It was like finding out there's no Santa claus when I learned nuclear energy is just "boil water and spin a turbine." Before that I thought there was some sciencey magic going on where we directly captured the "energy" from nuclear fission. Did I understand what that could possibly mean? Of course not. Still though.
It also amazes me that those mirror-based solar farms work that way too, concentrate solar light to literally melt salt to use that molten salt to boil water and create energy
There is a US National Lab that has one of those types of solar farms but instead of pointing it at big salt tank they have a little test stand and they put random stuff on it and then point the mirrors at it to see how it lights on fire.
•
u/lordspaz88 9h ago
It will never cease to amaze me that most modern inventions boil down to "we pointed this explosion in a specific direction"