How would you go about destroying the Earth? - Page 3

The Mad Monk · February 22, 2003, 16:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

There are actually a whole lot of problems:

1. Yes, it is very dense, a cubic centimetre is like 3 billion metric tons. It will have an inertia that is unimaginable. Try applying a force on it with apparatus made from normal matter is like trying to push an object with a shadow.

2. A neutron star is like 5 solar masses. If you get too close, the tidal force rips you and the ship apart.

3. Have 1 cc of this stuff on your ship near a neutron star, even at 1g, there's a force of 29400 billion newtons acting on a 1cm² area. I imagine it falls right down.

Use your imagination for the rest.

I would use my understanding of multidimensional space to create a conduit between the bubble this universe resides in, and a bubble with a higher base energy level; this should give me the power to do what I need, and have the added benefit of delaying the heat death of this universe.

Loinburger, you didn't say anything about destroying the sun or other planets, so I went for the surgical option.

Paul Hanson · February 22, 2003, 17:28

My savage wit will eventually make the Earth's sides split with laughter.

Edan · February 22, 2003, 17:43

In this case, procrastination is your friend. Wait 10 billion years and your work will be done for you.

You could also explode two huge nuclear weapons at opposite ends of the Earth, thereby knocking the Earth out of it's orbit and straight into the sun. But that requires actually doing work.

Lefty Scaevola · February 22, 2003, 17:51

Quote:

Originally posted by monkspider
I would put several hundred pounds of TNT in the Moon's core so that it will collide into the Earth, knocking it into the Sun.

To alter the moon orbital velocity enough to hit the earth you would need billions of tons of tnt, and of course off center, not in the core, (which I doubt we could get to anyway). An the Moon hit the earth would not cause it to crash into the Sun or otherwise marterially alter its orbit. The Earth moon Pair is orbitng the sun, adjusting the part of the moon velocity that orbits earth will still leave most of the orbital velocity of the pair around the sun.

Lancer · February 22, 2003, 17:57

Soviet answer: Get shovel. Get wheel barrow. Fill barrow on side away from sun. Dump barrow on side with sun. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Do it again. Repeat. Repeat. We will bury you. Repeat. Again. Dats da vay. Repeat...

LUNCH!

:glug glug glug:

Lunch finish. Get shovel. Get wheel barrow. Fill barrow on side away from sun...

Bosh · February 22, 2003, 18:00

What about building giant walls all over the ocean to **** with the tides, which IIRC would slow the earth rotation down until the earth stops spinning in which case half of the earth would roast and the other would freeze. Bit half-assed but still....

Ramo · February 22, 2003, 18:01

If you detonate enough nukes/TNT/etc. on the part of the earth which is pointing in the direction of the earth's velocity, you could concievably take away all of its kinetic energy, causing it to fall into the sun. You'd need an insanely strong impulse to be able to do that, though. I doubt we could currently pull it off.

Oerdin · February 22, 2003, 19:05

Quote:

Originally posted by Anun Ik Oba
There's that theory that the Earth's core has an abundance of heavy elements. Causing a substantial atomic fission reaction down there may be plausible.

Causing the moon's orbit to fail might be another good way.

Hell! Its all good when it comes to blowing this piece of s*** planet up.

The earth's core is 90% nickle and iron which can be proved by examining the why seismic waves bend or shift as they travel from a less dense medium to a denser medium. Of course the outer core is liquid and the inner core is solid so it is hard to get direct data (things are easy to calculate how the wave travels when you go from a less dense to a more dense but once you go from rock to liquid to solid metal back to liquid and finally back to rock then things get complicated

) but it can still be done indirectly. Also we'd have to have a solid metal core or else there would be no magnetic field around the earth.

BTW the Earth is no where near massive enough to generate fission or fussion. Jupiter is far to small so the Earth is way out of the question.

Oerdin · February 22, 2003, 19:37

Quote:

Originally posted by Lancer
Thanks for the reply Oerdin. So the spin of the other planets is on a plane w/ the solar system? Would they never have been tilted by other bodies?

I was thinking that the force that gets all planets' spin into the plane of the solar system might be magnetism. Any chance that the sun's magnetic field might be the force which alters the 'object in motion' to bring them into line?

Also, will the earth ever flip flop because the spin wobbles or is that just bad sci fi?

If I remember correctly all of the planets except Pluto (which is really just an over grown asteroid and not a planet) orbit the sun with in a few degrees of the ecliptic (the imaginary line which extends from the equator of the sun). All of their orbits are slightly eccentric, meaning shaped like an eclipse, with the sun being one of the focus points for the eclipse. Again Pluto is the exception because its orbit is very eccentric and resembles the orbit of an asteroid more then the orbit of a planet.
At small scales where matter is close together Magnetism is the driving force, however, with the large size of planets and the vast distances of space the strength of gravity is millions of times stronger then the magnetic force. So magnetism isn't going to play an important part in determining how planets rotate in their orbit or how fast they spin on their axises.

I'm trying to remember back to my old college physics class and I recall that if you have a large cloud that is moving ever so slightly then once gravity collapses it down into solid bodies the small force vectors get added together and multiplied by the square of the distance between the two particles (some one who's taken physics in the last 8 years please double check this and tell us the real equation). In any event the slight motions of a very spread out body will become much faster motions in a very dense body and that is why the planets are spinning and rotating so quickly.

The largest body in the solar system is the sun so all of the smaller bodies will want to rotate with their axis parallel to the suns axis. Some are a few degrees off (1-3) due to be smacked by large objects and I think Neptune is way off (like 90 degrees off) because it got hit by a large planet sized object during its early history.

Lancer · February 22, 2003, 19:45

Oerdin, thanks for answering my questions.

So the seasons will bev around for a while, that's good.

Six Thousand Year Old Man · February 22, 2003, 19:47

Simple, an easy 5 steps (This isn't original but it should work*):

1. Build 2 teleportation chambers, a sending and a receiving chamber. Position the chambers in a vacuum (the size of a large warehouse, perhaps), so that the sending chamber is directly below the receiving chamber.

2. Place some powdered silica, or iron, in the sending chamber, and teleport it into the receiving chamber. Leave the sending chamber switch turned 'on'. The silica will then fall down into the sending chamber and, before hitting bottom, be teleported up to the receiving chamber, only to fall back down and be teleported up again ad infinitum.

3. Wait a while. In a vacuum, with no air resistance, the endlessly falling silica should eventually get close to lightspeed. As time passes, general relativity theory suggests that when the speed can no longer increase, the mass will increase, eventually to an infinite mass.

4. Now, really fast, move the sending chamber out from under the receiving chamber (Or just turn it off). The falling powder will strike the earth at near-lightspeed, with an infinite (or at least, pretty big) mass.

5. Kaboom.

* - may require suspension of some of Newton's laws, as well the invention of impossible technology. Safety goggles recommended!

Kramerman · February 22, 2003, 20:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

That can't happen. Once the anti-matter smacks at the crust it will produce an annihilation. The neutron star matter will blow a big hole on the crust like a big arse meteoroid

is there a such thing as a anti neutron? I mean, a neutrons charge is neutral, is there an opposite to neutral?

The Mad Monk · February 22, 2003, 22:48

I still think a neutron star cue ball is the way to go.

Switch · February 22, 2003, 23:31

I'd take the two angels who are banned from heaven, and due the whole Catholic walking under the arch thing, and thus obliterate all time and space (it makes sense after you watch Dogma)

Switch · February 22, 2003, 23:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Kramerman

is there a such thing as a anti neutron? I mean, a neutrons charge is neutral, is there an opposite to neutral?

Well, it could be a neutron made of the opposite quarks, ie anti-up and two anti-down quarks. I don't think it would be any different, but I guess it would anhilate any regular neutron upon contact.

Ramo · February 23, 2003, 00:24

Quote:

I'm trying to remember back to my old college physics class and I recall that if you have a large cloud that is moving ever so slightly then once gravity collapses it down into solid bodies the small force vectors get added together and multiplied by the square of the distance between the two particles (some one who's taken physics in the last 8 years please double check this and tell us the real equation). In any event the slight motions of a very spread out body will become much faster motions in a very dense body and that is why the planets are spinning and rotating so quickly

Well, your premise is true, but your justification doesn't quite make sense.

As a consequence of Newton's laws, the magnitude of the angular momentum of a body under a central force is constant. That means if the radius of a body's orbit decreases, it's angular velocity increases. So, when gravity collapses the cloud of gas into a planet, due to conservation angular momentum, the anguar velocity of the planet increases.

Ramo · February 23, 2003, 00:28

Quote:

is there a such thing as a anti neutron? I mean, a neutrons charge is neutral, is there an opposite to neutral?

An anti-particle has opposite values for all quantum numbers of a particle. Charge is only represtented by one quantum number.

KrazyHorse · February 23, 2003, 01:03

Some of the stuff being don at Brookhaven right now has a submicroscopic chance of destroying the entire universe, and a significantly larger submicroscopic chance of creating a black hole which may do at least the Earth in.

KrazyHorse · February 23, 2003, 01:05

All of you people who think that we have the capability to drop the Moon's orbit low enough for it to intersect the Earth's surface need a quick course in orbital mechanics.

KrazyHorse · February 23, 2003, 01:14

Quote:

I'm trying to remember back to my old college physics class and I recall that if you have a large cloud that is moving ever so slightly then once gravity collapses it down into solid bodies the small force vectors get added together and multiplied by the square of the distance between the two particles (some one who's taken physics in the last 8 years please double check this and tell us the real equation). In any event the slight motions of a very spread out body will become much faster motions in a very dense body and that is why the planets are spinning and rotating so quickly.

What you're describing is the conservation of angular momentum.

Given a central force (like gravity exerted by a non-moving spherical mass) the angular momentum of the system about the center of this mass is conserved (this is a direct result of F=ma)

Angular momentum of a point particle about the origin is l=rXp where r is the distance vector from the origin, p is the momentum vector of the particle and X is the vector cross-product.

The upshot is that for angular momentum to be conserved as a body contracts, the velocity of its surface must increase in direct proportion to the decrease of radius. Its angular velocity therefore increases as the square of the shrinkage.

Ramo · February 23, 2003, 01:33

Too slow.

Master Zen · February 23, 2003, 01:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Switch
I'd take the two angels who are banned from heaven, and due the whole Catholic walking under the arch thing, and thus obliterate all time and space (it makes sense after you watch Dogma)

I had thought of that too...! Where's Ben Affleck when you need him?

Lancer · February 23, 2003, 02:38

Frogger, sucked into a black hole eh? That would be a bad day. On the flip side, at least it would be an American black hole.

KrazyHorse · February 23, 2003, 02:40

Paid for by the US, created by Europeans and Asians.

Lancer · February 23, 2003, 02:44

gawd, a UN black hole.

Master Zen · February 23, 2003, 03:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Lancer
gawd, a UN black hole.

These day's a phenomenon like that is usually reffered to as the "Security Council"

Dis · February 23, 2003, 03:34

by voting for liberals

Jack_www · February 23, 2003, 04:40

Cause the Sun to super nova, not only would it destroy the earth completely it would destroy the entire solar system. But given current levels of tech that is way off in future. So I would use asteriods to colide with the earth untill starts to dirft towards the sun and let the Sun pull it in and get sucked into it.

Lancer · February 23, 2003, 05:50

Cross the streams.

DAVOUT · February 24, 2003, 11:15

Quote:

Originally posted by loinburger
I remember reading some book or another where some aliens or zombies or ninjas or robots or somebody like that took a hunk of neutronium (the degenerate matter that makes up neutron stars) and a hunk of anti-neutronium (the same stuff, only made out of anti-matter) and fired them at the Earth. The two hunks of (anti)matter orbited around each other a few times, and eventually met at the center of the Earth, annihilating each other and blowing apart the Earth. The alien zombie ninja robots won the day.

For the life of me I can't remember the name of that book, though.

Is it not Footfall ? Written by Jerry Pournelle and an other guy.