xkcd: What If?

[Beyond]

What if you increased the mass of the earth to the mass of the sun?

We would all be living on a white dwarf and I would be somewhat more degenerate than usual.

Only somewhat There's hope for us yet

[bystander]

Drain the Oceans: Part II

• Supposing you did Drain the Oceans, and dumped the water on top of the Curiosity rover,
  how would Mars change as the water accumulated? — Iain

[bystander]

Random Sneeze Call

• If you call a random phone number and say “God bless you”, what are the chances
  that the person who answers just sneezed? On average, not just in spring or fall. — Mimi

[bystander]

Restraining an Airplane

• 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? — Connor Childerhose

[bystander]

Dropping a Mountain

• What if a huge mountain—Denali, say—had the bottom inch of its base disappear?
  What would happen from the impact of the mountain falling 1 inch? What about 1 foot?
  What if the mountain's base were raised to the present height of the summit,
  and then the whole thing were allowed to drop to the earth? — John-Clark Levin

[bystander]

Orbital Speed

• What if a spacecraft slowed down on re-entry to just a few miles per hour using rocket
  boosters like the Mars-sky-crane? Would it negate the need for a heat shield? — Brian
  
  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? — Christopher Mallow
  
  Could a (small) rocket (with payload) be lifted to a high point in the atmosphere where
  it would only need a small rocket to get to escape velocity?— Kenny Van de Maele

[bystander]

Updating a Printed Wikipedia

• 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? — Marein Könings

[neufer]

What If bystander ignored "What If?" for a hundred straight Tuesdays.

Would he EVER be able to catch up at that point

[Beyond]

NO He's an Apathetic Retiree. He doesn't have enough mustard to catch-up that much. But then, neither do any of us.

[geckzilla]

I think he would but that is an awfully long time for him to be offline. Some kind of disaster would have to strike.

[bystander]

It wasn't all my fault. These were all posted within the last 10 days.

[owlice]

Great reading with my Sunday coffee; thanks for posting these!!

[bystander]

Signs of Life

• 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? — Borislav Stanimirov

[bystander]

Speed Bump

• How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? — Myrlin Barber

[Beyond]

I liked the baseball at the speed of light link. One pitch and it's all over, for quite a ways. ing

[Ann]

I liked the baseball at the speed of light link. One pitch and it's all over, for quite a ways. ing

My goodness me (to the relativistic baseball)!

There was a "Slow down" campaign in Sweden a number of years ago, and I remember one poster saying (but in Swedish) "It is the velocity that kills you".

Isn't that true.

Ann

[Beyond]

Velocity is what starts the ball rolling for other events to take place that makes the Big mess that does you in.

[rstevenson]

... I remember one poster saying (but in Swedish) "It is the velocity that kills you".

Isn't that true.

It's not the velocity, it's the abrupt reduction in velocity that gets ya. [We need a SPLAT! smiley.]

Rob

[Beyond]

But with the "relavistic" baseball (which never makes it to you), there isn't any abrupt reduction in velocity, it's the nuclear conditions that it generates that gets ya. [We also need a little mushroom cloud smiley]

[rstevenson]

Sorry, I lost track of which kind of death we were talking about.

Rob

[Beyond]

Completely understandable, given that there are so many ways to chose from.

[bystander]

xkcd: What If? #1 - Relativistic Baseball

[bystander]

Falling With Helium

• What if I jumped out of an airplane with a couple of tanks of helium and one huge, un-inflated
  balloon? Then, while falling, I release the helium and fill the balloon. How long of a fall would
  I need in order for the balloon to slow me enough that I could land safely? — Colin Rowe

[owlice]

The question never got answered!

[bystander]

Google's Datacenters on Punch Cards

• If all digital data were stored on punch cards,
  how big would Google's data warehouse be? — James Zetlen