eli5 How is it that things on earth can be “hotter than the surface of the sun”? If the sun is giving energy to basically everything on earth, wouldn’t any earth-item or organism only be able to mimic a fraction of the sun’s energy/power output?
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The average energy received by earth would be less than the average energy output by the sun***. But we can exceed the average energy by collecting and concentrating it into a smaller volume in space time.
To see an ELI5 analogy of this, think of handing out 1$ to everyone that passes you on the street (and this is the only source of money in the world). Is it possible for anyone to go purchase a 10$ item? Yes, if ten people pool their money into one person’s wallet. Also yes, if that one person passes you ten times and saves his money over time.
***Caveat, the earth itself is made up of stored energy in the form of mass and heat. We can convert this mass back into energy in nuclear reactors, extracting energy and heat from a non-solar source. For example, heavy elements like uranium release high amounts of excess energy when split. We can extract the Earth’s internal heat as well for a non-solar source.
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