Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical questions

[DAL59 2,007]

Based on xkcd's What If(apparently inactive).  Ask a absurd hypothetical question, and someone can come and give you a serious scientific answer.  

[Diche Bach 308]

If the entire Surface Web (meaning everything that is not part of the Deep Web) were to be archived:

1. How much storage space would it occupy

2. How quickly would it need to be recorded to approach any semblance of an "instantaneous" snapshot

3. How long would it take to transfer all of that content to print form

4. How many volumes of books would it fill?

 

Best I could come up with on short notice

[NSEP 7,096]

5 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

If the entire Surface Web (meaning everything that is not part of the Deep Web) were to be archived:

1. How much storage space would it occupy

2. How quickly would it need to be recorded to approach any semblance of an "instantaneous" snapshot

3. How long would it take to transfer all of that content to print form

4. How many volumes of books would it fill?

 

Best I could come up with on short notice

Not answering the questions, but still, sorta related kinda?

[Diche Bach 308]

Ha! I remember stumbling across a YT video on that topic of "how much [some subset of human digitized information] weighs!" Not sure if it was the Internet or something more inclusive, but yeah . . . some seriously low-density stuff! . . . "Light reading"  . . . Mere fluff . . . Lightweight marshmellow creme flimsy  . . .

[Earthlinger 1,771]

If you could magnetize the hull of a tank so that it had an extremely negative charge, and somehow magnetized incoming bullets so that they acquired a similar negative charge, would this essentially create a sort of repelling-thingy force shield?

The like charges would repel, and the bullets would slow down the closer they got to the hull. With a strong enough charge, they might even be stopped completely and flung in the other direction.

[DAL59 2,007]

35 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

2. How quickly would it need to be recorded to approach any semblance of an "instantaneous" snapshot

Archive's Wayback Machine already kind of does this.  

[DAL59 2,007]

If there are 1.28 billion websites, and 2.3 megabytes per page on average, then thee would be about 3 petabytes of data.  

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/1999-00/information-theory/entropy_of_english_9.html

Says that the density of info in written text is 11.8 bits per word.  A 100,000 word novel would thus be about 150 kilobytes.  20,000,000,000 books would be needed!

You would need to cut down over 322 million trees.  

[radonek 306]

18 hours ago, Earthlinger said:

If you could magnetize the hull of a tank so that it had an extremely negative charge, and somehow magnetized incoming bullets so that they acquired a similar negative charge, would this essentially create a sort of repelling-thingy force shield?

The like charges would repel, and the bullets would slow down the closer they got to the hull. With a strong enough charge, they might even be stopped completely and flung in the other direction.

I don't see why this could not work… in theory. This is pretty much how electric sails work. One tiny weeny complication is that solar sail works in space and dont need that much charge. Deflecting a projectile would obviously need a lot more and your tank would suck up charge from surroundings so you'd need to replenish it constantly.  Electron gun would do, but I guess that power requirements would be prohibitive. Chargin up incoming projectile could be done with stream of antiprotons. Putting aside power requirements for this, it would also drain you precious charge, because law of charge preservation is a poodle.

On more, ermmm, positive side, you don't really need to push as far as stopping incoming projectiles, deflecting them  a bit would be good enough. And if you really are sitting in a tank, you don't even need to deflect them that much - turning headon hit into glancing blow may be enough.

Of course this is just a thought experiment - with this kind of technology at hand, one would rather pimp up those antiproton accelerators a bit and use them to turn things into hot plasma.

[DAL59 2,007]

What if you made a laser out of radio waves?  

[Steel 605]

17 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

What if you made a laser out of radio waves?  

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser

 

"Modern masers can be designed to generate electromagnetic waves at not only microwave frequencies but also radio and infrared frequencies"

Edited November 5, 2017 by Steel

[DAL59 2,007]

Like low frequency radio waves.  

[Steel 605]

7 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Like low frequency radio waves.  

You'd just have a very large maser essentially

Edited November 5, 2017 by Steel

[mikegarrison 2,382]

On 11/4/2017 at 6:07 AM, Earthlinger said:

If you could magnetize the hull of a tank so that it had an extremely negative charge, and somehow magnetized incoming bullets so that they acquired a similar negative charge, would this essentially create a sort of repelling-thingy force shield?

The like charges would repel, and the bullets would slow down the closer they got to the hull. With a strong enough charge, they might even be stopped completely and flung in the other direction.

That would really suck when your enemies pulled out their positively-charged ammo.

[Earthlinger 1,771]

Just now, mikegarrison said:

That would really suck when your enemies pulled out their positively-charged ammo.

Lol yeah

[MatterBeam 687]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

What if you made a laser out of radio waves?  

The RASER.

https://goo.gl/aUmzed

[Diche Bach 308]

What about a "laser" that involves X-Rays or Gamma Rays? Or Rocks?

Actually, now that I think about it . . .what about a "laser" that involves melted diamond or something . . . osmium maybe?

-=-=-this thread needs less skepticism/moderation and more "Absurd Hypothetical questions"

Edited November 5, 2017 by Diche Bach
humor

[DDE 2,706]

55 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

What about a "laser" that involves X-Rays or Gamma Rays?

Easy, relatively speaking - xrasers and grasers are a valid concept. Never heard of a non-consumable graser, but a German-Russian research team in Hamburg already operates a free electron laser that produces x-rays. Both x-rays and gamma rays can be produced by nuclear-bomb-powered designs.

55 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

Or Rocks?

It's not a laser. The L constrains it to various forms of electromagnetic radiation.

Edited November 5, 2017 by DDE

[Diche Bach 308]

Just now, DDE said:

Easy, relatively speaking - xrasers and grasers are a valid concept. Never heard of a non-consumable graser, but a German-Russian research team I Hamburg already operates a free electron laser that produces x-rays. Both x-rays and gamma rays can be produced by nuclear-bomb-powered designs.

It's not a laser. The L constrains it to various forms of electromagnetic radiation.

Oh sure, naysayer!

[DDE 2,706]

17 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

Oh sure, naysayer!

I have a railgun. Maybe I should lob some rocks...

[Diche Bach 308]

you have a RAILG UN! Geebus, they really don't have common sense gorn laws in Russia, eh!?

 

[Urses 703]

30 minutes ago, DDE said:

It's not a laser. The L constrains it to various forms of electromagnetic radiation.

Speed 2 rocks against each other at high enough speed and you have full spectrum of radiation, as fast you go as exotic will the outcome be?

10 minutes ago, DDE said:

 

+ respect for knowing this one

[magnemoe 2,013]

1 hour ago, Diche Bach said:

you have a RAILG UN! Geebus, they really don't have common sense gorn laws in Russia, eh!?

 

The progress of mankind, back then I was an teen redneck pipe bombs / solid fuel rockets was high tech (size of hole in rear and how fast the mixture burns is the difference between them) now they play with rail guns and You hack your car to trim it 
in 50 years it will be hold my beer while I power up the warp drive

[ARS 1,732]

Would it be possible for gunpowder-era civilization to make a working nuclear bomb by using a cannonball-sized ball of uranium encased by layer of explosives (To force fission) connected to a fuse? How powerful it would be around it's size?

Like this one?

(For added fun, throw it from trebuchet as a makeshift tactical nuke)

Edited November 5, 2017 by ARS

[DAL59 2,007]

How would they enrich that uranium though?  25% of the US's electricity was once devoted to enrichment.    

[MatterBeam 687]

1 hour ago, ARS said:

Would it be possible for gunpowder-era civilization to make a working nuclear bomb by using a cannonball-sized ball of uranium encased by layer of explosives (To force fission) connected to a fuse? How powerful it would be around it's size?

Like this one?

(For added fun, throw it from trebuchet as a makeshift tactical nuke)

Modern fission warheads use explosive lenses. They are powerful explosives that produce a sharp shockwave and control the wave to converge on the uranium precisely. Without the explosive lenses, the amount of explosive you'd need would be massively more. Using a low-grade explosive like gunpowder... you'd need tens of tons of explosive for even the smaller yield. Might as well just drop the gunpowder by itself.