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by mdturnerphys 3977 days ago
If we're playing that game:

- Human muscles get energy from food.

- Food is or gets its energy from plants.

- Plants get energy from the Sun.

- The Sun's energy comes from gravity-forced fusion.

So gravity :)

3 comments

Stars are the original GravityLight.
Good point, but it's not the end. Fusion uses up energy put there by the Big Bang :)
The Big Bang came from....gravity?
Is this the science consensus? I thought it's one of competing unconfirmed theories?
i believe it is very much the consensus.

the FLRW model of cosmology, which has made numerous confirmed predictions teaches us that the big bang is a geometric property of space-time i.e. a consequence gravity, and particularly Einstein's field equation from general relativity.

So by your logic fossil fuel is solar energy.
It is, it's just massively time-shifted.

It's interesting to put that in perspective: the pyramids were built out of solar energy by way of muscle. Skyscrapers are built out of solar energy mostly by way of diesel fuel.

Fossil fuel is a solar battery; charged in a couple hundred million years, humans will drain it in ~500.

No wonder we're seeing exponential growth with that injection of stored energy into society. The industrial revolution is a coal-powered nitro.

Checkout this explanation of fire by Richard Feynman - its a really eye opening perspective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1pIYI5JQLE

He explains the light of a fire is just the light of the Sun, it's just been stored in the wood

By causality, it kinda is.
It is. Except for geothermal energy brought on by radioactive decay, all energy on earth originally comes from the sun. Fossil fuel is sunlight that was absorbed by plants which then either decomposed into fuel over millions of years, or were eaten by animals which later decomposed into fuel over millions of years. Our cars are powered by very old, stored sunlight.
And radioactive elements come from long dead suns, so all energy on earth originally comes from A sun.
You are now qualified to take a job as an oil company or nuclear energy lobbyist.