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Considering the pitch was in the strike zone it wouldn't be a walk if you read the rules it said it was a walk unless the ball was in the strike zone or the batter doesn't make attempt to move out of the way
I don't think they mean that it would induce a self-sustaining fusion reaction, but the simple act of the atoms in the balls smashing into the atoms in the air being energetic enough to make them fuse.
Yeah, I was imagining the atomic equivalent of physics clipping glitches in a video game. By the time repulsive forces have even "noticed" that hey, these two atoms are a bit too close to each other, it's too late, the air molecule is _already_ lodged into the baseball-molecule and the protons and neutrons are like "well shit, guess we're one atom now".
i think the major rebuke is nitrogen and oxygen molecules fuse wayyy less readily than hydrogen helium and even if fusion has occured the energy generated from fusion
I concur. Quick calculation: a C-12 atom at 0.9 c has about 12* nuleon mass * v^2 = 12 * (1 GeV / c^2) * (0,9 c)^2 = 12 * 0,8 GeV. This is far more than needed for smashing nuclei together ('nuclear fusion'), which neeeds ~tens of keV, by about 4 orders of magnitude. It is not like nuclear reactor, more like LHC.
I the half life of this fuel in an actual star where they ARE held in these conditions constantly is even still like a billion years, then it's quite possible that in this tiny fraction of a second, not one single one of them would happen to fuse anyway.
I love how both you and Randall looked at this scenario, realized how destructive it would be, and said, "Yeah, that's hit by pitch, so the batter gets to walk."
The problem here (if you can call this the problem in this situation) is that since the ball has disintegrated, you could say that the ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, thus triggering 2A and since the batter has not seen the ball, we can assume that they have not reacted and therefore not made an attempt to avoid the ball, thus triggering 2B and therefore denying the the batter first base. Furthermore, you could also reasonably assume that the disintegrating ball hits the plate umpire. You would then have to determine whether the pitcher and/or wizard deliberately caused the ball to hit the umpire (although how you accidentally would throw at 0.9c boggles the mind, even more so than deliberately) and therefore possibly be subject to ejection from the game. Again though, probably the least of their problems.
Each time he says 'fusion' he literally means 'atomic nuclei getting close enough together that the strong nuclear interaction overwhelms the electromagnetic interaction'. For example, when you mention sputtering -- yes, the ball is sputtering, but, those pieces are moving so fast even still that when they hit air molecules, the total energy (and thus effective temperature) is sufficient for the sputtered pieces to undergo atomic fusion with the air molecules that strike the sputtered pieces.
Yes - it is fusion! Fusion happens when atomic nuclei collide with sufficient energy to overcome electrostatic repulsion... in the sun, in a tokamak reactor and on the ball. A proton at 0.9c carries about 1 Gev energy. 1 Mev is more than enough to fuse hydrogen... no confinement required... just kinetic energy.
yeah 0.9c is definitely nothing to sniff at, in my mind id imagine the atoms inside of the baseball fusing with the air as well going that fast. im no physicist though
The problem is, at 0.9c, you're not gonna get fusion, its just gonna shatter both atoms and spray bits of nucleus all over. For fusion to work, the particles need to have a low enough energy that the strong nuclear force can actually hold the protons and neutrons together
There is such a thing in nuclear physics as 'too much energy', sometimes that means 'too much energy for the atom to capture the neutron', other times it's 'too much energy to remain an atom'.
The fusion confinement mechanism of 0.9C baseball vs air would be, inertial. There is no time for the atomic nuclei to physically move out of the way due to their own inertia
Confinement isn't necessary for fusion if the energy and density is high enough for it to happen instantly. A large object traveling at 0.9C through standard atmosphere likely has relative temperatures and pressures higher than any typical fusion reactor.
If the earth had a H-He atmosphere, maybe, but N doesn't fuse that fast. Indeed, in lower mass stars, beta-decay is faster than N fusion, which is why they don't have the CNO cycle. Without the gravity-field of a star a few times the mass of the Sun, how would you increase the density without confinement?
@@ontoverseI’m sure packing air into the immensely tight space caused by the near light speed baseball pushing so many air molecules together would be enough to at least get somewhat near the suns core in terms of density
@ontoverse the density is increased by the shift in the equal momentum particle frame, and the average density between a solid and a gas sets the average density. Basically the magic wizard does it.
I believe the fusion referenced is of the same type that is used to produce heavy elements in the element hunt, ie "throw atoms at each other very hard and some will combine."
You don't need confinement for fusion, you need confinement for SELF-SUSTAINED fusion, which he did not claim would occur. If two atoms hit each other and become one bigger nucleus atom then there was fusion. Just two atoms.
To take this scenario to a different extreme, the 'Oh My God Particle' was a single proton that was tracked entering Earth's atmosphere at 99.99999999999999999999951% of the speed of light. It coincidentally had the same approximate kinetic energy as a pitched baseball. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle
I thoroughly enjoyed this video, and yes I was giggling gleefully at some points. Quality content as always. I have the same objection as everyone else about your 'fusion' quibble, but as a linguist I'm going to frame that disagreement a bit differently. I think Randall Munroe (xkcd dude) is consistently referring to nuclear fusion, ie. an atomic nucleus colliding with something to form a different atomic nucleus, but I do agree that the confusion is around definitions of fusion. Between Randall, yourself (Tyler) and some of the comments, I'm seeing 3 different definitions of "fusion": 1. The basic ballistic-event definition: nucleus collides with something else, probably another nucleus, and the two particles fuse to form a different nucleus. 2. The basic system definition: #1 happening in a sustained manner at a macro scale, which I assume is the relevant definition for a nuclear reactor "achieving fusion". 3. The exciting definition: #2 but exothermic, producing more energy than it consumes. -- I think Randall is using definition #1 and you are using definition #2. Both legitimate definitions, and both completely reasonable defaults given your different backgrounds (first-principles dude vs nuclear power industry professional). If we consider the atmosphere as a large stationary target and the ball as a huge number of relativistic particles hitting that target, then we have an absurd number of high-energy particle collisions happening. My understanding is that some fraction of those collisions are going to result in nuclear fusion events, just like the individual fusion events that we use to synthesise heavier elements in a particle accelerator. Hence nuclear fusion in sense #1 but not in sense #2. Have I got the physics right? -- (note for linguists: yes I know I'm using 'definition' where what I really mean is 'sense')
Could the "fusion" he's talking about here be more like the fusion that happens in supernova once it's already started (creating heavier elements due to smashing nuclei, neutrons, etc. together in extreme conditions, but not necessarily self sustaining or even energy positive) than the fusion that powers a normal star or thermonuclear device?
This phenomenon never happens in universe Probably near a black hole disc but it got atomized long before reaching that speed Matter never reaches this level of speed in universe Inside star it happens because of gravity, intense heat and pressure Not with this level of kinetic energy
It'd be more like the fusion at the NIF than ITER, but given that the majority of the mass in a baseball and the air would be atoms lighter than iron, I think it would be at least slightly energy-positive
You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick about what xkcd is saying about fusion. What he's NOT saying is that you'd ignite a fusion chain reaction in the air. What he IS saying is that some of the atomic nuclei in the ball will fuse with at least some of the nuclei in the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen with which the ball is colliding at 0.9c. And that seems perfectly reasonable.
5:10 as I understand what he means here is that the individual impact events of air molecules hitting the ball have enough energy for some fusion to occur, it's not relying on sustained anything but an instantaneous event. Probably doesn't actually work with the specific molecules but I don't know enough about fusion to say more?
This is a really good thought experiment for learning to separate terms from common fields that use them and showing them to have other places they exist. Another example might be...something simple like baking. The first thought may be baking food, but you can also bake metals, glass, porciline, And other inedible materials.
In this particular example though, the author of xkcd did mean it in the particle physics sense. I'm in no way an expert, but I lean towards thinking Randall Munroe is correct, and there would be nuclear fusion events as air interacts with the atoms of the former baseball.
Having read the original article several times, and watched the video, it was definitely interesting with your comments basically predicting the rest of the video. Also, as other have stated, I believe you would get nuclear fusion in this scenario, with the individual atoms fusing (and releasing energy). It wouldn't be self-sustaining of course, but, still fusion, isn't it?
At that speed, the atoms that make up the baseball are allisioning with similar energy and velocity to r-process nucleosynthesis, which I think is what he's calling "fusion".
Thank you so much for making this video! This hypothetical is one of the things that got me interested in nuclear engineering, but I always found Monroe's claims of fusion to be a little bit odd. The spallation explanation makes perfect sense.
as Randall Munroe has stated either in one of his talks or the intro of one of his books, these what-if questions are to be approached from a mindset of "assume we set the world up in this way. we don't care how it got there, we are just setting it up and hitting play"
Rundall did not consider relativistic effects. How much geometry will be distorted? Circle or blast turned into ellipsis? At v = 0.9 c this should be pronounced.
Looking at the rest of the hit by a pitch rules, he did try to hit the ball, the ball was in the strike zone and probably hitting the batter outside of the strike zone, and the batter would not be able to make an attempt to avoid being touched by the ball. MLB glossary for HBP makes it more clear that a) A stike supersedes hit by a pitch, b) he tried to swing at it, c) he did not attempt to move out of the way. Seems more like a strike/foul ball than a hit by pitch. Now, if the ball hit the bat and parts of the ball made it out of the park, is it a home run? I would say most of the ball ended up behind home plate, which is foul territory, and most likely rule it as a foul ball.
Look at how batters hold bats (on the far side of their body from the pitcher). This means the "ball" hits the batter before it hits the bat, making it a "hit by pitch" Depending on where the batter stands relative to the start of the strike zone, the "ball" could also be considered to be in the strike zone first. Since the bat does touch the ball, it is either a walk due to hit by pitch, a foul ball, and/or an out (the catcher's mitt also touches the ball). Regardless, the game is then called due to the field being unfit for play and both teams not having enough players to substitute.
@@aaronbredon2948The question by Ellen was, "... if you tried to hit a baseball pitched ...." If the batter knew it was going to a pitched strike at 90% c he would have to swing with the intention to be in position (swinging strike) by the time the baseball left the pitcher's hand. If the bat was in the strike zone when it got hit, then I would rule it a foul ball. If the batter did not try to swing and the bat was behind the batter's head, then yes, hit by pitch, free base. He could not have time to react to the wild pitch.
3:20 funny you mention Dragon Ball considering they did EXACTLY THAT in a special baseball episode a few years ago, In fact, the ball was probably much faster than light considering that it's Dragon Ball
I gotta tell you, given this one was the version thing posted on the original text version of What If?, this particular one is one of my favorites, and you making a joke about hit by pitch halfway through had me laughing my ass off. Aside from the disagreement on nuclear fusion, which some other commenters have already addressed, you really were just on the same exact page as Randall Munroe throughout this, and I love it.
If a half pound ball is moving at. 9 the speed of light it's gonna fuse with any particles it runs into, in the 90 feet it has to go it will fuse with everything it touches it's a Simple equation
Not normally a fan of reaction videos, but the additional commentary was interesting enough to watch. I still think XKCD did a splendid job in the original explainer, a bit of science plus a dose of ironic humor.
The atoms do fuse, but they don't stay. The energy of the collision is miles beyond necessary to completely merge an atomic nucleus before it even has the chance to break. After this collision the atom doesn't just split, it dissolves into atomic particles which are traveling no more than 1.1x the ball's velocity. A subatomic fireball locally mirroring the conditions within an imploding star, but lacking sufficient mass to hold it together.
Can we take a moment to acknowledge the fact that Wizards break the lote of every franchise ever? Anyone with kinetic abilities, on the order of magnitude great enough ti achieve a feat such as this (there are a few in gaming alone), effectively has the power of a thermonuclear superweapon at their fingertips, or the end of their staff. That's without mentioning what other physics based chaos they could conceivably inflict.
I think you're wrong about the induced nuclear fusion. .9 the speed of light with that amount of mass in that amount of space is more than enough to produce fusion, though I don't think it will be enough fusion to be a significant source of energy for the explosion.
When he mentioned that according to the rules this would be a walk, first thought was "well, at least if they decide to continue the game elsewhere with newly assembled teams they could have his replacement walk," but then it would be unlikely anyone would know what happened. Assume it was broadcast live. Ignoring any deliberate delays, latencies alone would keep anyone from seeing the event. The light of the pitch would reach the sensors, but before the signal was processed and transmitted to the next bit of equipment the camera would be gone. I guess if the wizard that caused the ball to go at .9c was located on a distant hill with a camera with a powerful enough zoom to capture the event then maybe we'd know, but I kind of doubt such a wizard is going to be that helpful especially since he's going to be wanted for likely the largest act of terrorism in history.
It seems most likely a foul ball instead of a hit by a pitch. The ball hit the bat. We would probably see the pitcher at least winding up for the pitch if it was a live broadcast, unless if it was delayed too long, then live feed cut. Those near the stadium that survived would witness a large explosion. Probably people would first assume a terrorist attack. After enough time, the scene would be analyzed and they might figure the explosion originated at a line coming from the pitcher's mound going past home plate. Could they piece together exactly what happened? Everyone would be confused as to how the ball magically accelerated to 0.9c. Aliens, meteoroid impact, nobody would have a clue, even if we figured it out to the baseball somehow going super fast Then maybe the MLB might make a ruling.
4:46 Really? I thought that it would at least be plausible to get a very small fusion reaction going. You've got matter moving very quickly into what is effectively motionless gas. Now, I know the pressure to create and sustain fusion is immense but I'd imagine a ball moving at .9c could possibly do it. Granted, it would be a very, VERY short amount of time. 7:20 Ah. Never mind.
0:30 Would the baseball deliver all of it's kinetic energy to the bat though? It seems like the ball would only deliver enough energy to the bat to shatter it, then continue on haveing slowed doen by only a few MPH. The atmospheric shock waves might be an issue though.
I think where he was going with the "fusion" aspect of this would be that there'd be enough energy to split atmospheric molecules (primarily water vapor) into atomic components, where you'd end out having significant availability of H2, some of which would fuse with H2 liberated from some of the organic molecules (which would be similarly split as the ball turned to plasma). Agreed that standard hydrogen doesn't fuse as nicely as deuterium or tritium, but there should be enough liberated energy to do the job.
I remember in high school we calculated how fast a sack of potatoes (infant) would need to be traveling to stop a freight train. We came up with, there would be no survivors no matter what.
Reminds me of in Dragonball Super when two of the literal gods of destruction had a baseball game and their essentially galaxy destroying at that time.
Current Yamcha using somewhere between a untrigintillionth(he very likely is universal at this point) to a nonillionth of his power(he also might only be around Cell to buu level) 3:16 haha neat I was just referencing Yamcha being a baseball player (Also my assumption is that speed still uses 'speed²' but goes past light speed in dragon ball basically)
I'd love to see them go over what would happen if Flash and Superman collided at high speed, under the assumption that whatever lets them survive their maximum speed does nothing to prevent physics from taking over when they collide with each other. Considering the far greater masses involved... yeah.
I mean, they effectively made a particle collider in open air. That would constitute fusion. The Atoms smash into each other without time to move out of each others way and they fuse. It isn't self sustained and they never said that, but it is fusion.
I was under the impression that if it travelled at the speed of the light his energy would be that of half of anti matter, so why wouldn't it fusion? Not enough temperature/energy? The sun has fusion at lower temperature due to gravity, in earth we have it through high temperature (high speed collisions) c isn't speed enough? I am quite puzzled on why it wouldn't fusion
If it traveled at the speed of light, it would have infinite energy. That's why nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light. And yes, I'm pretty sure it has more than enough energy to be causing fusion just by colliding with the air at 0.9c
I think the notion is that the nitrogen and oxygen in the air gets hit by the ball so hard that nuclei join. I'd think that spalling is more likely at those speeds, but what do I know...
Spin is rotation, light speed is linear. Do you mean equator of the ball at 90 % of c? Then it would fall apart into a disc of plasma, with enough energy to cause similar multi-kilotonne-sized explosion.
An oxygen atom that hits a hydrogen atom in the baseball at 0.9c can absolutely fuse. Its not a sustained reaction but other doesnt have to be. To cause fusion all you need is the right atoms colliding at the right speed. Once you have that its just a question of how often that occurs. In this case its less about frequency and more about the number of atoms the ball hits.
I wonder what's the ruling for a batter hit by a pitch and become incapacitated by said pitch (ie, too injured). Does another team member go to 1st in his stead similar to a designated hitter situation?
It's weird that you talked about spallation occurring (nuclei breaking apart due to excessive collision energy, above the maximum for fusion) but denied that fusion occurs on the basis of a lack containment... As if fusion and fission, by virtue of being used in resctors/stars/bombs to produce energy, were only capable of happening in the specific logistical scenarios of reactors/stars/bombs, whereas other nuclear physics is free to be theoretically applied to any scenario where it's relevant. It's like your mind switches to "job mode" when hearing the words fusion and fission, and thus leaves "science mode".
you don’t need confinement if air molecules are slamming into your object at 90% C and essentially becoming a part of the object. Also there js no way any atom of air escapes that region faster than a ball pushing in at 90% C so actually you end up with „technically a confinement”
My understanding is that elements before iron tend to experience fusion in nuclear reactions. Simply because it produces energy. Fusion in reactors or bombs is just too specific. Still quite a lot of different reactions are happening in stars.
For a second I thought you had a flying start, just like the baseball, but it was just a 2020-esque funny-scene-as-intro intro. I waited patiently for you to review this one, was pretty confident you'd get to it before I grew old and gray ^_^.
Could you explain why it's not fusion? I'd have thought a collision at 0.9c, together with the inertia of the air molecules, would have more than enough pressure to cause that to happen.
What do you need a confinement zone for? You have atoms smack into each other at almost light speed. If that doesn't get you fusion, nothing will. Now, _how much_ fusion I can't even begin to guess, and it likely won't matter anyway, the ball itself has a lot more kinetic energy than you get from whatever fusion you will get. Ok, maybe it's _too much_ for fusion, and you only get fission (as in, reduction of atoms to neutrons, protons, perhaps alpha particles, maybe more particles produced by pair production), that's possible. Ionizations? At the outer edges (well, the circumference), perhaps. In front, there's no _time_ for ionization. You'll probably get a lot of random elementary particles and even alpha radiation going in random directions, though. Don't think meteor. Meteors have a few, maybe a few dozen km/s, this is a few hundred thousand km/s. Think CERN.
If the pitcher could use quantum tunneling to get the ball into the catcher's glove without the ball moving through the space between, you it be a ball or a strike?
Ok, so about the nuclear fusion issue - my intuition suggests that the kinetic energy of an atom in the baseball is equivalent to a temerature that is many orders of magnitude more than enough to overcome the Compton barrier for say two nuclei of oxygen or nitrogen, which would be a typical encounter. And if i am not mistaken the boost due to relativistic effects doesn't even make much difference (a mere factor of 27 or so). Of course fusion might not be possible but if so more beause the energies are too high.
Sounds like you'd be moving a hell of a lot further than first base, and first base will be moving with you. Nice to see Bethesda included in the blast area - inspo for a Fallout spin-off?
I confess I have mixed feelings about seeing my home Wheaton, MD, on a map showing the radii of the results of a large thermonuclear explosion in downtown D.C.
Your "not fusion" take is real weird and a huge miss. If two nuclei impact each other with enough energy, they could fuse. XKCD is saying that nuclei would be impacting each other with enough energy for that to happen. If you were to claim the impacts didn't have enough energy, or that the nuclei would not be able to impact each other, that would be at least conceptually compatible as a criticism, though I can't say it would be factually accurate. Saying it's not fusion because there's no confinement is like saying the uranium in uranium ore is not experiencing fission because it's not in a reactor. Some of those atoms are absolutely splitting, whether or not you have put in the effort to make prompt it, to make it usable, etc.
The difference between a physicist and an engineer: Physicist: "Yeah, fusion happens because of the absurd energies involved, but that's in the minutia." Engineer: "If I can't make use of it, it doesn't affect me, and it's otherwise not relevant to my field of work, it doesn't exist and I'm going to take offense at someone saying it does instead of checking my knowledge."
I think the relatively enormous mass of the ball moving at relativistic speeds ought to do some special kind of damage and I doubt "just adjusting the blast shape" should cut it. The atoms from the ball even after the primary disintegration would still in bulk have a lot of mass and going fast and what that bunch hits is interesting. Not sure how much building matter it should hit before slowing down back to ambient temperature speeds. 🤔🤔
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Thanks so much for watching! If you would like to know what would happen if you swam in a nuclear spent fuel pool, please check out: ruclips.net/video/diHG9W27XeU/видео.htmlsi=C_f5WtvVRRj_OtSO
Kurzgesagt video next pls
@tfolsenuclear this was hilarious baseball fans are slightly off as far as our sense of humor goes aren’t we.
Hey, wanna say something about the rupture disk for the Deaerator? If you want to, you can also react to my video about how to replace rupture disk.
Considering the pitch was in the strike zone it wouldn't be a walk if you read the rules it said it was a walk unless the ball was in the strike zone or the batter doesn't make attempt to move out of the way
I don't think they mean that it would induce a self-sustaining fusion reaction, but the simple act of the atoms in the balls smashing into the atoms in the air being energetic enough to make them fuse.
Yeah, I was imagining the atomic equivalent of physics clipping glitches in a video game. By the time repulsive forces have even "noticed" that hey, these two atoms are a bit too close to each other, it's too late, the air molecule is _already_ lodged into the baseball-molecule and the protons and neutrons are like "well shit, guess we're one atom now".
i think the major rebuke is nitrogen and oxygen molecules fuse wayyy less readily than hydrogen helium and even if fusion has occured
the energy generated from fusion
I concur. Quick calculation: a C-12 atom at 0.9 c has about 12* nuleon mass * v^2 = 12 * (1 GeV / c^2) * (0,9 c)^2 = 12 * 0,8 GeV. This is far more than needed for smashing nuclei together ('nuclear fusion'), which neeeds ~tens of keV, by about 4 orders of magnitude. It is not like nuclear reactor, more like LHC.
I the half life of this fuel in an actual star where they ARE held in these conditions constantly is even still like a billion years, then it's quite possible that in this tiny fraction of a second, not one single one of them would happen to fuse anyway.
@@WackoMcGoose "The protons and neutrons are like 'well shit, guess we're one atom now'" is my new favorite description of fusion.
I love how both you and Randall looked at this scenario, realized how destructive it would be, and said, "Yeah, that's hit by pitch, so the batter gets to walk."
Even though it hits the bat first so it's a foul ball
The problem here (if you can call this the problem in this situation) is that since the ball has disintegrated, you could say that the ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, thus triggering 2A and since the batter has not seen the ball, we can assume that they have not reacted and therefore not made an attempt to avoid the ball, thus triggering 2B and therefore denying the the batter first base. Furthermore, you could also reasonably assume that the disintegrating ball hits the plate umpire. You would then have to determine whether the pitcher and/or wizard deliberately caused the ball to hit the umpire (although how you accidentally would throw at 0.9c boggles the mind, even more so than deliberately) and therefore possibly be subject to ejection from the game. Again though, probably the least of their problems.
@@pikaporeonsince the batter never had a chance to swing, I expect that it hits the player first.
@@johnbennett1465 im just going by the text of the video
@@pikaporeon OK. I guess he is assuming the handle end is being hit first.
Each time he says 'fusion' he literally means 'atomic nuclei getting close enough together that the strong nuclear interaction overwhelms the electromagnetic interaction'. For example, when you mention sputtering -- yes, the ball is sputtering, but, those pieces are moving so fast even still that when they hit air molecules, the total energy (and thus effective temperature) is sufficient for the sputtered pieces to undergo atomic fusion with the air molecules that strike the sputtered pieces.
Yes - it is fusion!
Fusion happens when atomic nuclei collide with sufficient energy to overcome electrostatic repulsion... in the sun, in a tokamak reactor and on the ball.
A proton at 0.9c carries about 1 Gev energy. 1 Mev is more than enough to fuse hydrogen... no confinement required... just kinetic energy.
yeah 0.9c is definitely nothing to sniff at, in my mind id imagine the atoms inside of the baseball fusing with the air as well going that fast. im no physicist though
The problem is, at 0.9c, you're not gonna get fusion, its just gonna shatter both atoms and spray bits of nucleus all over. For fusion to work, the particles need to have a low enough energy that the strong nuclear force can actually hold the protons and neutrons together
There is such a thing in nuclear physics as 'too much energy', sometimes that means 'too much energy for the atom to capture the neutron', other times it's 'too much energy to remain an atom'.
The fusion confinement mechanism of 0.9C baseball vs air would be, inertial. There is no time for the atomic nuclei to physically move out of the way due to their own inertia
Confinement isn't necessary for fusion if the energy and density is high enough for it to happen instantly. A large object traveling at 0.9C through standard atmosphere likely has relative temperatures and pressures higher than any typical fusion reactor.
If the earth had a H-He atmosphere, maybe, but N doesn't fuse that fast. Indeed, in lower mass stars, beta-decay is faster than N fusion, which is why they don't have the CNO cycle. Without the gravity-field of a star a few times the mass of the Sun, how would you increase the density without confinement?
@@ontoverseI’m sure packing air into the immensely tight space caused by the near light speed baseball pushing so many air molecules together would be enough to at least get somewhat near the suns core in terms of density
@ontoverse the density is increased by the shift in the equal momentum particle frame, and the average density between a solid and a gas sets the average density. Basically the magic wizard does it.
"As for the rules of baseball this isn't a recommended strategy" ahh i see. good to know
I believe the fusion referenced is of the same type that is used to produce heavy elements in the element hunt, ie "throw atoms at each other very hard and some will combine."
It’s not a sustained nuclear chain reaction by any means, but yeah, with that much energy, you will get nucleuses interacting, as I understand it.
You don't need confinement for fusion, you need confinement for SELF-SUSTAINED fusion, which he did not claim would occur. If two atoms hit each other and become one bigger nucleus atom then there was fusion. Just two atoms.
To take this scenario to a different extreme, the 'Oh My God Particle' was a single proton that was tracked entering Earth's atmosphere at 99.99999999999999999999951% of the speed of light. It coincidentally had the same approximate kinetic energy as a pitched baseball. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle
Oh my god.
Oh, wait, damn. Well named.
The video simply said "fusion" not "sustained fusion" 😭
It will cause fusion, not necessarily sustainable fusion, but rather, beam-target fusion.
I thoroughly enjoyed this video, and yes I was giggling gleefully at some points. Quality content as always.
I have the same objection as everyone else about your 'fusion' quibble, but as a linguist I'm going to frame that disagreement a bit differently. I think Randall Munroe (xkcd dude) is consistently referring to nuclear fusion, ie. an atomic nucleus colliding with something to form a different atomic nucleus, but I do agree that the confusion is around definitions of fusion. Between Randall, yourself (Tyler) and some of the comments, I'm seeing 3 different definitions of "fusion":
1. The basic ballistic-event definition: nucleus collides with something else, probably another nucleus, and the two particles fuse to form a different nucleus.
2. The basic system definition: #1 happening in a sustained manner at a macro scale, which I assume is the relevant definition for a nuclear reactor "achieving fusion".
3. The exciting definition: #2 but exothermic, producing more energy than it consumes.
--
I think Randall is using definition #1 and you are using definition #2. Both legitimate definitions, and both completely reasonable defaults given your different backgrounds (first-principles dude vs nuclear power industry professional).
If we consider the atmosphere as a large stationary target and the ball as a huge number of relativistic particles hitting that target, then we have an absurd number of high-energy particle collisions happening. My understanding is that some fraction of those collisions are going to result in nuclear fusion events, just like the individual fusion events that we use to synthesise heavier elements in a particle accelerator. Hence nuclear fusion in sense #1 but not in sense #2. Have I got the physics right?
--
(note for linguists: yes I know I'm using 'definition' where what I really mean is 'sense')
Could the "fusion" he's talking about here be more like the fusion that happens in supernova once it's already started (creating heavier elements due to smashing nuclei, neutrons, etc. together in extreme conditions, but not necessarily self sustaining or even energy positive) than the fusion that powers a normal star or thermonuclear device?
This phenomenon never happens in universe
Probably near a black hole disc but it got atomized long before reaching that speed
Matter never reaches this level of speed in universe
Inside star it happens because of gravity, intense heat and pressure
Not with this level of kinetic energy
It'd be more like the fusion at the NIF than ITER, but given that the majority of the mass in a baseball and the air would be atoms lighter than iron, I think it would be at least slightly energy-positive
it's basically an open air particle accelerator.
You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick about what xkcd is saying about fusion.
What he's NOT saying is that you'd ignite a fusion chain reaction in the air.
What he IS saying is that some of the atomic nuclei in the ball will fuse with at least some of the nuclei in the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen with which the ball is colliding at 0.9c. And that seems perfectly reasonable.
I can’t believe you accurately predicted the ending punchline.
5:10 as I understand what he means here is that the individual impact events of air molecules hitting the ball have enough energy for some fusion to occur, it's not relying on sustained anything but an instantaneous event. Probably doesn't actually work with the specific molecules but I don't know enough about fusion to say more?
8:47 I love how the first thing he completely agrees on is how the incident is going to be ruled.
Damn, 4 megatons. That’s a hell of a pitch.
The original write up for this was the first ever What If article so it was very much establishing exactly how seriously he was taking everything
This is a really good thought experiment for learning to separate terms from common fields that use them and showing them to have other places they exist. Another example might be...something simple like baking. The first thought may be baking food, but you can also bake metals, glass, porciline, And other inedible materials.
In this particular example though, the author of xkcd did mean it in the particle physics sense. I'm in no way an expert, but I lean towards thinking Randall Munroe is correct, and there would be nuclear fusion events as air interacts with the atoms of the former baseball.
Baking food. Like cake. Cake is a good food to bake.
Tyler: Cake? Like yellow cake? I'm not sure if you would call processing that "baking"
Having read the original article several times, and watched the video, it was definitely interesting with your comments basically predicting the rest of the video.
Also, as other have stated, I believe you would get nuclear fusion in this scenario, with the individual atoms fusing (and releasing energy). It wouldn't be self-sustaining of course, but, still fusion, isn't it?
At that speed, the atoms that make up the baseball are allisioning with similar energy and velocity to r-process nucleosynthesis, which I think is what he's calling "fusion".
I don't think it will be noticeably oblong. All of that directionality will equalize by the time the fireball developes.
how do you not understand what he means by fusion
Because he’s used to thinking of fusion in terms of reactors not in terms of high energy atom impacts
Thank you so much for making this video! This hypothetical is one of the things that got me interested in nuclear engineering, but I always found Monroe's claims of fusion to be a little bit odd. The spallation explanation makes perfect sense.
He's not talking about a fusion reaction, he's talking about individual air particles fusing with individual particles in the baseball.
it's fusion, but for a very small amount of time
as Randall Munroe has stated either in one of his talks or the intro of one of his books, these what-if questions are to be approached from a mindset of "assume we set the world up in this way. we don't care how it got there, we are just setting it up and hitting play"
Before you suggest or say you don’t think so on this guys videos, double check, he does the research on these with other professionals.
Rundall did not consider relativistic effects. How much geometry will be distorted? Circle or blast turned into ellipsis? At v = 0.9 c this should be pronounced.
i mean, it's pretty much the same outcome, maybe with a slightly different shaped fireball
As with all relativistic physics, that will depend on the perspective of the observer. The effect will be the same though.
It is fusion, it is basically beam target fusion, with the ball being the beam and the in comparison basically stationary air being the target.
Looking at the rest of the hit by a pitch rules, he did try to hit the ball, the ball was in the strike zone and probably hitting the batter outside of the strike zone, and the batter would not be able to make an attempt to avoid being touched by the ball. MLB glossary for HBP makes it more clear that a) A stike supersedes hit by a pitch, b) he tried to swing at it, c) he did not attempt to move out of the way. Seems more like a strike/foul ball than a hit by pitch. Now, if the ball hit the bat and parts of the ball made it out of the park, is it a home run? I would say most of the ball ended up behind home plate, which is foul territory, and most likely rule it as a foul ball.
Look at how batters hold bats (on the far side of their body from the pitcher).
This means the "ball" hits the batter before it hits the bat, making it a "hit by pitch"
Depending on where the batter stands relative to the start of the strike zone, the "ball" could also be considered to be in the strike zone first.
Since the bat does touch the ball, it is either a walk due to hit by pitch, a foul ball, and/or an out (the catcher's mitt also touches the ball).
Regardless, the game is then called due to the field being unfit for play and both teams not having enough players to substitute.
@@aaronbredon2948The question by Ellen was, "... if you tried to hit a baseball pitched ...." If the batter knew it was going to a pitched strike at 90% c he would have to swing with the intention to be in position (swinging strike) by the time the baseball left the pitcher's hand. If the bat was in the strike zone when it got hit, then I would rule it a foul ball.
If the batter did not try to swing and the bat was behind the batter's head, then yes, hit by pitch, free base. He could not have time to react to the wild pitch.
3:20 funny you mention Dragon Ball considering they did EXACTLY THAT in a special baseball episode a few years ago, In fact, the ball was probably much faster than light considering that it's Dragon Ball
I gotta tell you, given this one was the version thing posted on the original text version of What If?, this particular one is one of my favorites, and you making a joke about hit by pitch halfway through had me laughing my ass off. Aside from the disagreement on nuclear fusion, which some other commenters have already addressed, you really were just on the same exact page as Randall Munroe throughout this, and I love it.
According to Omni Man, this is how fellow Viltrumites play baseball back home.
I can't stop laughing at the fact that you showed a nuke blast at Bethesda
If a half pound ball is moving at. 9 the speed of light it's gonna fuse with any particles it runs into, in the 90 feet it has to go it will fuse with everything it touches it's a Simple equation
*winds up* I am become destroyer of tan lines.*births another sun using a ball*
Not normally a fan of reaction videos, but the additional commentary was interesting enough to watch. I still think XKCD did a splendid job in the original explainer, a bit of science plus a dose of ironic humor.
The atoms do fuse, but they don't stay. The energy of the collision is miles beyond necessary to completely merge an atomic nucleus before it even has the chance to break. After this collision the atom doesn't just split, it dissolves into atomic particles which are traveling no more than 1.1x the ball's velocity. A subatomic fireball locally mirroring the conditions within an imploding star, but lacking sufficient mass to hold it together.
This was the first one i read that was published on the xkcd site. I was hooked lol
Can we take a moment to acknowledge the fact that Wizards break the lote of every franchise ever? Anyone with kinetic abilities, on the order of magnitude great enough ti achieve a feat such as this (there are a few in gaming alone), effectively has the power of a thermonuclear superweapon at their fingertips, or the end of their staff. That's without mentioning what other physics based chaos they could conceivably inflict.
10:22 Hey look! Bethesda!
I remember several years ago I read XKCD book and this was one of my favorites.
I think you're wrong about the induced nuclear fusion. .9 the speed of light with that amount of mass in that amount of space is more than enough to produce fusion, though I don't think it will be enough fusion to be a significant source of energy for the explosion.
So xkcd gets the physics mostly correct! As well as being hilarious as an idea, it's also pretty accurate.
When he mentioned that according to the rules this would be a walk, first thought was "well, at least if they decide to continue the game elsewhere with newly assembled teams they could have his replacement walk," but then it would be unlikely anyone would know what happened. Assume it was broadcast live. Ignoring any deliberate delays, latencies alone would keep anyone from seeing the event. The light of the pitch would reach the sensors, but before the signal was processed and transmitted to the next bit of equipment the camera would be gone. I guess if the wizard that caused the ball to go at .9c was located on a distant hill with a camera with a powerful enough zoom to capture the event then maybe we'd know, but I kind of doubt such a wizard is going to be that helpful especially since he's going to be wanted for likely the largest act of terrorism in history.
It seems most likely a foul ball instead of a hit by a pitch. The ball hit the bat.
We would probably see the pitcher at least winding up for the pitch if it was a live broadcast, unless if it was delayed too long, then live feed cut. Those near the stadium that survived would witness a large explosion. Probably people would first assume a terrorist attack. After enough time, the scene would be analyzed and they might figure the explosion originated at a line coming from the pitcher's mound going past home plate. Could they piece together exactly what happened? Everyone would be confused as to how the ball magically accelerated to 0.9c. Aliens, meteoroid impact, nobody would have a clue, even if we figured it out to the baseball somehow going super fast
Then maybe the MLB might make a ruling.
4:46 Really? I thought that it would at least be plausible to get a very small fusion reaction going. You've got matter moving very quickly into what is effectively motionless gas. Now, I know the pressure to create and sustain fusion is immense but I'd imagine a ball moving at .9c could possibly do it. Granted, it would be a very, VERY short amount of time.
7:20 Ah. Never mind.
This is such quality content 😂😂
Everyone’s worried about the batter, but imagine being the catcher.
Nah he got it np.
I’m thinking the words heard with the pitch, “You may fire when ready…commence primary ignition…”
Stand by.
It's going to count as a walk! 🤣 Absolutely awesome!!!
0:30 Would the baseball deliver all of it's kinetic energy to the bat though?
It seems like the ball would only deliver enough energy to the bat to shatter it, then continue on haveing slowed doen by only a few MPH.
The atmospheric shock waves might be an issue though.
I think where he was going with the "fusion" aspect of this would be that there'd be enough energy to split atmospheric molecules (primarily water vapor) into atomic components, where you'd end out having significant availability of H2, some of which would fuse with H2 liberated from some of the organic molecules (which would be similarly split as the ball turned to plasma). Agreed that standard hydrogen doesn't fuse as nicely as deuterium or tritium, but there should be enough liberated energy to do the job.
XKCD. Reimagining the apocalypse, one video at a time.
I remember in high school we calculated how fast a sack of potatoes (infant) would need to be traveling to stop a freight train. We came up with, there would be no survivors no matter what.
At 90% light speed, in atmosphere? It would probably explode quite violently
Big boom
MAC rounds? In atmosphere?
Didn’t know I could even see a video this early.
forgot the name of the company... they shoot aluminum pellets at 30km per second... hit's hard I bet
Reminds me of in Dragonball Super when two of the literal gods of destruction had a baseball game and their essentially galaxy destroying at that time.
Great video as always 🎉
He missed the increased mass as the ball is moving along.
Current Yamcha using somewhere between a untrigintillionth(he very likely is universal at this point) to a nonillionth of his power(he also might only be around Cell to buu level)
3:16 haha neat I was just referencing Yamcha being a baseball player
(Also my assumption is that speed still uses 'speed²' but goes past light speed in dragon ball basically)
I'd love to see them go over what would happen if Flash and Superman collided at high speed, under the assumption that whatever lets them survive their maximum speed does nothing to prevent physics from taking over when they collide with each other. Considering the far greater masses involved... yeah.
In this video, he talks 10 minutes about fusion being spellation and nanoseconds being shakes and spend 3 minutes on the actual xkcd video
I mean, they effectively made a particle collider in open air. That would constitute fusion.
The Atoms smash into each other without time to move out of each others way and they fuse.
It isn't self sustained and they never said that, but it is fusion.
No way
I love these books and highly reccomend you read both on your own time as well as do a reaction video to the periodic wall of the elements
I was under the impression that if it travelled at the speed of the light his energy would be that of half of anti matter, so why wouldn't it fusion? Not enough temperature/energy? The sun has fusion at lower temperature due to gravity, in earth we have it through high temperature (high speed collisions) c isn't speed enough? I am quite puzzled on why it wouldn't fusion
If it traveled at the speed of light, it would have infinite energy. That's why nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light. And yes, I'm pretty sure it has more than enough energy to be causing fusion just by colliding with the air at 0.9c
I think the notion is that the nitrogen and oxygen in the air gets hit by the ball so hard that nuclei join. I'd think that spalling is more likely at those speeds, but what do I know...
What if the ball was spinning 90% speed of light? XD
Basically the same thing
Spin is rotation, light speed is linear. Do you mean equator of the ball at 90 % of c? Then it would fall apart into a disc of plasma, with enough energy to cause similar multi-kilotonne-sized explosion.
Same thing for slightly different reasons.
You should watch the video “the scale of mushroom clouds”, it’s an interesting watch!
The air atoms that can't get out of the way are probably going to fuse with those in the ball, right?
An oxygen atom that hits a hydrogen atom in the baseball at 0.9c can absolutely fuse. Its not a sustained reaction but other doesnt have to be. To cause fusion all you need is the right atoms colliding at the right speed. Once you have that its just a question of how often that occurs. In this case its less about frequency and more about the number of atoms the ball hits.
I wonder what's the ruling for a batter hit by a pitch and become incapacitated by said pitch (ie, too injured). Does another team member go to 1st in his stead similar to a designated hitter situation?
It's weird that you talked about spallation occurring (nuclei breaking apart due to excessive collision energy, above the maximum for fusion) but denied that fusion occurs on the basis of a lack containment... As if fusion and fission, by virtue of being used in resctors/stars/bombs to produce energy, were only capable of happening in the specific logistical scenarios of reactors/stars/bombs, whereas other nuclear physics is free to be theoretically applied to any scenario where it's relevant. It's like your mind switches to "job mode" when hearing the words fusion and fission, and thus leaves "science mode".
you don’t need confinement if air molecules are slamming into your object at 90% C and essentially becoming a part of the object.
Also there js no way any atom of air escapes that region faster than a ball pushing in at 90% C so actually you end up with „technically a confinement”
My understanding is that elements before iron tend to experience fusion in nuclear reactions. Simply because it produces energy. Fusion in reactors or bombs is just too specific. Still quite a lot of different reactions are happening in stars.
For a second I thought you had a flying start, just like the baseball, but it was just a 2020-esque funny-scene-as-intro intro.
I waited patiently for you to review this one, was pretty confident you'd get to it before I grew old and gray ^_^.
Could you explain why it's not fusion? I'd have thought a collision at 0.9c, together with the inertia of the air molecules, would have more than enough pressure to cause that to happen.
What do you need a confinement zone for? You have atoms smack into each other at almost light speed. If that doesn't get you fusion, nothing will. Now, _how much_ fusion I can't even begin to guess, and it likely won't matter anyway, the ball itself has a lot more kinetic energy than you get from whatever fusion you will get. Ok, maybe it's _too much_ for fusion, and you only get fission (as in, reduction of atoms to neutrons, protons, perhaps alpha particles, maybe more particles produced by pair production), that's possible.
Ionizations? At the outer edges (well, the circumference), perhaps. In front, there's no _time_ for ionization. You'll probably get a lot of random elementary particles and even alpha radiation going in random directions, though.
Don't think meteor. Meteors have a few, maybe a few dozen km/s, this is a few hundred thousand km/s. Think CERN.
If the pitcher could use quantum tunneling to get the ball into the catcher's glove without the ball moving through the space between, you it be a ball or a strike?
Ok, so about the nuclear fusion issue - my intuition suggests that the kinetic energy of an atom in the baseball is equivalent to a temerature that is many orders of magnitude more than enough to overcome the Compton barrier for say two nuclei of oxygen or nitrogen, which would be a typical encounter. And if i am not mistaken the boost due to relativistic effects doesn't even make much difference (a mere factor of 27 or so). Of course fusion might not be possible but if so more beause the energies are too high.
I hope that they will make the Periodic Table Cubes one into a video. I really would look forward to the reaction.
So, similar to the Redwing Navajo hydrogen bomb test?
This is not a practical weapon. It is last resort suicide.
Sounds like you'd be moving a hell of a lot further than first base, and first base will be moving with you.
Nice to see Bethesda included in the blast area - inspo for a Fallout spin-off?
I confess I have mixed feelings about seeing my home Wheaton, MD, on a map showing the radii of the results of a large thermonuclear explosion in downtown D.C.
But nuclear fusion can occur at well below relativistic speeds, at .9c there should be all sorts of nuclear reactions including some fusion
Guess the first XKCD reaction video did well ;)
Your "not fusion" take is real weird and a huge miss. If two nuclei impact each other with enough energy, they could fuse. XKCD is saying that nuclei would be impacting each other with enough energy for that to happen. If you were to claim the impacts didn't have enough energy, or that the nuclei would not be able to impact each other, that would be at least conceptually compatible as a criticism, though I can't say it would be factually accurate.
Saying it's not fusion because there's no confinement is like saying the uranium in uranium ore is not experiencing fission because it's not in a reactor. Some of those atoms are absolutely splitting, whether or not you have put in the effort to make prompt it, to make it usable, etc.
The difference between a physicist and an engineer:
Physicist: "Yeah, fusion happens because of the absurd energies involved, but that's in the minutia."
Engineer: "If I can't make use of it, it doesn't affect me, and it's otherwise not relevant to my field of work, it doesn't exist and I'm going to take offense at someone saying it does instead of checking my knowledge."
this guy is irritating when he disagrees
Saved the nuke map to bookmarks asap (ok not that fast i did watch the video first, so it wasnt asap, but the next step after that)
XKCD is just amazing
Nice of you to talk about my man R.A. Dickey 3 min in
I think the relatively enormous mass of the ball moving at relativistic speeds ought to do some special kind of damage and I doubt "just adjusting the blast shape" should cut it. The atoms from the ball even after the primary disintegration would still in bulk have a lot of mass and going fast and what that bunch hits is interesting. Not sure how much building matter it should hit before slowing down back to ambient temperature speeds. 🤔🤔
He's just looks at a fusion reaction and is like "Well it isn't in a reactor so it isn't fusion. lol so idiot"
Nobody said "sustainable" my dude.
The baseball is in fact triggering nuclear fusion. He's correct, you are not.
Double it and give it to the next pitcher.