Matrix Shmatrix...

[ShoobieRat]

matrix wouldnt work cause humans as a power source have a negative ROI

Somewhat true, but we do have devices able to be run off the power that a human generates.

But besides that, if you remember right, they explain that the machines recognized that humans produce something-odd BTU's of heat. A BTU is used when measuring output from heat. So the machines aren't plugging into us...they're using our body's natural ability to produce heat to generate electricity by thermal-electric generators.

To go by the Matrix stroyline, if humans scorced the earth and then the matrix was setup, how where the robots powered while setting up the matrix?

That's a good point...and it opens a lot of routes for questions and answers.

1. They could have run off of alternative sources of power during the sun-shortage, like fusion generators, RTGs, or (in their lack of care for organic life) nuclear detonation electro-pulse generation...to name a few...

2. The machines could have theoretically been working on the "Matrix" for who knows how long, since no one can remember being implanted into the Matrix at the beginning.

3. With such fast-thinking machines, they could probably have built it fairly quickly. And besides, all they had to do was keep their first "crops" alive long enough to sort things out before they plugged everyone into it. Even if it took forty years, they could have pulled it off.

 

[horndude]

ya, but using humans for energy is a net energy loss situation, like I said above, a negative ROI

its like eating mushrooms, you can eat all you want, but you still starve to death if thats all you ate, takes more energy to digest them than they give back

entropy holds true even for animals

 

[ShoobieRat]

True, you would have to have an extremely efficient system to make a human-energy "crop" profitable. But that's besides my point. Even if you could make "The Matrix" happen, it would be stupid to do so.

If you wanted to use life (a great idea, since life self-replicates indeffinately) that's fine, but humans would be dumb to use.

Right now, the International-Space-Station (ISS) has projects underway where vats of biolumenescent plankton kept in tanks, surrounded by photo-electric generators (solar panels), agitated, produces power at astonishing levels.

I would much more believe that humans were wiped out and the machines lived on using the power generated from simple lifeforms, than what "The Matrix" proposed.

Hell, you could create a closed ecosystem, supporting the lives of a billion hampsters on treadmills, without the need for a Matrix (or even one so complex) and still be more energy-profitable than crops of humans in tanks "dreaming."

 

[ShoobieRat]

Funny Flash Matrix spoof:
http://www.illwillpress.com/freemind.html

You Foamy fans will recognize this.

 

[horndude]

they use plankton on the ISS for the same reason the earth relies on diatoms,plankton,and other life forms and the sun stimulated carbon cycle--> oxygen production and waste removal/conversion,still w/o energy from the sun, it wont work

All Im saying is, without an outside energy source, matrix wont work, humans or any other life form w/o energy input from somewhere is a loss situation, again, entropy laws, and thats the premise of the whole movie, all the efficiency in the world wont overcome that, still an interesting movie, but like most hollywood stuff and sci-fi/fanstasy it wont work.The machines would have been ok using fossil fuel,solar, or any other energy source.

 

[ShoobieRat]

The O-scrub and oxygen production tanks aren't what I was talking about.