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No, false. More or less today’s technology could not accelerate tungsten to speeds that would obliterate a planet. And you say it’s trivial? Who told you this

No, false. More or less today’s technology could not accelerate tungsten to speeds that would obliterate a planet. And you say it’s trivial? Who told you this? Just run some calculations it doesn’t make sense. (just one example, 10,000lbs of tungsten hitting the earth at 99% of light speed would not destroy it) —— it is trivial for us to end their civilization. If we decided to, with more or less today’s technology, we could accelerate a chunk of tungsten to comical speeds and obliterate their homeworld. It would cost a fortune and it would take awhile, but we could do it.

titanomachy 2y ago
Not to mention the difficulty of hitting a planet-sized target at 99% of the speed of light from 5 light-years away. I'm pretty sure this would be vastly more difficult than anything we've ever accomplished as a species.
- Intralexical 2y ago
  Plus with those same resources you could probably build a solar-system-sized passive interferometric radar swarm, and get decent warning time on any relativistic launches. 0.99c of blueshift coming from a specific star's direction? Weird. Shoot a couple relatively slow BBs at it, and the projectile will vaporize itself around the Kuiper Belt. Poor guys. They've now announced to the universe that they're an aggressive threat to all life around them…
stouset 2y ago
> 10,000lbs of tungsten hitting the earth at 99% of light speed would not destroy it I mean, the planet would exist, but it wouldn’t exactly be capable of sustaining life any more.
- WhitneyLand 2y ago
  No, also false. And my example was only 99% light speed. At the link below you can see simulations at 99.9% light speed. An entire Egyptian pyramid, hitting Earth at this 10x higher speed, might kill off life, but it’s still not obliterating the planet. We are not capable of accelerating any macroscopic object to .999C. Let alone a huge piece of tungsten, which still wouldn’t be powerful enough. https://youtu.be/DwgMjr-Qu1Y?si=-goF8QResb976kpN https://youtu.be/DwgMjr-Qu1Y?si=-goF8QResb976kpN
- Intralexical 2y ago
  That's like 0.003X of a Chicxulub impacter. Or around 1X the geologically very recent eruption of Mount Toba. The ecosphere will be fine. You'll probably vaporize a small patch of ocean, and they'll get colorful sunsets for a couple days. But that's about it. By contrast, assuming "more or less today's technology", we're now out of petroleum reserves because we used them all in our magic instant-acceleration kinetic-energy-converter.
ianburrell 2y ago
With our current technology, it isn't possible for us to accelerate any amount of tungsten to relativistic speeds except for a few atoms in particle accelerator. The rocket equation means needs ludicrous amounts of fuel to reach relativistic speeds. This includes near-term technology like fusion reactors. You could take Jupiter along for fuel but still not reaching 99% of light speed. For stationary launchers, they would be super long or require enormous amounts of energy. Giant arrays of lasers aren't "possible with current technology". Relativistic projectiles probably requires antimatter. Which are pretty far beyond our technology. There is big question is antimatter rockets are possible, they require producing and containing a lot of antimatter. Although, it instead of accelerating super fast, it is probably easier to send the antimatter.

titanomachy 2y ago

Not to mention the difficulty of hitting a planet-sized target at 99% of the speed of light from 5 light-years away. I'm pretty sure this would be vastly more difficult than anything we've ever accomplished as a species.

Intralexical 2y ago
Plus with those same resources you could probably build a solar-system-sized passive interferometric radar swarm, and get decent warning time on any relativistic launches. 0.99c of blueshift coming from a specific star's direction? Weird. Shoot a couple relatively slow BBs at it, and the projectile will vaporize itself around the Kuiper Belt. Poor guys. They've now announced to the universe that they're an aggressive threat to all life around them…

stouset 2y ago

> 10,000lbs of tungsten hitting the earth at 99% of light speed would not destroy it I mean, the planet would exist, but it wouldn’t exactly be capable of sustaining life any more.

WhitneyLand 2y ago
No, also false. And my example was only 99% light speed. At the link below you can see simulations at 99.9% light speed. An entire Egyptian pyramid, hitting Earth at this 10x higher speed, might kill off life, but it’s still not obliterating the planet. We are not capable of accelerating any macroscopic object to .999C. Let alone a huge piece of tungsten, which still wouldn’t be powerful enough. https://youtu.be/DwgMjr-Qu1Y?si=-goF8QResb976kpN https://youtu.be/DwgMjr-Qu1Y?si=-goF8QResb976kpN
Intralexical 2y ago
That's like 0.003X of a Chicxulub impacter. Or around 1X the geologically very recent eruption of Mount Toba. The ecosphere will be fine. You'll probably vaporize a small patch of ocean, and they'll get colorful sunsets for a couple days. But that's about it. By contrast, assuming "more or less today's technology", we're now out of petroleum reserves because we used them all in our magic instant-acceleration kinetic-energy-converter.

ianburrell 2y ago

With our current technology, it isn't possible for us to accelerate any amount of tungsten to relativistic speeds except for a few atoms in particle accelerator. The rocket equation means needs ludicrous amounts of fuel to reach relativistic speeds. This includes near-term technology like fusion reactors. You could take Jupiter along for fuel but still not reaching 99% of light speed. For stationary launchers, they would be super long or require enormous amounts of energy. Giant arrays of lasers aren't "possible with current technology". Relativistic projectiles probably requires antimatter. Which are pretty far beyond our technology. There is big question is antimatter rockets are possible, they require producing and containing a lot of antimatter. Although, it instead of accelerating super fast, it is probably easier to send the antimatter.