The hole fills in, with huge columns of steam and great But scientists know they don't know everything and that is even scarier. 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. Then, while falling, I release the helium and fill the balloon. Partway down the side of that skyscraper there's a flagpole sticking out, sans flag! Since 2014, there's also a book of the blog. 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. What if a huge mountainDenali, sayhad the bottom inch of its base disappear? HIDDEN FEATURE: The inside of this book has words and pictures, plus a special UK foreword. 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. It should be noted that Trump denied the original report (by tweet, calling it "FAKE NEWS") and reiterated his denial when Biden mentioned it. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. 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. This work is licensed under a a result of such a deep-water closed bubble creation and dissipation, In terms of human-made objects, has Voyager 1 travelled the farthest distance? "People were astonished. I was absentmindedly stirring a cup of hot tea, when I got to thinking, "aren't I actually adding kinetic energy into this cup?" 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. GameStop Moderna Pfizer Johnson & Johnson AstraZeneca Walgreens Best Buy Novavax SpaceX Tesla. This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). This is clear from his response to the question of what would happen if everybody on Earth stood together and jumped at the same time. Would it do more environmental damage than it is already apparently doing? But those are waves from an explosion close to the surface. This can never happen, even if we were to throw Earth at Jupiter. My boyfriend recently took a flight on a plane with wifi, and while he was up there, wistfully asked if I could send him a pizza. He hadn't let go of his idea as of 2004. Most of the what if? is a blog hosted on the xkcd.com domain and written by Randall Munroe with entries posted occasionally. 2 came out. Two month between releases, and relased two weeks after the previous comic promoting the new book. This was such a shocking report, even by Trump standards, that Joe Biden brought it up at the first presidential debate in 2020. No matter how big the bomb, humans simply cannot make something with enough power to even dent a hurricane. Stopping rain from falling on something with an umbrella or a tent is boring. What would happen if you were in a boat, plane or a submarine that got hit by lightning? approach Iwo Jima as a radioactive whirlwind. Granted, the Sun is much bigger, but it is also much further away, and as I learned in high school physics, the gravitational force is proportional to the square of the distance. As a writer, I'm wondering what would be the cumulative energy of the hundreds of thousands of keystrokes required to write a novel. The bubble grows to about a kilometer across in a couple of seconds. Yup, we can thank climate change for deadlier hurricanes. till late teens/early twenties) at the same pace as we do during our first month? What do we do with this?'" No, but it does make some really cool patterns. Randall announced his what if? Could I cool down the Earth by capturing a comet and dropping it in the ocean, like an ice cube in a glass of water? In the first Superman movie, Superman flies around Earth so fast that it begins turning in the opposite direction. Has humanity produced enough paint to cover the entire land area of the Earth? The release date in the archive is the wrong month June. The nature of the food chain means even radioactive plankton could end up harming much larger marine life. Also, it would be many times the distance the Earth is from the Moon. NOAA. terrifying passage describing the detonation of a submerged gigaton mine What would be the most expensive way to fill a size 11 shoebox (e.g. If so, how many golf balls would be required to reach the Moon? Almost nobody would find their soul mate. For that matter, which war has the highest movie time:war time ratio? The what if? Hurricane cos(x) forms a graph of cos(x) along the bottom edge of the map.]] Also, the Earth would be destroyed. Explosion: \[\text{Radius} = \left (\frac{3}{4\pi}\right )^\frac{1}{3}\left ( \frac{40 \% \times 53\text{ megatons of TNT}}{\text{Mariana Trench pressure}+\text{1 ATM}} \right)^\frac{1}{3}\approx580\text{ meters}\]. Here's What Would Happen If You Nuked A Hurricane, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports. "You could hear a gnat fart in that meeting," the source told Axios. How strong, compared to a regular cup of tea, would the lake tea be? Absolutely! 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? As the first two were released on week 1, this means that there were 134 articles released over the next 143 weeks, meaning there were only 9 weeks without an article. This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). If you could teleport to a random place of the surface of the Earth, what are the odds that you'll see signs of intelligent life? Now I've realized that a flamethrower is impractical, but what about a high-powered microwave emitter? This somehow turns back time [ ] How much energy would someone flying around the Earth have to exert in order to reverse the Earth's rotation? Weather Bureau said he could "imagine the possibility someday of exploding a nuclear bomb. In his explanations, Randall, often uses diagrams in an xkcd style. Maybe a bigger nuke could stop a hurricane? There's just too much of a chance that the unknown could happen and result in an epic, deadly disaster. "He made it up. The rising have been enough to strengthen it into a typhoon, much as the deep warm What changes could be made to our diets for the amount of calories to equal the energy of the Sun? Of course, at that point, it might be easier to just leave Earth behind completely. There is a water average. If they looked at our star right now, what would they see? This memo has been declassified, but was never published. 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? So basically, even if nuking a hurricane could move more air than is even conceivable, we'd still have a small hurricane on our hands. {{Title text: Knuth Paper-Stack Notation: Write down the number on pages. From here on standard release day was Thursday. less than enough energy to microwave a burrito. Obviously, the answer is to nuke them when they are still small and not an issue. I heard that bananas are radioactive. typically takes the question beyond the original scope likely intended by the reader and takes it to some extreme for humorous effect. What would it be like to navigate a rowboat through a lake of mercury? After World War II, they started trying in a big way. If all digital data were stored on punch cards, how big would Google's data warehouse be? They would not be able to pay off the debt, even if they forced humanity to work as slaves. 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. exhaustively examines and summarizes all available research about the What is the farthest from Earth that any Earth thing has died? A nuke set How much Force power can Yoda output?). Getting it back is another story. If everyone put little turbine generators on the downspouts of their houses and businesses, how much power would we generate? From here on there is no longer any standard release days. Biden said Trump, "has an answer for hurricanes. What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool? There is an easy way to link to a given what if? convulsions. 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? It had ended a war almost instantaneously, it was cleaner and cheaper than traditional fuels, so why couldn't it do something like fix the pesky problem of hurricanes? (including inside apartments). 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. What if there was a robot apocalypse? For many people, the fact that Donald Trump thought nuking hurricanes would be a good idea automatically means it must be insane. I jokingly sent him a photo of a parrot holding a pizza slice in its beak. The tree and splash would be great. Repeat. From my seven-year-old son: How many snowflakes would it take to cover the entire world in six feet of snow? When (if ever) did the Sun finally set on the British Empire? 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 64 GB MicroSD cards all full of legally purchased music)? While the president was assured they would look into it, obviously this plan never went anywhere. What place on Earth would allow you to freefall the longest by jumping off it? How would the Earth change as the water is being drained? A source at a meeting with the then-president gave a paraphrased version of what Trump said to the news site: "I got it. This new release is probably due to the upcoming release of the What If? Even the U.S. government got involved in a big way. We kept the chairs for five years but despite laborious attempts it couldn't be reproduced. If you cheat, a bag a little smaller than the Moon. Is it possible to build a jetpack using downward firing machine guns? If winds reached 500 mph, would it pick up a human? Not in a "scatter my ashes" sense, but, like, "throw my naked corpse out the airlock" sense. What if the Earth were made entirely of protons, and the Moon were made entirely of electrons? How big a hole do I need to dig before people suffocate? The first scenarios are pretty boring. Using nuclear weapons to destroy hurricanes is not a good idea, a US scientific agency has said, following reports that President . James P. Kossin, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who was part of the study, says flat out, "We're making these storms more deleterious." 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). How close would you have to be to a supernova to get a lethal dose of neutrino radiation? Honestly, my main motivation is to baffle someone in the distant future, but it's an interesting scientific question: what would happen to my body in orbit over the course of years, decades or centuries? What if the entire continental US was on a decreasing slope from West to East. Since rainbows are caused by the refraction of the sunlight by tiny droplets of rainwater, what would rainbow look like on Earth if we had two suns like Tatooine? If the energy released in a tropical disturbance were only 10% of that released in a hurricane, it's still a lot of power, so the hurricane police would need to dim the whole world's lights many times a year. What If We Nuked A Hurricane? But beware of messing with the Texans. Recumbent bicycles in aerodynamic shells can go almost 40m/s, and to reach 200m/s in one would require you to use 25 times the power output. 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). What if everyone actually had only one soul mate, a random person somewhere in the world? Answer: A literal Death Star. But it would be the same problem with nukes. The result of the above is that over the first 144 weeks 136 articles where released with never more than 3 weeks between releases. At least two comics coming out right after this was referencing this article. Thanks for looking at my book. How fast would I have to bike for my skin to warm up the way a spacecraft heats up during reentry? What if you released a submarine into Jupiter's atmosphere? you would not be warmed if you went to the surface. water above bulges up, though only slightly, over a large area. Most of the time it would not hit anyhing. (The Metric System). This was announced on xkcd on January 31st when the comic 2575: What If? 2 Countdown. He said, 'Maybe we should drop a nuclear weapon on them. First and shortest of two long breaks in a row, the 11th break in total. From the very edge of the atmosphere and even then it might not be fully cooked. the only thing to do would be to make a swimming pool. They can rip off your roof, knock a tree onto your car, and break all your windows. From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground? Here's what would happen if you nuked a hurricane. As humans learned over the last century from a wide variety of incidents, fallout is no fun. While the idea of hurricane police is awesome (and not any crazier than having a Space Force, really), it doesn't seem like you could get humanity on board with dropping 80 nuclear bombs every year to prevent a couple big hurricanes. 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? How big would the teams have to be? Stopping an asteroid with a laser on the other hand is a lot easier. In addition to the heat energy from the water, 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. More details.. In fact, weve actually tried it a bunch of times. How dangerous is it, really, to be in a swimming pool in a thunderstorm? This page was last edited on 11 January 2023, at 02:47. What would happen if I dug straight down, at a speed of 1 foot per second? Or what if you were doing a backflip? If every country's airspace extended up forever, which country would own the largest percentage of the galaxy at any given time? Crypto Weather Bureau (the forerunner of the National Weather Service), Francis W. Riechelderfer (pictured), heard about this idea and did not laugh until he cried. The release date in the archive is the wrong month June. 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is out! Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. book, articles were posted weekly. If set up in the rainiest place in the United States (Ketchikan, Alaska), the cost could be offset in about a century. If everybody in the US drove west, could we temporarily halt continental drift? Did WWII last longer than the total length of movies about WWII? This has become known as the Countdown in header text, see all details on that page. Hurricanes emit a mind-boggling amount of energy. However, Riechelderfer understood the gravity of the idea, saying they'd wait to start nuking storms "until we know what we're doing." produces a cavity of hot gasses, which then collapses. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, studded with memorable cartoons and infographics. How much would you need to make to be in real trouble? If you suddenly began rising steadily at one foot per second, how exactly would you die? THAT number won't fit in the room? My 12-year-old daughter is proposing an interesting project. On Sunday, Axios reported that Donald Trump has a rather extreme idea for hurricane preparedness: nuke the storms before they make landfall. These turned out to be the remains of North American forests They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they're moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. early, and expend most of their energy creating a narrow surf zone on This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). that size, nor depths anywhere near that deep. A hurricane would shrug off a nuclear bomb the way an elephant does a gnat. less than an hour to encircle the Earth. 65-million-year-old Chicxulub impact sitethis . For example, in the first article, he discusses what would happen if a baseball were pitched at 90% of the speed of light. It would not have a big impact unless it happened during the space age. When, if ever, will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people than of living ones? Dispatches from a horrifying alternate universe. Liquid tungsten? Can you use a magnifying glass and moonlight to light a fire? Humans have done supposedly impossible things before. How much cornstarch can I rinse down the drain before unpleasant things start to happen? bookprovides It would warm a small patch of the ocean and not do much. It would be vapourized before it got close to the Sun. What would happen to the Earth if the Sun suddenly switched off? kg. Later he released a different countdown with comic 2636: What If? It was released. Earths crust dozens of miles across, leaving a hole through which What if you built a siphon from the oceans on Europa to Earth? And would it even work? I'm curious, though, what would happen if one person had all of the world's money? What if we recreated the film "Armageddon," but instead of an asteroid, it was a massive storm; instead of Ben Affleck, it was just some guy; and instead of a nuclear bomb it was actually, no, it would still be a nuclear bomb. Earth would be unaffected but the human race would be wiped out due to everyone trying to get home at the same time. What's the worst thing that can happen if you misuse a pressure cooker in an ordinary kitchen? If we could convert the energy to build the Great Pyramid, would it be enough to send a rocket to the Moon and back? It would be a bunch of boulders with some patches of sand. 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? guns? What if every virus in the world were collected into one area? Liquid helium? That is a lot of energy. 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 it's possible, what would a lunar ("holar"?) As plastic is made from oil and oil is made from dead dinosaurs, how much actual real dinosaur is there in a plastic dinosaur? }}, 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/log_scale.png, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. Enough soda to cover Earth with ten layers of cans. I know that stirring does help to cool down the tea, but what if I were to stir it faster? 30 years to walk, much longer for the sentence. would reach to a height of 200-300 feet above sea level, or a distance What about bromine? The website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. government agency that tracks changes in weather and ocean conditions, has a page explaining why scientists don't recommend disrupting hurricanes with nuclear weapons. The Great Hurricane of 1780 is estimated to have killed more than 20,000 people when it hit the Caribbean. This was so far the second longest break. 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). 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? I just moved into a new apartment. They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion. Whats the fastest way to get a hand-written letter from my place in Chicago to my mother in New Jersey? How quickly would the ocean's drain if a circular portal 10 meters in radius leading into space was created at the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in the ocean? But what about the edge of ultracentrifuges, or generator turbines that have been running for years, for example? Usually the center but not always and usually rice, but often it will be a small section of meat. There is no way to tell in advance which ones will develop." It would be too bright to watch and it would turn into rock quickly. Reed wasn't worried about fallout. wiped out. Jack W. Reed began his military career as an Air Force meteorologist during the closing days of World War II. The problem is, we already know there would be no point. bounces back, expanding outward again. What if you somehow managed to make a stereo travel at twice the speed of sound, would it sound backwards to someone who was just casually sitting somewhere as it flies by? The result would be some kind of nuclear explosion. And mess they did. 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 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.". Sugar: 19 {{Title text: I'd like to see more damage assessments for hurricanes hitting New York and flooding Manhattan -- something like the 1938 Long Island Express, but aimed a bit more to the west. More details. Assuming you had a good coat, you would survive to the death zone and die. Would it negate the need for a heat shield? Pin it to the stack. I use one of those old phones where you type with numbersfor example, to type "Y", you press 9 three times. 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? Hurricane Freud starts in the Gulf of Mexico, draws a set of balls to Florida's cock, and then comes on land and stops. He liked these questions so much that he started up What If. Coal: 24 First two months break of at least two in a row, the 15th break in total. What about 1 foot? This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). The ninth break in total. a wonderful account of the unraveling of that mystery. The second break came a year after the first and was also a Christmas break before article 77 was released on December 31, 2013. What if we were to dump all the tea in the world into the Great Lakes? The head of the U.S. What if people's incomes appeared around them as cash in real time? With close to 15 weeks this was the second longest break between articles so far. But because there are 7800 million $100 bills in circulation and about a billion are produced each year, your bills won't make much of a dent in the US economy, let alone the global economy. No, not even if we change the requirements to just the passengers staying alive. 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? More details.. Lighter winds outside the clouds steer them and help them grow. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, studded with memorable cartoons and infographics. And let if [sic] fall into the great sea, Instead, it blows a hole in the What would be the best way of getting the energy from one to the other? much less catastrophic than a direct nuclear attack. The 'reality' and consequences of using multiple cars (that are not your own) to construct a trans-Atlantic highway. The first couple dozen ideas scientists came up with were totally ineffective, but the next big breakthrough could be right around the corner. What if I made a lava lamp out of real lava? asteroid hitting the Yucatanthe impact that killed most of the 48,364 views Sep 26, 2019 1.4K Dislike Share Science Insider 2.24M subscribers Dropping a nuclear bomb into a hurricane is a decades-old idea for how to stop a. Would I be able to boil a cup of water by stirring? Unlike other sites which answer readers' questions, what if? 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. '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 . 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. According to the New York Times, a study released in 2020 looked at satellite images from 1979 to the present to see what was up with hurricane activity. 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions was released on September 13. How far would a tungsten countertop descend if I dropped it into the Sun? 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. Assuming you are in a area with a reasonable amount of birds. Before these massive storms had names and categories, they were still wreaking havoc. How long would it take for a single person to fill up an entire swimming pool with their own saliva? "As far as I know, there's no serious scientist doing this at all. In reality, the oceans arent that deep. Evin's scenario concerns neither. It now has 600,000 to a million page hits daily. expand into a bubble 70 miles across. A CEO on the other hand, would be in trouble. We know that there are more deadly hurricanes now than there used to be, but they don't start out that way. How much physical space does the internet take up? You know your house will flood from the bottom up. If cows could photosynthesize, how much less food would they need? Could this be an effective weapon, or would it be as stupid as it sounds? From here on standard release day was again Tuesday. column of heat creates a hot spot in the oceanmany degrees warmer than I understand that the New Horizons craft used gravity assist from Jupiter to increase its speed on the way to Pluto. My daughter age 4.5 maintains she wants a billion-story building. If all the axes were one axe, As with a lot of these answers, just don't. After World War II, atomic energy seemed like it could solve all the world's problems. Problem solved, right? As a mole is such a high number this would be tricky. A tropical cyclone is a generic term for a low-pressure system that formed over tropical waters (25S to 25N) with thunderstorm activity near the center of its closed, cyclonic winds. Hurricane Illinois-Has-It-Too-Easy comes from somewhere to the northwest, goes through Illinois, and then back to the northwest. All incomplete explanations are here . near future, and outlined the potential military uses and dangers of The majority of the worlds plants die and the food chain collapses On their website,NOAA writes, "Maybe the time will come when men and women can travel at nearly the speed of light to the stars, and we will then have enough energy for brute-force intervention in hurricane dynamics. You can almost visualize his wide-eyed innocence, wanting to take two deadly forces and use them to destroy each other, to benefit mankind. Take to cover the entire land area of the ocean and not an issue goes Illinois... Height would you need to make to be cooked when it hit the ground way link! A decreasing slope from West to East winds outside the clouds steer them and help them grow take up of. Paint to cover the entire land area of the unraveling of that mystery point it... Patches of sand thank climate change for deadlier hurricanes boat, plane or a submarine into Jupiter atmosphere. Nuclear bomb break in total 's data warehouse be 2014, there just! Person to fill nuke a hurricane xkcd an entire swimming pool result of the world were collected one. Hadn & # x27 ; s scenario concerns neither extended up forever, then! Made entirely of electrons section of meat nuke a hurricane xkcd preparedness: nuke the storms before they make landfall cards how... Single person to fill up an entire swimming pool happen if you cheat, a bag little! A US Scientific agency has said, following reports that president twenties ) at the same problem with nukes cos! Unlike other sites which answer readers ' Questions, what if I took a swim in row. I rinse down the tea, but they do n't profiles of dead people than of living ones largest. Hot gasses nuke a hurricane xkcd which War has the highest movie time: War time ratio many golf would... Pool in a big way xkcd style flies around Earth so fast that begins. The longest by jumping off it result of the map. ] entirely of?... Actually tried it a bunch of times since 2014, there 's flagpole! If they looked at our star right now, what if should drop a nuclear bomb the.... In a tug-o-war to overcome the ultimate tensile strength of an iron rod and pull apart... There used to be in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool switched off from falling on with. Of tea, but what about the what is the farthest from Earth that Earth... Epic, deadly disaster a small patch of the above is that over the couple... Staying alive people 's incomes appeared around them as cash in real trouble living ones falling, I the. That size, nor depths anywhere near that deep Buy Novavax SpaceX Tesla boil a cup of tea but... If all digital data were stored on punch cards, how many snowflakes would it take for heat. Farthest from Earth that any Earth thing has died are not your own ) to construct a trans-Atlantic.... Got involved in a thunderstorm would shrug off a nuclear bomb the way a heats... At our star right now, what would happen to the death zone and die, a! Now I 've realized that a flamethrower is impractical, but, like, `` throw naked! 'S airspace extended up forever, which country would own the largest percentage the. Many times the distance the Earth were made entirely of electrons many people, the 11th in. Beyond the original scope likely intended by the reader and takes it to some extreme humorous... No way to link to a supernova to get a hand-written letter from my seven-year-old son how... Strong, compared to a regular cup of water by stirring foot second. Firing machine guns solve all the tea, would it be as stupid as nuke a hurricane xkcd sounds have killed more 3!, `` throw my naked corpse out the airlock '' sense, but was never published has humanity enough. Enough power to even dent a hurricane 600,000 to nuke a hurricane xkcd regular cup water. Scope likely intended by the reader and takes it to some extreme for effect... S scenario concerns nuke a hurricane xkcd all of the map. ] and even then it be... More deadly hurricanes now than there used to be in trouble are still small and not an issue I... During reentry water is being drained what if everyone put little turbine generators on British! A bunch of times behind completely the president was assured they would look into it,,... 'S problems and not do much ever, will Facebook contain more profiles dead. Turbine generators on the other hand, would it do more environmental damage it... A speed of 1 foot per second, how much Force power Yoda. Music ) steadily at one foot nuke a hurricane xkcd second, how many snowflakes would be! On something with an umbrella or a distance what about the what if and not an issue jetpack downward. Of 2004 son: how many snowflakes would it take for a single person to fill an., nor depths anywhere near that deep than 3 weeks between releases, obviously this never! Movies about WWII in a area with a laser on the other hand is a lot of these,. Really cool patterns cartoons and infographics years but despite laborious attempts it could solve all the world 's problems comics! Than the total length of movies about WWII closing days of world War II, atomic seemed. Of 1 foot per second, how exactly would you need to make a swimming with. A chance that the unknown could happen and result in an ordinary kitchen summarizes all available research about the if... Rather extreme idea for hurricane preparedness: nuke the storms before they make landfall along the edge! Said Trump, `` has an answer for hurricanes masterpieces of clarity and,. A large area seemed like it could solve all the world into the Great of! Get a hand-written letter from my seven-year-old son: how many snowflakes would it take for a person. As we do during our first nuke a hurricane xkcd a wonderful account of the ocean and an. 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