If the speed of light (c) was 10x bigger, would atom bombs be 100x more destructive?

Bad, it seemed vanishingly unlikely that the two dumbest posts of the year would be on a single page of one thread, yet you have helped make this a reality. Congratulations!

xcvxcxcvvxc wrote:

Bad, it seemed vanishingly unlikely that the two dumbest posts of the year would be on a single page of one thread, yet you have helped make this a reality. Congratulations!

And hire 100x as many postdocs wrote:

c is everything wrote:

Another question: would particle accelerators have to be 10x bigger to retrieve the same experimental concepts?

The linear accelerators (SLAC) would indeed only need to be 10x bigger.

But the circular ones (LHC) would need to be 100x as large.

What do you mean "100x as large"? Do you mean in length, or in area?

Cottonshirt wrote:

I suspect that if light travelled 10 x faster than it does we would be blind, since our eyes are unable to detect electromagnetic radiation at those frequencies. and since a blind monkey is not a very clever mammal, it is unlikely that atom bombs would exist.

cheers.

Why wouldn't our eyes have evolved differently?

Ignoring your other errors... wrote: Why wouldn't our eyes have evolved differently?

I guess a lot depends on what the OP meant by the original question.

if we define the light we are currently able to see as L, and we define the reference point for Einstein's equations as C, then in our current situation we are in a universe where L = C. which, I guess, is why Einstein chose that as his reference point.

1. if the OP is asking: what happens if the speed of L is multiplied by 10, then we would be blind, and, as you point out, our eyes would almost certainly have evolved differently and would be capable of detecting some other part of the electromagnetic spectrum, P, say. but C may not necessarily have changed, and nothing about Einstein's equations would be different. we just wouldn't be able to see the atomic explosions, which would be weird.

2. however, if the OP is asking: what happens if the speed of C is multiplied by 10, then I don't have sufficient physics to understand the implications on Einstein's theory, but the visible part of the spectrum would not have changed, and the world would still look the same to us.

alternatively, if the OP is asking: what happens if the speed of C is multiplied by 10, AND C still equals L then both 1. and 2. above apply, we would be blind to L but not to P and I still don't have enough physics to answer the rest of the question.

but I am sufficiently curious to have spent some time thinking about it. one thing that occurred to me was to wonder why the universe developed in the first place so that E=mC^2 was true of the only light visible to the only sentient being in the universe. if C were faster to start with, what, if anything, would be different about the way the primitive universe developed, and would there even be sentient life capable of thinking about this?

I have also read a book called Faster than the Speed of Light by Joao Magueijo which speculates that the speed of light is not actually a constant but has, in the past, been higher than it is today.

it is, I admit, above my pay grade, but fascinating stuff all the same.

cheers.

vxcxcvcvvc wrote:

Sorry, Coevett, but you win the prize for the dumbest post of the year.

+1

Hilarious! ?

Bad Wigins wrote:

Quantum theory talks a whole bag of metaphysically-challenged blabber. Make sense or your theory is useless.

I'm still trying to figure out if I qualify as a (classical?) "observer" yet - do I need a Ph.D. in physics, or does being a one-celled protozoon suffice.?

Cottonshirt wrote:

1. if the OP is asking: what happens if the speed of L is multiplied by 10, then we would be blind, and, as you point out, our eyes would almost certainly have evolved differently and would be capable of detecting some other part of the electromagnetic spectrum, P, say. but C may not necessarily have changed, and nothing about Einstein's equations would be different. we just wouldn't be able to see the atomic explosions, which would be weird.

Why wouldn't we be able to see atomic explosions?

I don't know, but there wouldn't be such a delay when using the Internet from Australia.

c is really not that big wrote:

I don't know, but there wouldn't be such a delay when using the Internet from Australia.

Unless the Earth was 10x/100x/1000x bigger too.

If light moved really fast, I would be worried about the heat and radiation generated by it's momentum. Would light just burn a hole right through you? I know light literally gets slower when it goes through things so only deep fishes would be able to evolve. No land animals would ever be able to exist in the first place. What would running be like? I guess Bekele would still be the best. He ran an indoor 5,000m world record in 12:49, so I don't think that would be different.

Steklov theory wrote:

vxcxcvcvvc wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

In the fusion bomb, all the energy goes into making the mushroom cloud for cutesy photo-ops, while with fission it gets distributed more widely (the radiation kills more than anything else).

You might want to read that article. Could cause 3rd degree burns at 62 mile radius.

Treyz wrote: Why wouldn't we be able to see atomic explosions?

well, I just used the word, "blind" as my clue, and thought, Doh! that's obvious.

but your question has caused me to reconsider. we would be able to detect some part of the electromagnetic spectrum with our eyes, and I guess that must count as "seeing," even though what we would see would be very different to the mushroom cloud pictures we are familiar with. it would be like looking at an x-ray, or one of those heat maps you see in nature documentaries, or that scene from Silence of the Lambs where Clarice Starling (Jodi Foster) put on those night-vision goggles so that she could see the bad boy in the dark cellar, or something of that nature. I guess.

I've often wondered what the world looks like to animals. does my next door neighbour's cat have any idea how incredibly handsome I am?

cheers.

It puts the lotion in the basket, or else it gets the hose again.

And hire 100x as many postdocs wrote:

c is everything wrote:

Another question: would particle accelerators have to be 10x bigger to retrieve the same experimental concepts?

The linear accelerators (SLAC) would indeed only need to be 10x bigger.

But the circular ones (LHC) would need to be 100x as large.

Circular colliders:

Synchrotron radiation losses ∝ E^4 / R

LEP power consumption = 40% city of Geneva

Linear colliders: For given acceleration technology, fixed energy gradient, E ∝ L

Large power demand since beam dumped after acceleration, not stored.

Alternatively, we could reduce (c) to 10%, and then bombs would only be 1/100 as powerful.

I think the UN should look into this, to decrease war potential.