Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken G
The difference between the 170,000 year "diffusion time" and the ~10 million year "Kelvin-Helmoltz time" (which is normally defined in terms of gravitational energy, but this is related by factors like 2 that I'm not concerned with here) has to do with what energy you are tracking. If you are only tracking radiant energy, you get the former, but if you are also tracking the heat in the gas, you get the latter. So yes, I think that's what you mean by the heat content of the two.
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Thanks Ken, George and SpacemanSpiff.
Am I right in understanding that the Kelvin-Helmhotz time is the time that gravitational energy would make the Sun shine? The fact that this is about 10 million years does seem to explain the 10 million year period that I saw. I guess either that explanation was not good or I got mixed up. Anyway that does seem to narrow the answer down a lot and indicate that the 10,000 year time frame was simply based on too long a mean free path in the model and that 170,000 years is the correct vicinity. Thanks.