this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 85 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Every electric device is a heater. Some just do other things too.

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 60 points 2 months ago (6 children)

A brushless motor only converts ~5% of its input to heat. That's low enough that you can reasonably call it a side effect.

Now, a computer, that's a heater that happens to produce math as a side effect. 100% of its input ends up as heat.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

math as a side effect

That's a funny way of spelling porn

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 months ago

Fun fact! Your porn machine can also be used to shitpost.

[–] lonefighter@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I love firing up my PC and gaming on cold winter nights. A well placed fan or two and I can spread it through my entire apartment and the heat won't kick on all night. Ends up saving me money, my heater costs way more than my PC to run.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like your cold winter nights are not very cold.

[–] lonefighter@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

It goes down well below freezing here. My apartment is small.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

By "well below" do you mean -30? Or do you mean -5? Either way, you must have much better insulation than I do, because I have multi-kilowatt heaters and even on not-so-cold days my poor PC can't compete, no matter how hard I game.

[–] lonefighter@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago

Like anywhere from -15 to -4 C (around 5-25 F). I also keep it around 15 C (60 F) in my apartment to keep heating costs lower so it doesn't need to get super warm to keep my thermostat from kicking on.

[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

It all becomes heat eventually in the end though. Sometimes it's just a multi step complex process outside the physical bounds of the heater.

Wait a sec, is the universe just God's space heater?

[–] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 months ago

Depends on the god.

[–] potpotato@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

In god’s universe it is winter and that’s why the earth is heating up. It says so right in Ecclesiasties. Boom, toasted climate change nerds.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

Yes, what is that motor doing? If it's a drill, it's spinning a drill bit and that drill bit generates a lot of friction when it tries to make a hole in something, and that friction generates heat. If it's spinning a tire, that tire generates a lot of friction with the road.

[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 months ago

It might output the results of a computation once in a while though

[–] Tiger_Man_@szmer.info 1 points 2 months ago

if you dont count powering i/o devices (other heaters) (or electromagnetic wave emmiters so heaters with extra steps)

[–] janakali@lemmy.4d2.org 1 points 2 months ago

Main effect of a brushless motor is moving matter really fast, which, on a molecular level, is same as heating it.

[–] SorryQuick@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago

Indeed we’ve plugged in a bitcoin miner to our central heating and now heating is “free”. I’m not sure how profitable it is when you’re not using the heat though.