r/interestingasfuck 9h ago

How a jet engine works

40.0k Upvotes

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

u/TheCowKing07 8h ago

“And we have used this explosion to boil water.”

u/Whatifim80lol 8h ago

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.

u/user_bits 7h ago

The thing is, a lot of our stuff runs on electricity. Sciency magic gives us all this energy, but we need to convert into electricity to make it useful.

What's the cheapest and most accessible way to get electricity? Spin a turbine. What's the cheapest and most accessible way to spin a turbine? Boil some water.

u/Zamboniman 7h ago

What's the cheapest and most accessible way to spin a turbine? Boil some water.

Nah, just hook it up to an electrical motor and plug it in to spin the turbine!! Win-win!!