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> The answer they found: if the Earth’s oceans had twenty times more deuterium than they actually contain, they could be ignited by a 20 million megaton bomb (w
by maxander 8y ago
> The answer they found: if the Earth’s oceans had twenty times more deuterium than they actually contain, they could be ignited by a 20 million megaton bomb (which is to say, a bomb with the yield equivalent to 200 teratons of TNT, or a bomb 2 million times more powerful than the Tsar Bomba’s full yield).
A factor of twenty in the elemental composition of hydrogen, and a factor of a million in the fission efficiency of uranium. We’ve been lucky with regard to untested physical constants so far, but there’s no promise that that will hold going forward!
- p1mrx 8y agoThat reminds me of Three Worlds Collide, chapter 5: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worlds-collide-0-8 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worl... Humans are comparing notes with a new alien species, and find a huge discrepancy in one of the physical constants. It turns out that scientists had published a fake value, because the information would've allowed anyone to build a superweapon.