3 ms·

"a Yugo rear-ending a garbage truck in Brooklyn doesn't instantly consume all of New York City in a gasoline fireball." My new favorite metaphor.

lelandbatey 13y ago
The metaphors that arise to describe worrying about things that can't actually happen are also my favorite. The one most memorable to me: "Putting a speed limiter on a Zamboni just in case the accelerator gets stuck"
jackgavigan 13y ago
I'd just like to point out that the Yugo metaphor is invalid because the article specifically states that the experiment involves "beams of uncharged particles — the energy in them so great it could vaporize a car in seconds". So there.
- polarix 13y ago
  Similarly, the YUGO (825kg curb weight) contains about 7.4e19 joules of energy, when converted purely. Which comes out to 17.7 billion tons of tnt, or 1.1 million times the force unleashed on Hiroshima. If we're being pedantic.
  - jackgavigan 13y ago
    How much energy is there in a Ferrari?
    - bicknergseng 13y ago
      1735 kilograms (Ferrari California curb weight) * (the speed of light^2) = 1.55934024 × 1020 joules
      - jackgavigan 13y ago
        How many Hiroshimas is that?
        dredmorbius 13y ago
        Well, that turns out to be a unit of energy which GNU unit (my favorite shell utility) doesn't have, nor does it have kilotons (or tons) of TNT). However I've found a calculator that does do kilotons of TNT: http://lectureonline.cl.msu.edu/~mmp/conversions/conv_energy.htm http://lectureonline.cl.msu.edu/~mmp/conversions/conv_energy... So one Ferrari is 37.13 * 10^6 kilotons. Hiroshima was 15 kt, so one Ferrari contains the energy released in 2,475,333.3 Hiroshima atomic bombs. And for reference, 1 kilotonTNT is: 4.200e+12 joule 1.003e+12 calorie 1.003e+9 kilocalorie At 3600 kcal/lb fat, one kilotonTNT is equivalent to 278,611.11 lb of fat. Which is to say, if everyone (313 million people) in the US lost 1/5 of an ounce each, the energy released would be equivalent to one Hiroshima bomb. 3.978e+9 BTU 1,167 MWh, or 1.2 GWh. Roughly the energy a large generating plant produces in an hour. Which is to say that the time over which you release energy matters. And you've also inspired me to figure out how to add my own units definitions, so now I have kttnt: 686 barrels of oil, almost exactly 100 tons of oil, 1.16 GWh, 143 toncoal, 154 tons of charcoal, or about 51 grams of pure uranium. And checking: 100 tons / 51 grams is 1,778,793, which is to say, atomic energy has roughly 1 million times the energy storage density of our best chemical energy sources. You'll note that 100 tons of oil is a lot less than a kiloton (1000 tons) of TNT. Turns out that what makes TNT so special isn't its energy content but the rate of release of that energy. Oil (or aviation fuel as the occupants of 120 Cortlandt St., NYC, discovered a few years back) has about 10 times the energy content of explosives, it just delivers it over a longer period of time.
Ygg2 13y ago
It's possible. Albeit the Yugo needs to move at the speed of light. Which might sound plausible for anyone that never heard of Yugo, or the speed of light.

lelandbatey 13y ago

The metaphors that arise to describe worrying about things that can't actually happen are also my favorite. The one most memorable to me: "Putting a speed limiter on a Zamboni just in case the accelerator gets stuck"

jackgavigan 13y ago

I'd just like to point out that the Yugo metaphor is invalid because the article specifically states that the experiment involves "beams of uncharged particles — the energy in them so great it could vaporize a car in seconds". So there.

polarix 13y ago
Similarly, the YUGO (825kg curb weight) contains about 7.4e19 joules of energy, when converted purely. Which comes out to 17.7 billion tons of tnt, or 1.1 million times the force unleashed on Hiroshima. If we're being pedantic.
- jackgavigan 13y ago
  How much energy is there in a Ferrari?
  - bicknergseng 13y ago
    1735 kilograms (Ferrari California curb weight) * (the speed of light^2) = 1.55934024 × 1020 joules
    - jackgavigan 13y ago
      How many Hiroshimas is that?
      - dredmorbius 13y ago
        Well, that turns out to be a unit of energy which GNU unit (my favorite shell utility) doesn't have, nor does it have kilotons (or tons) of TNT). However I've found a calculator that does do kilotons of TNT: http://lectureonline.cl.msu.edu/~mmp/conversions/conv_energy.htm http://lectureonline.cl.msu.edu/~mmp/conversions/conv_energy... So one Ferrari is 37.13 * 10^6 kilotons. Hiroshima was 15 kt, so one Ferrari contains the energy released in 2,475,333.3 Hiroshima atomic bombs. And for reference, 1 kilotonTNT is: 4.200e+12 joule 1.003e+12 calorie 1.003e+9 kilocalorie At 3600 kcal/lb fat, one kilotonTNT is equivalent to 278,611.11 lb of fat. Which is to say, if everyone (313 million people) in the US lost 1/5 of an ounce each, the energy released would be equivalent to one Hiroshima bomb. 3.978e+9 BTU 1,167 MWh, or 1.2 GWh. Roughly the energy a large generating plant produces in an hour. Which is to say that the time over which you release energy matters. And you've also inspired me to figure out how to add my own units definitions, so now I have kttnt: 686 barrels of oil, almost exactly 100 tons of oil, 1.16 GWh, 143 toncoal, 154 tons of charcoal, or about 51 grams of pure uranium. And checking: 100 tons / 51 grams is 1,778,793, which is to say, atomic energy has roughly 1 million times the energy storage density of our best chemical energy sources. You'll note that 100 tons of oil is a lot less than a kiloton (1000 tons) of TNT. Turns out that what makes TNT so special isn't its energy content but the rate of release of that energy. Oil (or aviation fuel as the occupants of 120 Cortlandt St., NYC, discovered a few years back) has about 10 times the energy content of explosives, it just delivers it over a longer period of time.

Ygg2 13y ago

It's possible. Albeit the Yugo needs to move at the speed of light. Which might sound plausible for anyone that never heard of Yugo, or the speed of light.