xkcd what if neutron star
probably will crush everything with its … Karam calculates that the neutrino radiation dose at a distance of one parsec [6] 3.262 light-years, or a little less than the distance from here to Alpha Centauri. Come to … Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. Except for black holes, and some hypothetical objects (e.g. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. 10 Full PDFs related to this paper. But before it gets that far ... t = 300 years: \[ 0.5\text{ nanosieverts} \times\left ( \frac{1\text{ parsec}}{x}\right )^2 = 5\text{ sieverts} \] To put this in perspective, A cubic meter of neutron star would be completely fine in the face of a nuclear bomb, even at ground zero, due to the incredible gravitational binding energy holding it together. xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS at a screen resolution of 1024x1. would be around half a nanosievert, or 1/500th the dose from eating a banana.[7]xkcd.com/radiation. Less often if you're a child, since you have fewer atoms to be hit. Look at your hand—there are about a trillion neutrinos from the Sun passing through it every second. used for questions which directly refer to or are inspired by XKCD or related material. "Gamma And Neutrino Radiation Dose From Gamma Ray Bursts And Nearby Supernovae." To detect neutrinos, people build giant tanks filled with hundreds of tons of material in the hopes that they'll register the impact of a single solar neutrino. Las Vegas Non-Fiction Book Club Discussion Questions Meeting Date: November 17, 2015. READ PAPER. It comes from the creator of XKCD, a humorous science focused comic (there are some sketches below). A fatal radiation dose is about 4 sieverts. As mentioned above, gravity is actually way wayyyyyyy way weaker than electromagnetism -- something like 10 37 times weaker actually. A fatal radiation dose is about 4 sieverts. At what point do these two unimaginable things cancel out to produce an effect on a human scale? $\begingroup$ Obligatory "What if"/xkcd entry. is a blog by Randall Munroe, the creator of the Stick-Figure Comic xkcd. One sugar cube of neutron star matter would weigh about 1 hundred million tons on the Earth. "Supernovii" is discouraged. The trick is that the bullet’s density is equal the density of a neutron star. If you want to be mean to first-year calculus students, you can ask them to take the derivative of ln(x). After this point, it would collapse into something like a sputtering white dwarf or neutron star, and then—if its mass kept increasing—eventually become a black hole. serving as a sort of Dear Abby for mad scientists—I draw xkcd, a stick-figure webcomic. This means that when a particle accelerator (which produces neutrinos) wants to send a neutrino beam to a detector somewhere else in the world, all it has to do is point the beam at the detector—even if it's on the other side of the Earth! 2.3 AU is a little more than the distance between the Sun and Mars. Potential Service Life of ChaCha20? Health Physics 82, no. And indeed, it is ... by nine orders of magnitude. Statistically, my first neutrino interaction probably happened somewhere around age 10. As material within a pulsar accelerates within the magnetosphere of a pulsar, the neutron star produces gamma-ray emission. The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball? The phrase "lethal dose of neutrino radiation" is a weird one. Supernovae[4]"Supernovas" is also fine. 2.3 AU is a little more than the distance between the Sun and Mars. what-if-randall-munroe.pdf Look at your hand—there are about a trillion neutrinos from the Sun passing through it every second. Statistically, my first neutrino interaction probably happened somewhere around age 10. Neutron stars cram roughly 1.3 to 2.5 solar masses into a city-sized sphere perhaps 20 kilometers (12 miles) across. "Supernovas" is also fine. If you observed a supernova from 1 AU away—and you somehow avoided being being incinerated, vaporized, and converted to some type of exotic plasma—even the flood of ghostly neutrinos would be dense enough to kill you. /r/xkcd is the subreddit for the popular webcomic xkcd by Randall Munroe. Some of the questions in the book took longer. That's why the phrase "lethal dose of neutrino radiation" sounds weird—it mixes scales in an incongruous way. A paper by radiation expert Andrew Karam provides an answer. I had to turn it over in my head a few times after I heard it. Gamma And Neutrino Radiation Dose From Gamma Ray Bursts And Nearby Supernovae. Karam calculates that the neutrino radiation dose at a distance of one parsec[6]3.262 light-years, or a little less than the distance from here to Alpha Centauri. Neutron stars also have a minimum mass limit. shooter is at sea level and catcher is up … [7] xkcd.com/radiation. [5]Karam, P. Andrew. 4 (2002): 491-499. Neutron stars are the extremely dense remnants of very massive stars. A paper by radiation expert Andrew Karam provides an answer. That's why the phrase "lethal dose of neutrino radiation" sounds weird—it mixes scales in an incongruous way. It is strong enough to bend radiation (gravity lensing); astronomers can see behind them! e.g. The idea of neutrino radiation damage reinforces just how big supernovae are. Is there any way to fire a gun so that the bullet flies through the air and can then be safely caught by hand? I found the starlings-collapsing-into-a-star example interesting. I didn’t start out making comics. Questions like can a submarine survive in orbit. Munroe finds that the neutron bullet would make a crater on the surface of the Earth and then travel all the way to the Earth’s … This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). (Density is the amount of matter in 1 cubic meter.) white holes, quark stars, and strange stars), neutron stars are the smallest and densest currently known class of stellar objects. Randall has a Twitter feed, @whatifnumbers, of numbers he comes up with while writing the blog. Which would still be less than 1% of the ants in the world. Light can escape a neutron star, but not much else can. How close would you have to be to a supernova to get a lethal dose of neutrino radiation? What if you tried to hit a … 138k members in the xkcd community. So our cubic meter of neutron star matter would weight about three to six hundred million billion kilograms. The most common way for a star under 8 solar masses to become a supernova is if it isn't left to itself - it gets extra mass from a companion star. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. Karam calculates that the neutrino radiation dose at a distance of one parsec[6]3.262 light-years, or a little less than the distance from here to Alpha Centauri. It explains that during certain supernovae, the collapse of a stellar core into a neutron star, 1057 neutrinos can be released (one for every proton in the star that collapses to become a neutron). [2]Which would still be less than 1% of the ants in the world. Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. The power from the supernova that birthed it gives the star an extremely quick rotation, causing it to spin several times in a second. Gravity on a neutron star is a couple of billion times stronger than gravity on Earth. On average, out of that massive flood, only one neutrino will "hit" an atom in your body every few years. [3]If you want to be mean to first-year calculus students, you can ask them to take the derivative of ln(x)e dx. It's like the idiom "knock me over with a feather" or the phrase "football stadium filled to the brim with ants". is an informative feast for xkcd … If you shot a bullet with the mass of a neutron star at the ground what would happen? Statistically, my first neutrino interaction probably happened somewhere around age 10. If you're not a physics person, it might not sound odd to you, so here's a little context for why it's such a surprising idea: Neutrinos are ghostly particles that barely interact with the world at all. Consequently, the binding energy required for an electrically bound system is also much, much greater than the binding energy required for a gravitationally bound … Look up neutron star. A neutron star’s gravity is not as strong as a black hole’s, but it’s close. [5]Karam, P. Andrew. I went to school for physics, and after graduating, I worked on robotics atNASA. Statistically, my first neutrino interaction probably happened somewhere around age 10. From the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe’s iconic webcomic. 309 votes, 63 comments. If you have a math background, it's sort of like seeing the expression "ln(x)e"—it's not that, taken literally, it doesn't make sense, but it's hard to imagine a situation where it would apply. The sun doesn't have a companion star though. A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star, which had a total mass of between 10 and 25 solar masses, possibly more if the star was especially metal-rich. One day, enough mass reached, collapse! Karam calculates that the neutrino radiation dose at a distance of one parsec [6] 3.262 light-years, or a little less than the distance from here to Alpha Centauri. 3.262 light-years, or a little less than the distance from here to Alpha Centauri. 3.262 light-years, or a little less than the distance from here to Alpha Centauri. Which would still be less than 1% of the ants in the world. 1 ... $\begingroup$ I think gold is mostly formed in neutron star collisions. In fact, neutrinos are so shadowy that the entire Earth is transparent to them; nearly all of the Sun's neutrino flood goes straight through it unaffected. "Gamma And Neutrino Radiation Dose From Gamma Ray Bursts And Nearby Supernovae." This means that when a particle accelerator (which produces neutrinos) wants to send a neutrino beam to a detector somewhere else in the world, all it has to do is point the beam at the detector—even if it's on the other side of the Earth! At some point, our growing Earth would reach the point where adding more mass causes it to contract, rather than expand. would be around half a nanosievert, or 1/500th the dose from eating a banana. provide that scenario. Core collapse supernovae happen to giant stars, so if you observed a supernova from that distance, you'd probably be inside the outer layers of the star that created it. The phrase "lethal dose of neutrino radiation" is a weird one. That's why this is a neat question; supernovae are unimaginably huge and neutrinos are unimaginably insubstantial. Are fire tornadoes possible?His responses are masterpieces of clarity and wit, gleefully and accurately explaining everything from the relativistic effects of a baseball pitched at near the speed of light to the many horrible ways you could die while building a periodic table out of all the actual elements.The book features new and never-before-answered questions, along with the most popular answers from the xkcd website.What If? In particular, there was a question about what would happen if you tried to touch a small object — a bullet — that was as dense as a neutron star. Please enable your ad blockers, disable high-heat drying, and remove your device If it's going fast enough, a feather can absolutely knock you over. \[ x=0.00001118\text{ parsecs}=2.3\text{ AU} \] The Empire State Building weighs 365,000 imperial tons, or about 332,000 metric tons. 4 (2002): 491-499. Similarly, it's so hard to get enough neutrinos to compel even a single one of them to interact with matter, making it hard to picture a scenario in which there'd be enough of them to affect you. I note, however, that all stars that we know of, except some burnt-out specimens like white dwarfs and neutron stars, are made up predominantly of hydrogen and helium. An interesting, quick and fun read by xkcd author Monroe that attempts to seriously answer some really odd questions. At what point do these two unimaginable things cancel out to produce an effect on a human scale? Since a neutron star or a black hole is held together by intense gravity, a neutral zone between the objects would allow the the material to escape and possibly create a "mini bang". If you observed a supernova from 1 AU away—and you somehow avoided being being incinerated, vaporized, and converted to some type of exotic plasma—even the flood of ghostly neutrinos would be dense enough to kill you. He is the creator of the webcomic xkcd, which after leaving NASA, he has devoted himself to full time. It's like the idiom "knock me over with a feather" or the phrase "football stadium filled to the brim with ants". To detect neutrinos, people build giant tanks filled with hundreds of tons of material in the hopes that they'll register the impact of a single solar neutrino. If it's going fast enough, a feather can absolutely knock you over. would be around half a nanosievert, or 1/500th the dose from eating a banana. "Supernovii" is discouraged. If you want to be mean to first-year calculus students, you can ask them to take the derivative of ln(x). If you have a math background, it's sort of like seeing the expression "ln(x)e"—it's not that, taken literally, it doesn't make sense, but it's hard to imagine a situation where it would apply. $\endgroup$ – RoyC Jun 26 at 10:16 $\begingroup$ I looked stuff up on XKCD too and mass of proton (which is equal to a neutron, also looked up neutron star) so my object is going to be very heavy, DENSE! "Supernovii" is discouraged. The outer layers of a red giant or supergiant star are, although hot, extremely tenuous. Updated erratically, he answers off-the-wall reader questions using math, science, and xkcd-style cartoons. [7] xkcd.com/radiation. would be around half a nanosievert, or 1/500th the dose from eating a banana.[7]xkcd.com/radiation. However, it could spew out increasingly intense radiation for 96 years . asked May 24 '11 at 14:45. When the core of a massive star undergoes gravitational collapse at the end of its life, protons and electrons are literally scrunched together, leaving behind one of nature's most wondrous creations: a neutron star. The reason you don't notice the neutrino flood is that neutrinos hardly interact with ordinary matter at all. The idea of neutrino radiation damage reinforces just how big supernovae are. Stargazers Lounge Uses Cookies. $\endgroup$ – DarkDust Jun 27 '17 at 7:45. He's also published a … Using the inverse-square law, we can calculate the radiation dose: Randall Munroe is the author of the xkcd webcomic and an ex-NASA roboticist. Author Bio: Randall Patrick Munroe is an American webcomic author/artist and former NASA roboticist. Similarly, it's so hard to get enough neutrinos to compel even a single one of them to interact with matter, making it hard to picture a scenario in which there'd be enough of them to affect you. So, if a lightsaber can cut through that, they can sure as hell melt a … [3]If you want to be mean to first-year calculus students, you can ask them to take the derivative of ln(x)e dx. Health Physics 82, no. Here's a question to give you a sense of scale: Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina: A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or. What If? I had to turn it over in my head a few times after I heard it. ... star-trek xkcd. DavRob60. The reason you don't notice the neutrino flood is that neutrinos hardly interact with ordinary matter at all. I eventually left NASA to draw comics full-time, but my interest in … The physicist who mentioned this problem to me told me his rule of thumb for estimating supernova-related numbers: However big you think supernovae are, they're bigger than that. "Supernovas" is also fine. Like most websites, SGL uses cookies in order to deliver a secure, personalised service, to provide social media functions and to analyse our traffic. That's why this is a neat question; supernovae are unimaginably huge and neutrinos are unimaginably insubstantial. If you're not a physics person, it might not sound odd to you, so here's a little context for why it's such a surprising idea: Neutrinos are ghostly particles that barely interact with the world at all. Less often if you're a child, since you have fewer atoms to be hit. On average, out of that massive flood, only one neutrino will "hit" an atom in your body every few years. "Supernovii" is discouraged. provide that scenario. What if Sun/White Dwarf/Neutron Star collided with UY Scuti - largest known star, that has over 7 AU of radius. Core collapse supernovae happen to giant stars, so if you observed a supernova from that distance, you'd probably be inside the outer layers of the star that created it. How close would you have to be to a supernova to get a lethal dose of neutrino radiation? Lets say in moment of collision stars would travel dead into center of UY Scuti at 10% of c. Unrelated question: What if 50 km ball of Iron flew trough Venus atmosphere at speed of 100 km/s? During the formation of a neutron star, usually in the form of an initial inward implosion, the neutron degeneracy (basically the impossibility of neutron of occupying the same space because of fundamental constraints in physics that are studied by quantum mechanics) stops the implosion and redirects the shockwave outwards, thus producing a Supernova explosion. Wouldn't the binding energy of, say, a neutron star be greater than that of this imaginary doomsday moon? His book, What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical… It looks like it should be "1" or something, but it's not. The minimum stable neutron-star mass is about 0.1 solar masses, although a more realistic minimum stems from a neutron star’s origin in a super- nova. Using the inverse-square law, we can calculate the radiation dose: Prev; Next; Catch! Gamma And Neutrino Radiation Dose From Gamma Ray Bursts And Nearby Supernovae. It explains that during certain supernovae, the collapse of a stellar core into a neutron star, 1057 neutrinos can be released (one for every proton in the star that collapses to become a neutron). \[ x=0.00001118\text{ parsecs}=2.3\text{ AU} \] [1]Less often if you're a child, since you have fewer atoms to be hit. More details. It markets itself as answering absurd hypothetical question in a serious scientific way and it really does, the science seems sound and the questions are, as promised, ridiculous. The physicist who mentioned this problem to me told me his rule of thumb for estimating supernova-related numbers: However big you think supernovae are, they're bigger than that. A star made of starlings would be very deficient in hydrogen, and it would contain practically no helium whatsoever. His short online comic strips, created in a simple stickman style and injected with plenty of wit, have become incredibly popular, particularly among scientists and mathematicians. It is likely that the maximum neutron-star mass is determined by the stiffness of the EOS, and is expected to be about.5 solar masses. ... Why Does The Charge Of Proton Not Transfer To Neutron? Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe’s iconic webcomic. In fact, neutrinos are so shadowy that the entire Earth is transparent to them; nearly all of the Sun's neutrino flood goes straight through it unaffected. Hawking radiation from a black hole with "neutron bullet" mass (equivalent to the Empire State Building) would be vicious, equivalent to .78 megatons of TNT per second. And indeed, it is ... by nine orders of magnitude. If you … [2]Which would still be less than 1% of the ants in the world. Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. It looks like it should be "1" or something, but it's not. \[ 0.5\text{ nanosieverts} \times\left ( \frac{1\text{ parsec}}{x}\right )^2 = 5\text{ sieverts} \] I've always wondered what would happen if two neutron stars or two black holes got too close together and created a gravity neutral zone. However, if the star is larger than 8 solar masses, its different. Here's a question to give you a sense of scale: Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina: A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or. [1]Less often if you're a child, since you have fewer atoms to be hit. Supernovae[4]"Supernovas" is also fine. The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball? - called a type 1 (or 1a) supernova.