How to destroy the Earth

[Buffy]

In yesterday's SF Comical (Chronicle to you out-of-towners), Jon Carroll, our favorite local columnist highlighted this web page on "How to destroy the Earth", an interesting little musing about various scenarios for, well, its obvious:

 

http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/destroy.html

 

The thing I found most facinating was how *difficult* it is to get rid of a planet: it takes a LOT of energy!

The Earth was built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.

 

Now of course the author is strict in his definition of "destroy" as "obliterate" and dismisses options like "Armageddon" and "Ceasing all thought (if the Earth is not observed, then how can it exist?)," and getting rid of us vermin who inhabit the planet is inconsequential.

 

Think about it, what *would* it take?

 

Strangelovian,

Buffy

[muller]

I offer to improve method #9 were the author suggests to direct the Earth to the Sun. I think it would take much less energy to hurl the Moon to the Earth acting the same way. Result would be quite good - the Earth and the Moon will turn to new asteroid belt.

But chance to wipe out the mankind bothers me much more than destroing the planet itself because who cares about the planet if threre are no more people ?

[Fishteacher73]

In A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson, he notes that the impact of the meteor at the KT boundry was larger than an explosion of a Hiroshima atomic bomb for every living human (Which I think is currently around 8 billion). That just took out the dinos with really the only effect to the phsicality of the earth was the Gulf of Mexico.

[Robust]

My two-cents on this , okay?

 

We are probably going about it already in one of the most expeditious manners possible: pumping the earth's coolant from out of its bowels and dissipating it into its atmosphere.

[UncleAl]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_binding_energy

 

2.24x10^32 joules to disassemble the Earth. That's about 2.5 trillion metric tonnes of mass as energy. Gonna be a real ***** to lug around even in its condensed phase.

 

You could try a long line of fat thermonukes at the bottom of the Mariana Trench and hope for massive landslides. The resulting tsunamis would inundate the Pacific rim to maybe ten miles inland, crippling perhaps 10% of the worlds' economic outputs.

 

Talk to Arabia and build a huge Freon-12 plant with mammoth storage tanks for the liquefied gas. If things don't subsequently go your way, broach storage and remove the ozone layer for 100 years. It's better than Cobalthorium-G or an Illudium PU-36 explosive space modulator. If the world gives in, you get rich drawing down inventory by maufacturing decent air conditioners and refrigerators.

[Boerseun]

Destroy the Earth?

 

Easy.

 

1) Bury oil somewhere.

2) Let an American find out about it.

[Chacmool]

Destroy the Earth?

 

Easy.

 

1) Bury oil somewhere.

2) Let an American find out about it.

 

North Korea would be the ideal location.

[bumab]

North Korea would be the ideal location.

 

:Alien:

 

That's the funniest thing I've read all week.

[nkt]

If you could develop a very, very good capacitor, you could store a large (and I mean vast!) amount of charge in it. This could then be sent off-planet, or otherwise "destroyed". Keep doing this until the earth becomes positively charged to such a degree that the charges rip the planet apart.

 

Should be easier than megatonnes of antimatter!

[infamous]

Any attempt at preforming this task would require vast amounts of energy and careful planning. When considering the cost and feasibility, I think launching a missle at a passing asteroid of sufficient size and nudging it into earth's path would pull this off quite effectively.

[nkt]

Any attempt at preforming this task would require vast amounts of energy and careful planning. When considering the cost and feasibility, I think launching a missle at a passing asteroid of sufficient size and nudging it into earth's path would pull this off quite effectively.

Unless you managed to adjust the course for a blow at just the right angle, that wouldn't destoy the earth. You could hit the front edge of the earth, and try to slow it dramatically, so it fell into the sun, though my grasp of orbital mechanics is not that great, and I suspect the orbit would wind up being smaller and more elliptical, rather than actually falling into the sun.

 

Another option might be to skim the surface, and spin the earth up to a high enough speed that it would rip itself apart from the spin rate.

 

Both these options require a pretty heavy, fast moving asteroid that can be steered very exactly, though.

 

You could get an unbreakable line, hook it to the earth, and to saturn, and slingshot the earth out of the solar system. It isn't destruction (and it isn't possible - imagine the tether's strength!) but it might as well be.

[Boerseun]

Hey - found this cool thread in the Deceased Thread Graveyard.

 

Decided to give it a bump, 'cause its cool!

 

So, all you aspiring Doctor Evils out there, what would it take?

[Michaelangelica]

:)

 

That's the funniest thing I've read all week.

 

There was a nice joke about this that I have forgotten but it goes a little like this

A felon in in jail.

He knows his cell is being bugged by the FBI, etc.

When he rings his mum, the line is tapped.

He tells his Mum that he has hidden the 'loot' in the backyard but warns her not to tell anyone.

 

The next day a "Blues Brothers" final scene of cops with shovels, madocks, spades and earth-moving equipment descends on Mum's back yard.

After a fruitless day digging over the backyard the cops retire defeated.

The Mother delighted said she has such a wonderful son

He said he would dig up the yard for her new Spring veggie garden but she couldn't see how he would do this from jail.

 

 

On destroying the planet

How many atomic/nuclear weapons are there?

How much energy would all those going off at once produce?

[snoopy]

I prefer the destroyed by GOD method

 

for this you need only GOD

 

its minimalism appeals to me....

 

he created it so he should be the one to take it out as it were...

 

instead of leaving it to be destroyed by the sun in billions of years time...

 

now if someone would give me his email addy I will happily get the ball rolling.

 

Peace

[Michaelangelica]

Interesting Time article on behind-the scenes at Bali

But the real drama was to come. After India reiterated its objection — and was essentially supported by the European Union — the lead American negotiator Paula Dobiansky turned to speak, and announced that the U.S. would not accept India's changes, which sought to lighten the expectations from developing countries. (The UN negotiating process requires total consensus.) Boos rained on the U.S. delegation from NGO observers and even the press gallery, breaking the last remaining appearance of diplomatic placidity.

 

It's hardly the first time the U.S. has been jeered at a UN event, but what happened next was unique. Nation after developing nation rose to criticize the U.S. in language more often reserved for a political debate than a UN conference. A representative from tiny Papua New Guinea — one of many small island states most immediately threatened by climate change — recalled the old Lee Iacocca line about leading, following or getting out of the way. "If the U.S. will not lead, get out of the way," he said, to gallery cheers. "Please get out of the way."

How the U.S. Caved at Bali - TIME

[Jet2]

My 2 cents:

 

First, destroy the moon.

[nkt]

Nukes won't cut the mustard... Every nuke on the planet put together would just about equal the power of a major storm!

 

There is, of course, a huge difference between each of making the earth un-liveable on for humans, killing all life, and actually destroying the ball of rock itself.