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Physics Mysteries
150 questions answered by our physicists
Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
In my search for an answer to this question, I came across the 6% rule. This is a fairly simple rule that empirically (i.e., from experience) determines that every 1 °C decrease in temperature leads to a 6% reduction in…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
The highest energy consumption in a household comes from appliances that produce heat and/or cooling. So it typically involves heating, air conditioning, stoves, cookers, microwaves, or kettles. Based on how much the dev…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Generally, it's hard to say. The development of technology is influenced by more aspects than just a physical perspective. In any case, hydrogen appears to be a suitable fuel for two reasons — it has the highest calorifi…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Previously, electricity generation was centralized because building a power plant was expensive in terms of finance, technology, and materials. Therefore, power plants were initially built either in locations where the r…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
With the rapid development of renewable energy sources and their connection to the transmission system, new requirements for its operation have emerged. For us as consumers, they're not really new — we expect to have ele…
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Edita Bromova
Its name means "indivisible". This concept was introduced some 400 years before our era by the Greek scholar Democritus, who was considering whether matter could be divided indefinitely or not. He came to the conclusion…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Because the largest portion of household consumption is related to heating, the most effective way is to focus on all appliances that produce heat (or remove it — air conditioning). If we want to consume as little heat a…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Rather than discovering a new element, it's more likely that we will create a new element. We have not observed all elements with an atomic number higher than 94 (i.e., with more protons in the nucleus than plutonium has…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
In every power plant, we convert a selected form of energy into electrical energy. In principle, we use 3 main forms of energy — kinetic energy, light energy, and thermal energy. We most often use thermal energy, both in…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Using the example of the planned construction of new units at the Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant, it can be estimated that the investment made will return at least fourfold over the lifespan of the nuclear power plant, eve…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Technically, it already was and is feasible but the problem lies in the economic aspect. Simply put, radioactive waste can be disposed of quite safely by launching it into Earth's orbit and then "shooting" it out of the…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Because these are estimates, several different scenarios can be found and they are quite different. In principle, I believe we can expect energy consumption to increase, particularly due to the rise in energy consumption…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
The development and expansion of energy storage systems are closely tied to the transition toward renewable energy sources. Renewables supply energy only under suitable environmental conditions (when the sun shines or th…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Let me first clarify that by fuel consumption, I mean the total energy use across all sectors, not just electricity generation. This distinction is important especially for oil, which is used primarily in transportation…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
It's impossible to give a precise answer for several reasons. Global energy consumption is still growing, new fossil fuel deposits may be discovered, extraction efficiency from existing reserves can improve, and previous…
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Jan Jirmus
Physics in the kitchen Everyone knows that water boils at 100 °C. That's true – but only at the air pressure we have "at sea level." If the pressure is increased, water doesn't start boiling at 100 °C but at a higher tem…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Why is this the case? Satellite reception is provided (unsurprisingly) by satellites — transmitters that orbit the Earth. One satellite that we are all familiar with is the Moon. It also orbits the Earth. Its period (the…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Gravitational force depends on the mass of Earth (6 × 1024 kg) and its radius (6,378 km), while centrifugal force depends on the radius of rotation (i.e., the radius of Earth) and the square of the speed—in the cas…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
We can determine the value of the force of gravity from Newton's law of gravity, from which we can also determine the value of the gravitational field intensity around each body. We all know from experience that if we th…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Because food contains water, it evaporates. The rate of evaporation depends on the temperature, so if the temperature in the refrigerator increases, more water will evaporate from all the stored food. Water will also eva…
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