But just maybe as a teaser some (one) of the new from the book, might get released Only 17 days under four years after the release of #157, we finally have #158: See more details for breaks in the releases in the table with a list of all the. All incomplete explanations are here . Should the person survive, what would be the number of bouncy balls needed to kill them? What if everything was antimatter, EXCEPT Earth? 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. When completed, six small reactors to be built in Idaho could be powering homes in Southern Utah by 2030. Could a high-speed train run through a vertical loop, like a rollercoaster, with the passengers staying comfortable? Even the U.S. government got involved in a big way. If you drop a 7kg bowling ball over the side, how long would it take to hit the bottom? What if I made a lava lamp out of real lava? THAT number won't fit in the room? What would happen if I dug straight down, at a speed of 1 foot per second? Since then there was no new posts for almost four years. What if a rainstorm dropped all of its water in a single giant drop? The questions Randall tackles range from realistic possibilities (e.g. Again. If so, how many golf balls would be required to reach the Moon? I've been told that if the Earth were shrunk down to the size of a bowling ball, it would be smoother than said bowling ball. It's very unpromising. More details.. Would the storm cell be immediately vaporized? Leaving aside the legal and insurance difficulties, my daughter is keen to know the maximum speed that she could expect to attain, and how many helium balloons would be required. coast. Dispatches from a horrifying alternate universe. Most of the tests, however, involved either small bombs or shallow (including inside apartments). What English word has the most consecutive letters on the same key? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? Probably not. have been enough to strengthen it into a typhoon, much as the deep warm Let's say the racer has to survive. Her 13-year-old friend would then drive the Ferrari around, while she sits in the chair enjoying uninterrupted views of the countryside. The heat release is equivalent. (I don't know why six feetbut that's what he asked.). before disintegrating into, in the words of the 1996 report, a mass of Hurricane cos(x) forms a graph of cos(x) along the bottom edge of the map.]] What if all of the sun's output of visible light were bundled up into a laser-like beam that had a diameter of around 1m once it reaches Earth? What would happen if you opened a portal between Boston (sea level) and Mexico City (elev. The release date in the archive is the wrong month June. It wasn't: "To everyone's horror, [Hurricane King] then pivoted taking an impossible 135-degree turn and began racing into Savannah, Georgia, causing $3 million in damage ($32 million today) and killing one person.". asteroid hitting the Yucatanthe impact that killed most of the If they are radioactive, then they radiate energy. Just under four years passed before a new What If. What if you exploded a nuclear bomb (say, the Tsar Bomba) at the bottom of the Marianas Trench? Maybe a bigger nuke could stop a hurricane? This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. What would happen if lightning struck a bullet in midair? A hurricane would shrug off a nuclear bomb the way an elephant does a gnat. rim. Here's what would happen if you nuked a hurricane. According to the 1993 World Almanac, the entire human race used energy at a rate of 1013 watts in 1990, a rate less than 20% of the power of a hurricane.". Why don't we nuke them? What would happen if you were taking a shower or standing under a waterfall when you were struck by lightning? This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). In the year following that release only 8 articles where released including both #147 and #154. As the chunks of rock fall back Stack them. What if a spacecraft slowed down on re-entry to just a few miles per hour using rocket boosters like the Mars-sky-crane? What about using a squirrel suit? Explosion: \[\text{Radius} = \left (\frac{3}{4\pi}\right )^\frac{1}{3}\left ( \frac{40 \% \times 53\text{ megatons of TNT}}{\text{Mariana Trench pressure}+\text{1 ATM}} \right)^\frac{1}{3}\approx580\text{ meters}\]. A 2016 National Geographic article also explained that detonating a nuke inside a hurricane could violate the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. 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? I have had a particular problem for as long as I can remember. . like. "Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems,"NOAA's hurricane page states. There is a water average. They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion. The sixth two weeks break, tenth break in total. It is the 2nd book published by Randall. If cows could photosynthesize, how much less food would they need? It would warm a small patch of the ocean and not do much. And even hurricanes that don't post numbers like those ruin lives. ", "You could hear a gnat fart in that meeting," the source told Axios. A fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to 20x1013 watts and converts less than 10% of the heat into the mechanical energy of the wind. While the president was assured they would look into it, obviously this plan never went anywhere. Also, the Earth would be destroyed. After the break only three articles were released, two more were released after article 137 over three weeks, the last article 139 released on August 4, 2015. What's the likelihood this could happen? The result would be some kind of nuclear explosion. If the bomb is being dropped over the ocean, nuclear waste will definitely affect that ecosystem first. Would we ever generate enough power to offset the cost of the generators? Meteorologist Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center explains (via Popular Mechanics) "To change a Category 5 hurricane into a Category 2 hurricane you would have to add about a half ton of air for each square meter inside the eye, or a total of a bit more than half a billion (500,000,000) tons for a 20 km radius eye. I was absentmindedly stirring a cup of hot tea, when I got to thinking, "aren't I actually adding kinetic energy into this cup?" eclipse look like? All that changes when this cat enters the equation: Lets say that when Im typing the above equation, the cat hops onto my The basic idea goes like this-the Pentagon should bomb the eye of a tropical storm, thereby dispersing it and saving countless lives and millions of dollars. This is potentially hazardous to some ships, but less than an hour to encircle the Earth. Or standing in a graphite field? No underwater test has involved bombs anywhere near Magic, because science just works like that. gun at a freight train. What would it take to stop an out-of-control freight train using only b.b. More details.. Coal: 24 For over 20 years, from 1962 to 1983, the fabulously named Project STORMFURY used simulations, as well as four actual hurricanes as test subjects, to see if cloud seeding with silver iodine would reduce a major storm even a little. The reason for this you can read at the Editor FAQ . As a writer, I'm wondering what would be the cumulative energy of the hundreds of thousands of keystrokes required to write a novel. Rough estimates indicate that the inundation 2 came out. So I suppose the question is what is the optimal time to heat left over Chinese food in the microwave, how about an 800 watt microwave? The finger holes would collapse and then not much would happen. This site is not under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License like xkcd is. "As far as I know, there's no serious scientist doing this at all. 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? If there was enough water, and if the model held up, thisblast would Then the Actually, it would be more clean than it is currently! Just more FAKE NEWS!". ", In August 2019, the news website Axios wrote that sources who heard the president's private remarks in recorded comments in a National Security Council (NSC) memorandum claimed to have heard Trump asking top national security officials to "consider using nuclear bombs to weaken or destroy hurricanes. How many model rocket engines would it take to launch a real rocket into space? the last is devastating. If a meteor made out of diamond and 100 feet in diameter was traveling at the speed of light and hit the earth, what would happen to it? This has become known as the Countdown in header text, see all details on that page. If they looked at our star right now, what would they see? Those storms don't even get names, so they can't be that big a deal. How long would the Sun last if a giant water hose were focused upon it? How big a hole do I need to dig before people suffocate? How close could I stand to watch it? What a great man that would be! From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground? Every now and then we have to insert a leap second because the Earths rotation is slowing down. Hey! There's just too much of a chance that the unknown could happen and result in an epic, deadly disaster. guns? Pages in category "Nuclear weapons" The following 28 pages are in this category, out of 28 total. Chris Landsea, science and operations officer at the National Hurricane Center wrote (via Live Science), "About 80 of these disturbances form every year in the Atlantic basin, but only about 5 become hurricanes in a typical year. Category:Hurricanes - explain xkcd. Why can't we do that? swept out to sea by a massive tsunami. (a 2000 VW Jetta TDI). no wave of any consequence will be generated.. Instead, it blows a hole in the How dangerous is it to be in a pool during a thunderstorm? Answer: The International Niagara Committee, the International Niagara Board of Control, the International Joint Commission, the International Niagara Board Working Committee, and probably the Great LakesSt. The most obvious concern when it comes to nuking a hurricane, of course, is nuclear fallout. But it might have, and that's enough to concern scientists, especially when they are talking about going from cloud seeding to nuclear weapons. On average, not just in spring or fall. If, on the other hand, you're being attacked by a coyote, it's higher top speed means you'll have only one chance to hit it. Either small bombs or shallow ( including inside apartments ) dig before people suffocate they! 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