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What we have here is a total lack of respect for the law
Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:16 am
by DeltaV
Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 8:04 am
by chrismb
I got to this point "When the gold nuclei, traveling at 99.999% of the speed of light, smashed together, the plasma that resulted was so energetic that a tiny cube of it with sides measuring about a quarter of the width of a human hair would contain enough energy to power the entire United States for a year."
...and figured that as its accuracy was approaching 'debatable' I'd be better off getting the hamster wheel back up to speed (i.e. back to work, Monday morning!).
Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 4:39 am
by 93143
Radius of gold nucleus: 7.3e-15 m
Volume of gold nucleus: 1.6e-42 m³
Mass of gold nucleus: 3.3e-25 kg
Density of gold nucleus: 2e17 kg/m³
Kinetic energy of rigid body at 99.999% of lightspeed: 2e19 J/kg
Volumetric kinetic energy of gold nucleus: 4e36 J/m³
Width of human hair: 1e-4 m
Volume of a cube one quarter as wide as a human hair: 1.6e-14 m³
Kinetic energy of a volume of nuclear gold the size of said cube at 99.999% of lightspeed: 6e22 J
Power level necessary to expend 6e22 J in a year: 2e15 W, or about 2e3 times the electrical power level of the United States.
I can see an expanding quark-gluon plasma passing through 2e33 J/m³ at some point...
On the other hand, gold at 99.999% of the speed of light is at an energy of about 40 TeV, which I was not aware RHIC could pull... even if that's head-on collisional velocity between two beams, it's still 20 TeV...
Or maybe my math is wrong somewhere. It's been a long day...
Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 6:31 am
by DeltaV
99.999% of the speed of light? Sumbitch, this'll pay for my new cruiser.
