Re: [Phys-l] pistol shrimp

["Rick Tarara" <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

I think the answer to your questions is wrapped up in the difference between 
temperature and thermal energy (usually called heat, although some 
physicists violently object to that terminology).  Staying at the 
intro-physics level (which is all I'm really capable of anymore), is that 
TEMPERATURE is a measure of the average translational kinetic energy PER 
MOLECULE due to random motion.  The thermal energy (heat) is roughly the 
measure of the total kinetic energy of all the molecules.  This is why a 
swimming pool at 1 degree Celsius has a much larger thermal energy content 
than a cup of boiling water.  One talks about the temperature of a few, even 
a single molecule, but the energy of such is very small.  Again this is how 
the plasma inside a Tokomak fusion generator can reach millions of degrees 
without melting the entire building.

I don't know anything specific about the shrimp here, but the high 
temperatures being discussed involve a very small amount of material.  We 
are not talking about boiling the ocean waters.

Rick

***************************
Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
******************************
Free Physics Software
PC & Mac
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Grandy" <rgrandy@rice.edu>
To: "Forum for Physics Educators" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 11:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] pistol shrimp


> I may well be wrong, and I am not a physicist. But I would like to
> hear from some of the physics people on the list about  what happens
> if you have an undersea region at 20,000K.  And then multiply that by
> lots of these pistol shrimp killing prey day by day.  I think someone
> would have noticed.
>
> Or maybe someone can explain the thermodynamics of these little
> shrimp producing 20,000K temperatures in a non-negligible region.
>
> My money is  100-1 spoof.
>
>
> REG
>
>
>
> > Sonoluminescence--Wikipedia
> > "More than 50 years later, in 1989, a major advancement in research
> > was introduced by Felipe Gaitan and Lawrence Crum, who were able to
> > produce stable single-bubble sonoluminescence (SBSL). In SBSL, a
> > single bubble, trapped in an acoustic standing wave, emits a pulse of
> > light with each compression of the bubble within the standing wave.
> > This technique allowed a more systematic study of the phenomenon,
> > because it isolated the complex effects into one stable, predictable
> > bubble. It was realized that the temperature inside the bubble was
> > hot enough to melt steel. Interest in sonoluminescence was renewed
> > when an inner temperature of such a bubble well above one million
> > Kelvins was postulated. This temperature is thus far not conclusively
> > proven, though recent experiments conducted by the University of
> > Illinois at Urbana-Champaign indicate temperatures around 20,000
> > Kelvins."
> >
> > Surface temperature of sun approx 6000 K
> >
> > If it is sonluminexcence the claim is not a spoof.
> >
> > VL
> >
> > On Dec 3, 2008, at 10:58 PM, Richard Grandy wrote:
> >
> > >  You  didn't listen closely enough, the clip says that the shrimp
> > >  produces temperatures equal to that of the sun!  I think the
> > >  technical name for the mechanism is "spoofing".
> > >
> > > >  A student send me this video clip. Scroll down to "Play Video"
> > > >  It's of a
> > > >  shrimp that produces a sound so loud it produces light -- and a water
> > > >  temperature of several thousand degrees! Amazing! How is this
> > > >  possible?
> > > >
> > > >  http://community.atom.com/Post/The-Most-Disturbing-Animals-on-
> > > >  Earth/03EFBFFFF0182C7B8000800A5BDC5/
> > > >
> > > >
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