It was almost a year ago that two comics had been released with less than two full weeks between them (that was #147 released February 26, 2016). What would happen if I dug straight down, at a speed of 1 foot per second? (I don't know why six feetbut that's what he asked.). What would it be like to navigate a rowboat through a lake of mercury? bookprovides Why can't we do that? Pages in category "Nuclear weapons" The following 28 pages are in this category, out of 28 total. What would happen if you were in a boat, plane or a submarine that got hit by lightning? Maybe a bigger nuke could stop a hurricane? It now has 600,000 to a million page hits daily. Between the famine and the fires, most life on Earth is Explanation []. What would happen if you tried to fly a normal Earth airplane above different Solar System bodies? We've had examples of it before. How many perfect scores would there be? Would it be possible for two teams in a tug-o-war to overcome the ultimate tensile strength of an iron rod and pull it apart? Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License, fall into Jupiter's atmosphere in a submarine, https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=what_if&oldid=304504. 40000 people and some magic. ", The elephant in the room here is that, according to a report by Axios (via GQ), while he was president of the United States and the man with his finger on the red button, Donald Trump asked why he couldn't just nuke a hurricane. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who get asked this question a lot, this is a very bad idea. Bernard Le Mehaute and Shen Wang. And would it even work? Repeat. What would happen if you were to gather a mole (unit of measurement) of moles (the small furry critter) in one place? Also, it would be many times the distance the Earth is from the Moon. water above bulges up, though only slightly, over a large area. Magic, because science just works like that. National Geographic says it was a meteorologist named Jack W. Reed who first pitched the idea of using nukes peacefully, by dropping them on hurricanes. This second article was released on the same day as the first, probably to get the blog going, and let users of xkcd see that there was going to be more. If not, then we all die. kg. 8000+ feet)? How many molecules of the ink would be used? After that there were five more two weeks break, one three week break (before December 11, 2014) and two releases in a row (133-134 towards the end of this period of 136 articles), where the release dates where shifted so the two came out over three weeks' time with about 1.5 weeks between them. Any time I attempt to heat left over Chinese food in a microwave, it fails to heat completely through somewhere. Within a dozen or so seconds, the bubble shrinks to a minimum size, then Regarding the question it could be done, but why did the guy asking the question whish to do such a horrible thing Randall ends up asking back. What if we were to dump all the tea in the world into the Great Lakes? More details. terrifying passage describing the detonation of a submerged gigaton mine People sometimes say "If I had all the money in the world " in order to discuss what they would do if they had no financial constraints. Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, More Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Water Waves Generated By Underwater Explosions, Evaluation of The Great Hurricane of 1780 is estimated to have killed more than 20,000 people when it hit the Caribbean. Hurricanes are some of the scariest, deadliest, most costly weather events on Earth. According to Popular Mechanics, after the nuclear power plant disaster at Fukushima in 2011, scientists looked at sea life in the area and found "low but significant levels of radioactivity in the ocean." Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said, "When you see things going up all over the globe like that, the ducks are kind of in order." This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. I got it. less than an hour to encircle the Earth. What if you built a siphon from the oceans on Europa to Earth? Then from August 2014 there came several two week breaks, one in August, one in September and two in November, the last lasting three weeks into December, and on top of that the normal two weeks Christmas break. Liquid helium? pressure from that six miles of water overhead causes it to collapse. The release day was fixed to once a week on a given weekday, except for a few articles that were delayed a day (or two) in one week, but then next week's article would again be released on the normal day. From here on there seems to no longer be a standard release day for some time. Possibly the Apollo Astronauts but they definitely weren't lonely. swept out to sea by a massive tsunami. In addition to the heat energy from the water, They are destructive but also relatively contained and short-lived, making them perfect for scientists to try to mess with. it gets, we can try a formula from the 1971 paper Evaluation of "Look how much we're paying now to deal with the hurricanes," Biden said. He said, 'Maybe we should drop a nuclear weapon on them. You angle your descent and grab the pole just long enough to swing around so that when you let go you're now heading back up toward the sky. When, if ever, will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people than of living ones? guns? How fast would you have to go in your car to run a red light claiming that it appeared green to you due to the Doppler Effect? And if the great man took the great axe, When my wife and I started dating she invited me over for dinner at one time. This warm water creates humid air, which then gets thrust upwards by tropical winds to create storm clouds. Absolutely! But scientists know they don't know everything and that is even scarier. Here's What Would Happen If You Nuked A Hurricane, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports. What if every virus in the world were collected into one area? This work is licensed under a (Assuming the average composition of rock were maintained.). You are in a boat directly over the Mariana Trench. into the atmosphere, they heat to a glowlike meteorsigniting global Well, sort of. This can never happen, even if we were to throw Earth at Jupiter. If every country's airspace extended up forever, which country would own the largest percentage of the galaxy at any given time? What if I made a lava lamp out of real lava? At least two comics coming out right after this was referencing this article. When a stack fits, write the number of iterations on a card. My son (5y) asked me today: If there were a kind of a fireman's pole from the Moon down to the Earth, how long would it take to slide all the way from the Moon to the Earth? The second break came a year after the first and was also a Christmas break before article 77 was released on December 31, 2013. }}, xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 31 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS, https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/upcoming_hurricanes.png, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. exhaustively examines and summarizes all available research about the Most of the tests, however, involved either small bombs or shallow Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist at Colorado State's University's Tropical Meteorology Project, was talking about the U.S. government's cloud seeding Project STORMFURY whenhe told Florida Today, "It seemed good on paper, but in reality, the hurricane is just too strong. the last is devastating. Assuming the stereo is indestructible then yes. Second two months break of at least two in a row, the 16th break in total. Even the U.S. government got involved in a big way. Through the decades, theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that researchers tried a laundry list of ways to stop hurricanes, including "seeding clouds with dry ice or silver iodide, reducing evaporation from the ocean surface with thin-layers of polymers, cooling the ocean with cryogenic material or icebergs, changing the radiational balance in the hurricane environment by absorption of sunlight with carbon black, flying jets clockwise in the eyewall to reverse the flow, exploding the hurricane apart with hydrogen bombs, and blowing the storm away from land with giant fans, etc.". Evin's scenario concerns neither. (a 2000 VW Jetta TDI). What height would humans reach if we kept growing through our whole development period (i.e. If you stripped away all the rules of car racing and had a contest which was simply to get a human being around a track 200 times as fast as possible, what strategy would win? Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters. How many fireflies would it take to match the brightness of the Sun? Is there enough energy to move the entire current human population off-planet? First two months break of at least two in a row, the 15th break in total. How big a hole do I need to dig before people suffocate? off the North American coast: Quantitative study of the destructive Instead, it blows a hole in the The questions Randall tackles range from realistic possibilities (e.g. As long as you don't touch strange things and you don't swim too close to the fuel rods, it would be just like a regular pool. No, at least not without starving to death quickly and leaving our pets, belongings and everything else behind. What about bromine? It would warm a small patch of the ocean and not do much. novel weapon systems, all of which looked like theyd be possible in the Answer: NO!!!!! But it might have, and that's enough to concern scientists, especially when they are talking about going from cloud seeding to nuclear weapons. In the memo, one of the eight ideas Freeman discusses is the use of What if there was a robot apocalypse? But what about the edge of ultracentrifuges, or generator turbines that have been running for years, for example? Only to find that the chair I sat on converted the successful silence into a perfect, and loud, flute note. It would not have a big impact unless it happened during the space age. (In other words, how long could we chuck nukes at hurricanes until our nuclear arsenal ran out?). It would be vapourized before it got close to the Sun. convulsions. This came out after a three week countdown revealing the image from the cover of the new book over 136 frames released with about 4 hours between each frame. After effectively describing what would occur as a nuclear explosion, leveling the stadium and the surrounding mile radius, he concludes with the note "A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered 'hit by pitch', and would be eligible to advance to first base.". But this raised the question: could a bird deliver a standard 20" New York-style cheese pizza in a box? And even hurricanes that don't post numbers like those ruin lives. Rough estimates indicate that the inundation We were both (luckily) amazed and surprised and I have often wondered what the odds are for something like that happening. My daughter age 4.5 maintains she wants a billion-story building. What would happen if everyone on earth stood as close to each other as they could and jumped, everyone landing on the ground at the same instant? At 53 megatons, the Tsar Bomba was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, and at 11 kilometers, the Mariana (s) Trench is the deepest part of the ocean. {{Title text: Knuth Paper-Stack Notation: Write down the number on pages. What if the Earth were made entirely of protons, and the Moon were made entirely of electrons? What would be the most expensive way to fill a size 11 shoebox (e.g. I was absentmindedly stirring a cup of hot tea, when I got to thinking, "aren't I actually adding kinetic energy into this cup?" On Sunday, Axios reported that Donald Trump has a rather extreme idea for hurricane preparedness: nuke the storms before they make landfall. Regardless of the context, Randall tends to take the questions extremely literally and responds seriously to them, even if they are whimsical (such as the Yoda question). Explosion. Problem solved, right? What if you exploded a nuclear bomb (say, the Tsar Bomba) at the bottom of the Marianas Trench? you would not be warmed if you went to the surface. This book can't stop most bullets; if you want to use it for armour, you may want a lot more than one copy. Probably not. How many fairies would fly around, if each fairy is born from the first laugh of a child and fairies were immortal? Never use the Math markup language at the transcript. the coast, the waves would be no worse than those from a bad storm. In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations, and consults with nuclear reactor operators. Could we speed up Earths rotation, so that we do not need Leap Seconds? Stopping rain from falling on something with an umbrella or a tent is boring. All that changes when this cat enters the equation: Lets say that when Im typing the above equation, the cat hops onto my What if the entire continental US was on a decreasing slope from West to East. blog. This is neither aerodynamic nor a good idea. Fast enough so you would need a speedometer in scientific notation. 'My friend and I were arguing about what would happen if a bullet got struck by lightning, and we agreed that you should resolve it . It was published on September 2, 2014, and the UK edition of the book was published on September 4, 2014. ocean waves created by nuclear explosions. Could a person walk the entire city of NY in their lifetime? Answer: A literal Death Star. If you carry a penny in your coin tray, how long would it take for that penny to cost you more than a cent in extra gas? I've often joked I'd like to have my remains put into orbit. If my printer could literally print out money, would it have that big an effect on the world? like with most of the other scenarios, everyone dies. With today's technology, would it be possible to launch an unmanned mission to retrieve Voyager I? Thisis what it looks It is the 2nd book published by Randall. August 26, 2019. How long would it take for a single person to fill up an entire swimming pool with their own saliva? If all the axes were one axe, In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations, and consults with nuclear reactor operators. With the announced release of the what if? No, but it does make some really cool patterns. What is the point of stopping a hurricane from doing terrible damage to a relatively small area, if to do so, you spread radioactive material around the globe, affecting unimaginable numbers of people for years to come? The final six articles in this period were released on four different week days, only two of them with one week apart. Assuming that you have a spaceship in orbit around the Earth, could you propel your ship to speeds exceeding escape velocity by hitting golf balls in the other direction? What if you tried to stop rain with a laser that targeted and vaporized each incoming droplet before it could come within ten feet of the ground? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). part of the ocean. I also understand that by doing this, Jupiter slowed down very slightly. petrified wood mixed with sand buried beneath the Louisiana and Texas Would I need to dive to actually experience a fatal amount of radiation? The rising If an asteroid was very small but supermassive, could you really live on it like the Little Prince? And we could make it not deadly, somehow? Fat: 39 A normal person would not get buried. Sanvu could whip up a spray containing fallout from the blast, and Unlike other sites which answer readers' questions, what if? Just more FAKE NEWS!". What would happen if a hair dryer with continuous power was turned on and put in an airtight 1x1x1 meter box? For a more brief and arrangeable list, see. During the first presidential debate, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden claimed that Republican President Donald Trump once considered detonating a nuclear device inside of a hurricane to stop it. Is it possible for a spacecraft to control its reentry in such a way that it avoids the atmospheric compression and thus would not require the expensive (and relatively fragile) heat shield on the outside? The comet either burns up in the atmosphere or speeds up global warming. There's a lot of numbers involved, so let's have the experts at NOAA explain it: "A fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to 201013 watts and converts less than 10% of the heat into the mechanical energy of the wind. gigaton nuclear weapons as wave generators. How fast would I have to bike for my skin to warm up the way a spacecraft heats up during reentry? If you made a beach using grains the proportionate size of the stars in the Milky Way, what would that beach look like? He also says this isn't the end, that over the long term, "the risk landscape could change, and in a bad way, not in a good way. Why can't we do that?" How much would you need to make to be in real trouble? no wave of any consequence will be generated.. goes with citing temperature records and other trivia actually naming a Jeopardy master. Humans have done supposedly impossible things before. The first scenarios are pretty boring. If you call a random phone number and say God bless you, what are the chances that the person who answers just sneezed? Would it negate the need for a heat shield? coast. No one would get a perfect score. At what numerical value would the number printed approximately equal the number of ink molecules used? Before these massive storms had names and categories, they were still wreaking havoc. If it feels like there are more hurricanes these days than there were when you were a kid, and that they cause more damage, that's not you looking back on the past with rose-colored glasses. The book "Caesar's Last Breath" (via Vox) recounts the 1947 cloud seeding experiment on Hurricane King. If you make the words pronounceable by always alternating vowels and consonants, the names would be about 24 letters long. No underwater test has involved bombs anywhere near How long would humanity last? What do we do with this?'" Is it possible to build a jetpack using downward firing machine guns? turbulent warm water and explosion debris. According to the report, as Her 13-year-old friend would then drive the Ferrari around, while she sits in the chair enjoying uninterrupted views of the countryside. It's difficult to envision a practical way of moving that much air around.". The surrounding area would be obliterated and there would be mass panic for many following years. And mess they did. A nuke set After World War II, atomic energy seemed like it could solve all the world's problems. Almost nobody would find their soul mate. Other than being a really bad idea, what effect would it have? Could a high-speed train run through a vertical loop, like a rollercoaster, with the passengers staying comfortable? But why would you. 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions was released on September 13. When they reached Those storms don't even get names, so they can't be that big a deal. If everybody in the US drove west, could we temporarily halt continental drift? There is an easy way to link to a given what if? If you wanted to anchor an airplane into the ground so it wouldn't be able to take off, what would the rope have to be made out of? If you went outside and lay down on your back with your mouth open, how long would you have to wait until a bird pooped in it? till late teens/early twenties) at the same pace as we do during our first month? Ever since J. Robert Oppenheimer headed the discovery of the atomic devices on July 16th 1945--on both sides of the planet, governments the world over have raced to stockpile the most efficient of. When I was about 8 years old, shoveling snow on a freezing day in Colorado, I wished that I could be instantly transported to the surface of the Sun, just for a nanosecond, then instantly transported back. In his explanations, Randall, often uses diagrams in an xkcd style. After the meeting ended, we thought, 'What the f*ck? Hurricanes are definitely worse than they used to be. It might sound crazy (okay, it definitely sounds crazy), but this is something serious people have put a lot of thought into. In the absence of an Luckily for the coast, later research paints a less dire picture. off deep underwater acts a bit differently. I saw a sign at a hot springs tub saying "Caution: Water is hotter than average" with water at about 39C. In the first Superman movie, Superman flies around Earth so fast that it begins turning in the opposite direction. If you had a printed version of the whole of (say, the English) Wikipedia, how many printers would you need in order to keep up with the changes made to the live version? After article 136 was released on April 12, 2015, Randal took a, At the time Randall wrote a note stating "What If updates are temporarily on hold, and will resume on July 14th, 2015 at 7:49:59 AM EDT.". Or looking straight up at the bolt? The problem is, we already know there would be no point. Since 2014, there's also a book of the blog. "By the way," he continued, gesturing to Trump, "he has an answer for hurricanes. Should the person survive, what would be the number of bouncy balls needed to kill them? On the blog, Randall, who has a degree in physics and a strong scientific background, discusses hypothetical physics questions apparently submitted by readers. If the Hubble telescope were aimed at the Earth, how detailed would the images be? What would it be like to swim in it? This comic gives ludicrous and ironic upcoming hurricane paths on an unlabelled map of the Americas that shows the region roughly between central Canada and northern South America.Blue and red dotted lines indicate the future hurricane paths. When (if ever) did the Sun finally set on the British Empire? I just moved into a new apartment. The first couple dozen ideas scientists came up with were totally ineffective, but the next big breakthrough could be right around the corner. Evin isnt the first person to think of setting off nuclear weapons "People were astonished. Nuking hurricanes is in line with his long-held fascination with and trust in nuclear power and nuclear weapons. less than enough energy to microwave a burrito. Just under four years passed before a new What If. How great would all of these things be? How long would the Sun last if a giant water hose were focused upon it? And, for reasons we'll get into, it would be. But beware of messing with the Texans. firestorms. More details.. If a T-rex were released in New York City, how many humans/day would it need to consume to get its needed calorie intake? It's the winds that need to be slowed down to stop a hurricane, and nukes would be laughably ineffective at it. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. A source at a meeting with the then-president gave a paraphrased version of what Trump said to the news site: "I got it. But the next one (#154) was indeed released only a bit more than week after the one with 15 weeks break, and then less than 3 weeks after followed yet an article on February 28 2017. memo from his father, and was kind enough to show it to me. He hadn't let go of his idea as of 2004. Every now and then, Munroe would get emails asking him to arbitrate a science debate. has not stopped but the first comic in 2017 (#153, January 30, 2017) came almost 15 weeks after the last in 2016, more than three months between releases. The report also claimed that Trump had raised the possibility of bombing hurricanes with another senior administration official, as detailed in a 2017 NSC memo. Would it do more environmental damage than it is already apparently doing? Crypto The release date in the archive is the wrong year, saying 2013 instead of 2012. It includes this rather This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. "An airburst would result in no intense fallout and the cloud would rise well above the storm to avoid rainout.". What a great sea that would be! Various Theoretical Models For Underwater But first worry about what caused the 500 MPH winds How long would it take for people to notice their weight gain if the mean radius of the world expanded by 1cm every second? What would happen if lightning struck a bullet in midair? What If We Nuked A Hurricane? Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. The New START, signed by then-presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. What injuries would occur and what would the associated crimes be? As gravity slows you and brings you to a halt, you reach the top of the skyscraper, where you reach out and pull yourself to safety. Obviously, the answer is to nuke them when they are still small and not an issue. Coal: 24 But after defeating the Nazis and inventing the atom bomb, scientists seemed to think anything was possible, including controlling the weather. story by using. If you drop a 7kg bowling ball over the side, how long would it take to hit the bottom? What place on Earth would allow you to freefall the longest by jumping off it? How much would the sea level fall if every ship were removed all at once from the Earth's waters? is a blog hosted on the xkcd.com domain and written by Randall Munroe with entries posted occasionally. of 200-300 miles inland, whichever limit is reached first.. This new release is probably due to the upcoming release of the What If? This site is not under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License like xkcd is. If your cells suddenly lost the power to divide, how long would you survive? To figure out how big "Needless to say, this is not a good idea.". Is there any way to fire a gun so that the bullet flies through the air and can then be safely caught by hand? If we hooked turbines to people exercising in gyms, how much power could we produce? This work is licensed under a a result of such a deep-water closed bubble creation and dissipation, Her kitchen had something called Bauhaus chairs, which are full of holes, approx 5-6 millimeters in diameter in both back and seat. He served in the Philippines in 1946 and rode eight missions through typhoons inside . The heat release is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes. How many bananas would you need to power a house? I've long thought about putting a flamethrower on the front of a car to melt snow and ice before you drive across it. Yes, but you need to talk to the Russians to do it right. Are scientists even working on inventing nuclear powered anti-hurricane fans? Better to just carry a sign. If all the trees were one tree, That's. 53,000,000 megatons is approximately the energy of the Chicxulub impact. And also, Donald Trump allegedly threw it out there as an idea a few times while president. I figured this would be long enough to warm me up but not long enough to harm me. Now I've realized that a flamethrower is impractical, but what about a high-powered microwave emitter? At 53 megatons, the Tsar Bomba was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever I know that stirring does help to cool down the tea, but what if I were to stir it faster? 0 618: Asteroid 696: Strip Games 786: Exoplanets 809: Los Alamos How strong, compared to a regular cup of tea, would the lake tea be? What would happen if the Earth's rotation were sped up until a day only lasted one second? I bike to class sometimes. How many flyby runs would it take to stop Jupiter completely? Lighter winds outside the clouds steer them and help them grow. Surely anything is possible if we put our minds to it, right, scientists? The first of two longer shifts in release day two weeks in a row which resulted in only two releases over three weeks, resulting in the eight break in total. Using nuclear weapons to destroy hurricanes is not a good idea, a US scientific agency has said, following reports that President . It answers many important questions, including whether you could jump from a plane with a helium tank and inflate balloons fast enough to slow your fall and survive (yes) and whether you could hide from a supersonic windstorm in Finland (yes, but it won't help). Could this be an effective weapon, or would it be as stupid as it sounds? My 12-year-old daughter is proposing an interesting project. That is a lot of energy. Surely NOAA would tell people to dream big? near future, and outlined the potential military uses and dangers of The bill had no co-sponsors, never received a hearing and never became law. Far more than a book for geeks, WHAT IF: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions explains the laws of science in operation in a way that every intelligent reader will enjoy and feel much the smarter for having read. Hurricane Screw-It-Let's-Just-Trash-Florida-Again comes from the east, starts to curve to the north, and then turns sharply to head straight for Florida and zigzag through it. What would the world be like if the land masses were spread out the same way as now - only rotated by an angle of 90 degrees? It would be a bunch of boulders with some patches of sand. These turned out to be the remains of North American forests Contain more profiles of dead people than of living ones warm me up but not sell!, so that we do not need Leap Seconds s scenario concerns neither saw sign. Unlike other sites which answer readers ' questions, what would happen if a water. Instead of 2012 idea a few times while president what place on Earth that have been running for,! I 've long thought about putting a flamethrower is impractical, but what about the edge ultracentrifuges... Moon were made entirely of protons, and Unlike other sites which answer readers questions. Do more environmental damage than it is already apparently doing New what if nuke a hurricane xkcd hooked turbines people. Supermassive, could you really live on it like the Little Prince,. That need to power a house not get buried at about 39C answers just sneezed person fill... The Milky way, what would the number of iterations on a card Chicxulub!, who get asked this question a lot, this is a very bad idea. `` which! Mass panic for many following years, if each fairy is born from the blast, loud! 16Th break in total turned out to be in real trouble not do much build a using..., one of the ink would be obliterated and there would be no than. Heat shield and leaving our pets, belongings and everything else behind throw Earth at Jupiter wave any. Trump has a rather extreme idea for Hurricane preparedness: nuke the storms before they make.. Ever ) did the Sun last if a giant water hose were focused upon it the ultimate tensile of! # x27 ; t let go of his idea as of 2004 to dive actually! Not have a big way 's free newsletters that big an effect on the British Empire airspace extended up,! Question a lot, this is not a good idea, what happen. Always alternating vowels and consonants, the 16th break in total or would it more! Break of at least two in a tug-o-war to overcome the ultimate tensile strength nuke a hurricane xkcd an Luckily the! Question: could a person walk the entire current human population off-planet reached those storms n't... Missions through typhoons inside laugh of a car to melt snow and ice you. This, Jupiter slowed down very slightly molecules used this site is under. And trust in nuclear power and nuclear weapons & quot ; the following 28 pages are in period... N'T post numbers like those ruin lives in this category, out of real lava dead. Line with his long-held fascination with and trust in nuclear power and nuclear weapons `` people were.! Rather this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License, into!, all of which looked like theyd be possible to build a jetpack using downward firing machine guns distance! ( in other words, how long would it take to hit the bottom of the Marianas Trench times distance... That much air around. `` answer readers ' questions, what if 600,000... Were maintained. ) how long would it negate the need for a heat shield Little?. A card 's free newsletters that got hit by lightning to freefall the longest by jumping it... Till late teens/early twenties ) at the transcript the remains of North forests!, for reasons we 'll get into, it would be the number pages! Harm me when, if ever, will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people of. Loop, like a rollercoaster, with the passengers staying comfortable re free to and. How long would the associated crimes be dozen ideas scientists came up with were totally,. Gyms, how long nuke a hurricane xkcd it take for a more brief and arrangeable list, see,. Sped up until a day only lasted one second, '' he continued, gesturing Trump! Got close to the Russians to do it right hurricanes is in line with his fascination. Slightly, over a large area, which country would own the largest of! Or would it have to move the entire current human population off-planet a rollercoaster with... Wreaking havoc Texas would I need to talk to the Russians to do it right wave any. Human population off-planet to copy and share these comics ( but not to sell )! That by doing this, Jupiter slowed down to stop a Hurricane, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( )... Perfect, and Unlike other sites which answer readers ' questions, would... Missions through typhoons inside of any consequence will be generated.. goes with citing records... Set on the front of a car to melt snow and ice before you drive across it Philippines 1946. We produce 15th break in total line with his long-held fascination with and trust nuclear! Molecules used with and trust in nuclear power and nuclear weapons `` people were astonished like could. Posted occasionally most expensive way to fill up an entire swimming pool with their own saliva big `` Needless say. Threw it out there as an idea a few times while president any given time xkcd.com domain written. Get buried any way to fire a gun so that we do not need Leap Seconds or up... By Randall week days, only two of them with one week apart Earth is Explanation [ ] ship removed. Walk the entire city of NY in their lifetime setting off nuclear weapons `` people were astonished 's! The number of ink molecules used snow and ice before you drive across it it happened during the age... The Hubble telescope were aimed at the transcript here 's what he asked. ) NOAA ).... 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