Thermodynamics and the Matrix (no Reloaded Spoilers)

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » 2003-05-16 04:37pm

Could a human being really be used as a battery?

Let's take a look at the numbers:

A normal adult human (averaging, say, 70kg for both sexes) has a total useful chemical energy potential of about 500MJ. Of course, the emaciated weakling people in the Matrix pods will have significantly less muscle and virtually no fat - so let's say 300MJ. Compare this to the ongoing costs of keeping each person alive - heating to protect from the brutal nuclear winter, waste filtration, food distribution, Matrix runtime, not to mention the roughly 3MJ of chemical food energy per day required to maintain basic life functions.

Even if we assume that all of the other factors are an insignificant fraction of the food costs, and that the machines can somehow rehabilitate 99% of the low-grade heat produced by the human body, the average person will be a net sink of energy after only 30 years in the system (50 for a normal person)!

Of course, this all assumes that we are dealing with a full-grown adult being inserted into the Matrix - if the person is born in the system, you don't even get to count them as an energy reserve, meaning they are a sink from day one.

If we go with the war scenario described in the first film by Morpheus, and go on to assume that 5 billion people somehow survived the nuclear holocaust and were successfully inserted into the Matrix, that means that the machines have a total energy reserve of no more than 2.5e18J.

If Morpheus is right, and the machines have been using humans as fuel for ~200 years, that means their annual human-based energy production cannot possibly exceed ~1e16J - an average output of less than 400MW.

For comparison, the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Clarington, ON produces about 3500MW.

Summary:

1)Even if the 2nd law of thermodynamics takes a vacation, using humans as an energy source will give the machines a miniscule amount of energy. Building a single CANDU nuclear power plant would increase their total power output almost tenfold.

2) It is in fact far more likely that keeping all of those people alive will be a collosal net energy sink.

Conclusion: Coppertop, my ass.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-05-16 04:39pm

And the Death Star's reactor is millions of times more dense than a black hole.

It's sci-fi. Don't obsess so much.

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2003-05-16 04:43pm

It would never work, it's a stupid idea. Anyway, there's no reason why the machines couldn't build a few nuclear plants. They even wouldn't have to care that much about possible radiation. I haven't seen reloaded yet, and it probably confirms that idiocy, but my favourite theory was that the info humans have about the utility of the matrix is wrong.

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2003-05-16 04:45pm

SirNitram wrote:And the Death Star's reactor is millions of times more dense than a black hole.

It's sci-fi. Don't obsess so much.

Yes, but that can be stated to be so far advanced from our technology that any thing is possible. That's not the case in The Matrix. Getting your energy from human body heat is stupid.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-05-16 04:47pm

Its been ages...wasnt it mentioned the humans are used in conjuction with some sort of fusion proccess....the humans were used as a sort of jump start for it.....

I cant really remember it's been an age since I saw it....

Queeb Salaron · Post by **Queeb Salaron** » 2003-05-16 04:51pm

SirNitram wrote:And the Death Star's reactor is millions of times more dense than a black hole.

It's sci-fi. Don't obsess so much.

Yeah, but don't the blueprints of the Death Star offer some kind of compensation for all that density? The Matrix example doesn't seem to have any fallback.

But I suppose that's the "fi" part of sci-fi, now isn't it?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-05-16 04:53pm

Keevan_Colton wrote:Its been ages...wasnt it mentioned the humans are used in conjuction with some sort of fusion proccess....the humans were used as a sort of jump start for it.....

I cant really remember it's been an age since I saw it....

Yeah, you're right. The human body was stated to be combined "with a form of fusion" to generate the energy. That's the closest thing to a justification there is.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2003-05-16 05:07pm

I still think that the collection of waste heat and such from the humans trapped inside of the Matrix should be considered a method of helping to "break even" on the energy costs of keeping them alive. Rather like the moisture suits of Dune, they don't retain 100% of your body moisture (and certainly don't manage 101%), they do allow you to keep going much longer than you would out there alone.

The only problem with this is what would the machines then be using the humans for which the average moviegoer would see as being "really evil"? I mean, reducing humanity to a giant car battery is really evil, most people would agree, especially since dead people are fed back to the living. What could take the place of that? Without a reason to keep their mortal enemies around and in the Matrix, it just becomes a cheap copy of the plotline from Terminator, where Skynet (01) wins, wipes out humanity, and proceeds to just rule the Earth. You know, 'cause that's the thing to do.

What would the machines of the Matrix do at this point anyway? They're obviously emotional on some level, their AI is essentially AS for all intents and purposes. Do they want to explore? Spread throughout the universe? Why haven't they gone into space? These things beg for answers...

Yeah, yeah, I'm overthinking an action movie, so sue me.

I had a similar story I was writing before the movie even came out, with some serious differences (primarily that the machines in this case were benevolent, and saw themselves as the caretakers of humanity until the planet's ecosystem could be restored to the point where it was safe to live on the surface again).

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-05-16 05:09pm

Actually, another possible explanation for the use of human batteries is to reverse the roles of man and machine. The machines may want to turn the tables just to satiate their desire to dominate over those who had formerly dominated over them.

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » 2003-05-16 05:14pm

The human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy they would ever need.

Isn't that rather like saying that a lump of dogshit combined with $200,000 will get me a house?

Tthe implication is clear: that the human body "generates" energy and that this generation is a significant component of their energy production, sufficient to justify the construction and maintenance of the Matrix.

Which is stupid.

The only real question is: is Morpheus stupid or is it the script?

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2003-05-16 05:24pm

my bet is that the first ais were theather types, and thus had to learn higher intelligence. thats how they got to be ais - theather is much harder then just juggling numbers. so the machines, carrying over their old programming, much prefer poetic irony to real effeciency - I mean, listen how smith talks! its like a practice for a movie script, making sure he gets every line!

Uther · Post by **Uther** » 2003-05-16 06:52pm

Human aggression and arrogance caused the AI/Human war. After the war, the machines had moral compunctions against genocide, but realized letting humanity free would inevitably result in another war. So they created the Matrix. Mankind is reasonably happy and will never trouble the machines again. Humans like Morpheus are uncomfortable with the fact that not only did man start the war, but the victorious machines did not even stoop to genocide, as the humans would undoubtedly have done. The AI found a more palatable solution. The power extraction is a secondary function. That's my explanation.

NapoleonGH · Post by **NapoleonGH** » 2003-05-16 07:01pm

Which is supported by the canonical Animatrix first two episodes, The Second Renaissance I and II

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-05-16 07:06pm

Actually, we don't really see who starts the physical war in the Second Renaissance shorts. This fits in with Morpheus' words in the first film ("we don't know who struck first"). The first short ends with the nations of Man practicing economic warfare against 01, and the second short begins with the war in full swing. So we still don't know who started it, inbetween.

NapoleonGH · Post by **NapoleonGH** » 2003-05-16 07:10pm

we started it before 01 remember, with killing all the AI we could get our hands on. THEN the actual killing in the second part we dont know, but economic war is war.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-05-16 07:18pm

NapoleonGH wrote:we started it before 01 remember, with killing all the AI we could get our hands on. THEN the actual killing in the second part we dont know, but economic war is war.

There is a very important distinction between economic warfare and physical, conventional warfare. While evidence does point to the humans starting the physical war, the fact remains that it is indeed possible that the machines started it. In any case, the movies likely supercede the shorts and should be looked to for answers before the shorts. And there is no real contradiction between Morpheus' words and what the shorts show us, anyway.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-05-16 07:36pm

Here is where I debated about the power thing, it's a couple of pages ongoing, but some don't buy what I say.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-05-17 02:51am

Are these people too fucking stupid to know what the Carnot cycle is? The amount of heat energy you can recover from a human body is a miniscule fraction of its total heat output. You will put FAR more work into maintaining that body than you will EVER get out in terms of recoverable heat energy.

News flash: the heat energy of a warm body is not 100% recoverable, even in theory. If a warm body is generating heat at such a rate that it achieves thermal equilibrium with its environment at a mere 38 degrees C, and the environmental temperature is, say, 15 degrees C, then you are dumping heat at only 23 degrees below the the peak temp, even assuming a PERFECT PROCESS.

Since Carnot cycle efficiency is (1-Tc/Th) where Tc is the cold temp and Th is the hot temp of the system, we are talking about a MAXIMUM POSSIBLE EFFICIENCY of (1-288/311), since we use Kelvin. That's roughly 7.4%, folks. A typical human at rest generates perhaps 100W if I recall correctly, which means that with an assumed average global ambient temp (hence dump temp) of 15 degrees C, the most any system can THEORETICALLY draw from a human body's heat generation, even with a PERFECT process, is less than EIGHT FUCKING WATTS.

Sorry, but when you need more than 8 people to power a single 60W lightbulb, this is a pretty goddamned useless power generation system.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2003-05-17 03:00am

This is why Morpheus says "combined with a form of fusion" to explain how the machines generate power.

NapoleonGH · Post by **NapoleonGH** » 2003-05-17 01:03pm

they also talk of taking electrical energy directly from our neuro-electric impulses.

I happen to subscribe to the idea that there is either another purpose of the matrix, or the machines like the idea of enslaving mankind.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-05-17 01:17pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:This is why Morpheus says "combined with a form of fusion" to explain how the machines generate power.

Which as I pointed out in the article, is like asking a 747 pilot what powers the plane and he reponds "an elastic band combined with 4 gas turbines". Guess which gets the plane off the ground.

But really, some people need to learn their basics in physics here, I can't believe I was arguing with someone who thought the Matrix wasn't a perpetual motion device or didn't see any problem in this.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-05-17 01:51pm

Hmm...

Could the Matrix also work for the machines as a way of recovering some of the human technology? Because the machines didn't even have fission power when the war started; and after the war, if they captured fission and fusion power plants, they wouldn't know how to use them. So here's the Matrix; they plug the people who designed and the people who operated those plants into it, and voila, they have a perfect way of seeing what the humans do.

Of course, that's just rambling and doesn't address Morpheus's crazy dialog about batteries, but whatever...

Starscream · Post by **Starscream** » 2003-05-17 02:22pm

Uther wrote:Human aggression and arrogance caused the AI/Human war. After the war, the machines had moral compunctions against genocide, but realized letting humanity free would inevitably result in another war. So they created the Matrix. Mankind is reasonably happy and will never trouble the machines again. Humans like Morpheus are uncomfortable with the fact that not only did man start the war, but the victorious machines did not even stoop to genocide, as the humans would undoubtedly have done. The AI found a more palatable solution. The power extraction is a secondary function. That's my explanation.

That was what I was thinking, perhaps the people that built the artificial intelligences were afraid that the machines would just kill off everybody, but also wanted the AIs to be able to defend themselves, sort of like a looser modified 3 Laws of Robotics in Asimov's novels. The machines killed just as many as was necessary to end the war between the AIs and humans, then plugged the rest into the matrix. Of course, dialog between Neo and the agents blows that theory away, since the agents obviously consider humans only useful as batteries. I also thought the idea presented in the first Matrix that all the machines were powered by solar cells was pretty lame.

Starscream · Post by **Starscream** » 2003-05-17 02:25pm

Crayz9000 wrote:Hmm...

Could the Matrix also work for the machines as a way of recovering some of the human technology? Because the machines didn't even have fission power when the war started; and after the war, if they captured fission and fusion power plants, they wouldn't know how to use them. So here's the Matrix; they plug the people who designed and the people who operated those plants into it, and voila, they have a perfect way of seeing what the humans do.

Of course, that's just rambling and doesn't address Morpheus's crazy dialog about batteries, but whatever...

People have to learn how to operate machinery to, and I would assume that most of that information would be aviable in computer databases, and therefore easily accessable to the AIs.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2003-05-17 02:32pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:
DPDarkPrimus wrote:This is why Morpheus says "combined with a form of fusion" to explain how the machines generate power.
Which as I pointed out in the article, is like asking a 747 pilot what powers the plane and he reponds "an elastic band combined with 4 gas turbines". Guess which gets the plane off the ground.

Note my usage of smilies.