go nuts)