In "Back to the Future", the 1955 Doc freaks out when he finds out that he must generate 1.21 gigawatts to power his time machine. How much is 1.21 gigawatts? Like, how many regular light bulbs does that equal? Why is it unreasonable to find a source of this much energy in 1955 but not 1985?
2007-02-09 06:06:57 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
Nuclear reactors to produce electricity usually put out between 500 megawatt and 1 gigawatt; so 1.21 gigawatt is a huge value, but not totally crazy. What is delicate is to get it in a package that is not the size of a large house. For the record, power is not energy, the professor never mentioned for how long he required that 1.21 GW, and a bank of high discharge condenser can provide that much power for a very short time. There are lasers that are used in high energy physics that emit very short pulses (very short, like nanosecond) that reach the terawatt level, which is in the 1000's of gigawatt.
A regular light bulb is around 100 watt, so 1.21 gigawatt (billion of watt) is enough to power to light up 12.1 million light bulb.
And for the record, Michale Dine C is way off about the movie Back to the Future having a made up name. The proper prononciation for gigawatt is as Christopher Lloyd was pronouncing it, the hard G only became popular after giga bytes started being used in the computer industry, which was years after the movie was made. Since giga derives from the Greek, where it is pronounced "jiga" (from the same root that gave the word giant) in English both pronounciation are accepted, but in other languages, it is exclusively pronounced "jiga" (see link).
2007-02-09 06:29:30 · answer #1 · answered by Vincent G 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
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How much is 1.21 gigawatts? How unreasonable is it to need this much power?
In "Back to the Future", the 1955 Doc freaks out when he finds out that he must generate 1.21 gigawatts to power his time machine. How much is 1.21 gigawatts? Like, how many regular light bulbs does that equal? Why is it unreasonable to find a source of this much energy in 1955 but not...
2015-08-19 21:39:38 · answer #2 · answered by Carolynn 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's a lot, but it's quite imaginable nowadays, especially in a big oil field. Lots of the wells have powerful electric pumps to boost the oil to the surface. A motor taking 1 or 2 megawatts is not unusual, and a field can certainly have a few hundred wells.
The electricity is generated on the spot by burning some of the gas which comes up with the oil. There is usually still gas left over to sell.
2007-02-09 08:14:44 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
For a small town (Hill Valley), 1.21 MegaWatts was probably more than sufficient (a thousand times less than 1.21 GW).
Hoover dam can generate 2.8 GigaWatts.
1.21 GW is 12.1 million 100 Watt light bulbs.
2007-02-09 06:14:35 · answer #4 · answered by tlbs101 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
1.21 Jigawatts
2016-12-13 03:17:00 · answer #5 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
1.21 Gigawatts
2016-09-29 06:52:19 · answer #6 · answered by riesgo 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A gigawatt isn't ridiculously difficult to produce.
But in the movie, they didn't need 1.21 gigawatts. THey neede 1.21 JIGAwatts... a made up number, made to seem huge.
Assume 100W bulbs.
That means 1.21 * 10^9 W / 100W = 1.21 * 10^7 bulbs
2007-02-09 06:10:56 · answer #7 · answered by Michael Dino C 4 · 1⤊ 3⤋
A power station that generates 1.2 Gigwatts is a pretty sizable power station capable of powering an entire city.
2007-02-09 07:22:11 · answer #8 · answered by cosmo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
like 4000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 watts.
2007-02-09 06:14:20 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋