On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:43:34 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>> So how much power do you think it takes to run 50,000 computers, plus
>>>> air conditioning for them, if each has (say) 150W power supply?
>>>
>>> As I say, the point is that most people will never see 50,000
>>> computers in one place all at once.
>>
>> That isn't really necessary to be able to do the math....
> 
> Sure, that's the great thing about math; it always works right, unlike
> intuition. ;-)
> 
> But it's not a calculation most people would bother to make, because the
> power consumption of a PC is "negligible".

Actually not so much.  A 450 W power supply draws a reasonably 
significant amount of power.

> In a similar vein, the heat output of a normal human in a large empty
> room is also negligible. But weirdly, if you put /a lot/ of humans in a
> room, no matter how big that room is, they manage to raise the
> temperature of the whole room. Unexpected, but true...

Not unexpected at all - completely rational and in line with the laws of 
thermodynamics.

Jim

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