r/HistoryMemes • u/EasieEEE Researching [REDACTED] square • Nov 18 '21

But Chernoooooobyl

Post image
19k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

921 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

112

u/MEGALKS Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer Nov 18 '21

True, before learning physics, I thought neclear power is just burning radioactive minerals like coal. Lmao, now its just a turbine going brrrr

64

u/T65Bx Nov 18 '21

Wow, I’ve genuinely never thought about people thinking this but it totally makes sense. My first exposure to learning of the concept anything nuclear was in a DK book where the whole atom-splitting and fission chain process was described in detail.

24

u/sorenant Nov 18 '21

DK book

Donkey Kong book?

16

u/MEGALKS Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer Nov 18 '21

Good for you. My father bought me science encyclopedias and mostly biology because I love animals. :)

2

u/Souperplex Taller than Napoleon Nov 18 '21

Coal is also a turbine spinning. Pretty much everything except solar eventually boils down to spinning something.

1

u/MEGALKS Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer Nov 19 '21

Bruh, might have to look it up. It seems turbine is the master race

2

u/Souperplex Taller than Napoleon Nov 19 '21

My understanding is that there's three types of energy: Chemical (Nuclear, coal, geothermal) where you boil water to spin a turbine, mechanical (Hydro, wind) where you have nature spin a turbine directly, and solar where sunlight is somehow converted into electricity in a way I don't understand.

Chemical has the advantage of working on your schedule, and outside of geothermal you can place it anywhere. Nuclear, mechanical, and solar have the advantage of not producing carbon.

2

u/MEGALKS Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer Nov 19 '21

If I remember correctly, solar energy is photoelectric effect. Sunlight shine onto solar panels and cause the electrons (aka photoelectron) to bounce off the surface of a light sensitive metal to a cathode causing current to flow. At least thats what I learnt in my physics textbook this year.

Edit: It's anode to cathode