thermalization

If the reactor avoids the slowing down, "thermalization" of neutrons, there are sufficient excess neutrons that it is possible to convert more 238U to

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run 2009

Thermodynamics assures you that the CO2 is always at the temperature of the heat bath as long as the collisional thermalization step is rapid and it is.

Rabett Run EliRabett 2009

The advantage of things like solar photovoltaic cells or concentrating solar thermal systems is that they capture the photons before thermalization at Earth's surface, and so the energy they capture is at much lower entropy-per-unit-energy, and can do much more useful work.

Rabett Run EliRabett 2009

The point of entropy creation is when the energy gets thermalized, and the higher the temperature of thermalization, the lower the quantity of entropy per unit energy/heat - obviously from the deltaQ/T relation, though it's not intuitive.

Rabett Run EliRabett 2009

What the GHG's allow is energy capture by the surface at a *higher* temperature than the final emission temperature, resulting in an opportunity to use some of the Sun's energy in a useful way rather than just sending it back into space after immediate thermalization.

Rabett Run EliRabett 2009

You don't really *need* GHG's to provide Earth with free energy - if plants could somehow have developed at 255 K, they also capture photons before thermalization: green plants like solar power also allow for entropy increase in the Earth system with or without GHG's.

Rabett Run EliRabett 2009

So by raising Earth's surface temperature, GHG's allow thermalization of incoming solar at a higher temperature and therefore lower entropy per unit input energy, and therefore leave lots of room for more entropy creation before the energy leaves the planet again.

Rabett Run EliRabett 2009

As a result there is a coarse grained thermalization of states and decoherence.

Science and Unobservable Things Sean 2008

The thermalization time to reach equilibrium with the surfaces of oceans are several years.

NAS Panel Report « Climate Audit 2006

If the thermalization is slower, the interference pattern will be predicted at an unshifted place - because gravity only arises from the thermalization in his picture - which will contradict the observations that the phases and interference patterns are exactly as shifted as the equivalence principle predicts.

The Reference Frame 2010