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What if you funneled Niagara Falls through a straw?
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- Published on Nov 12, 2025
- Get a copy of What If? 2 and Randall’s other books at: xkcd.com/books
More serious answers to absurd questions at: what-if.xkcd.com/
This question comes from David, who asks: what would happen if one tried to funnel Niagara Falls through a straw?
Credits
*******
Randall Munroe | Narrator
Henry Reich | Writer & Director
Lizah van der Aart | Illustration and Video Editing
Ever Salazar | Chief Chaos Controller
Know Art Studios | Music & Sound Effects
What If? The Video Series is the official adaptation of the What If? books by Randall Munroe and is produced by Neptune Studios LLC.
Randall Munroe is the author of the New York Times bestsellers What If? 2, How To, What If?, and Thing Explainer; the science question-and-answer blog What If?; and the popular web comic xkcd (xkcd.com). A former NASA roboticist, he left the agency in 2006 to draw comics on the internet full time.
Henry Reich is the creator of MinutePhysics and executive producer of MinuteEarth and MinuteFood and founder of Neptune Studios LLC (the parent company for all three youtube channels).
©2025 xkcd, inc. 
Science & Technology
Every time XKCD says, "Let's ignore physics": "Welp there goes the planet."
Although hilarious, this actually also teaches us a very cool principle of physics- things are the way they are because otherwise destruction insues.
Why?
Well things in the world are pretty static from human perspective. But to change something in nature from its status quo we have to force it that way. No matter what, this artificial change is doomed to be destructive to nature, by definition- to break the laws of physics is to break the status quo, and to break the status quo is to destroy what we know and replace it with something we don't. Usually, we see that new thing as a bad thing, again by definition. However technically nothing really matters in terms of ethics, this is just how us humans react to things in nature going in unnatural ways.
I never really appreciated how hard physics works to protect us from other physics.
@abraveastronaut It's a shame that idiots don't protect us from other idiots, like how physics protect us from physics. 😅
That's why everyone obeys the laws of physics. If you don't obey the law, planet goes FWOOSH.
@abraveastronaut Well it's less like physics protects us from other physics and more that the only things that exist are the things that are lucky enough to have survived physics
Reducing the flow of the Niagara Falls by half when no one’s looking at it really makes it feel like a Disney attraction
Nothing in this world is safe from monetization.
@samgraffen9212 i think maintaining the falls at all is anti-monetization
@sophsolanumsamsys until you remember all the businesses that rely on customers that come to see it, and all the home owners who benefit, and all the politicians who are lobbied to maintain it, etc. There is very little in this world that gets done at a loss for those who lobbied for it, and usually when it happens it is the most baffling of things, not the more noble or obvious ones.
and to imagine the niagra falls is only at a third of its natural output at the best of time's
Maybe we should go back to leaving these things alone...
@tom-ment-Capybara Absolutely! Watching water fall down is way more important than generating electricity! We can always just burn more coal. It’s literally lying around.
one thing that i really like about XKCD is that he goes with the true answer of "well, it isn't possible, sorry" first, but doesn't stop there (like some). he goes on to ask "okay, but i want it to be possible, what if we just.. said it was possible, what then?"
I agree so much! Sometimes when i have a question which i know obviously isn't possible i get the answer "obviously that isn't possible". Some people really get stuck on that point and like, I know that, but i just want to play with the ideas that lie beyond. Of course i know that in practice we would not get anywhere close to that point but it's fun to think and speculate about. Even educational!
Let’s say the Wizard did it.
cant believe this didnt end with "one would be in very, very hot water"
I'll be back later, I'm going to take a relativistic bath.
It did end with "This is the last straw"
Won't even be water anymore.
Enjoy your reddit gold good sire 😂
Or somehow easily solved by the dutch... who then take over the world
My 7th grade science teacher one time flippantly said "you couldn't put the flow of Niagra Falls through this kitchen faucet" and I've been thinking about that weekly for the past 30 years. Can't believe XKCD of all places hammered this question directly on the noggin! I feel like a part of my brain can finally rest. Thank you!!
And the answer was, you can't. Not without violating the 1950 international treaty establishing the "100,000" cubic feet per second" minimum
so your teacher was correct, and you have wasted years thinking about something frivolous, you must work in a trade.
@Huntswick and you must be insufferable to be around
@philh2601 and you must be very handsome 😮💨
@Huntswickis this supposed to be an insult
Working in a trade pays pretty good and keeps society running
Niagara Falls through a straw? Somewhere, a fluid dynamics professor just woke up in a cold sweat.
I had never realized/internalized 0:48 “water always wants to boil but is held together by air pressure”. Amazing, small change in perspective makes things like evaporation now obvious!
Or you could just freeze it. Ice exists in space.
@asterpw Ice sublimates in space/vacuum. Water just _really_ _really_ wants to boil.
This is the reason for high altitude directions on recipes. The lower air pressure lowers the boiling point of the water some, meaning you need to compensate or you boil too much water in the cooking or baking process.
@asterpw wouldn't it sublimate in direct sunlight?
@asterpw Not at normal temperatures. There is a reason why there is no ice in space closer than the asteroid belt
"If you try to make water-which is pretty heavy-go that fast, it tends to start ignoring the turns in your pipes" has always been one of my favorite XKCD sentences and I was excited to hear it read out loud :'D
that got a good laugh out of me too haha
When it comes to physics thought experiments, there are few opening sentences more exciting than "well, if you did that, it would have the power output of a small star".
I.. Did not expect this to end with "power output of a small star"
Same. It's wild.
You'd be surprised how often these do end that way
I DID expect that. Every single time.
That's not that much for a what if of this sort...
I was surprised when it was only one star. Normally stuff like this has more than that
You forgot the "committee angered" vs. "worlds destroyed" graph from the book, that was so awesome!
Had to search for the blog post about it and we absolutey needed it hahaha
@mattia_carciola John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Jesus loves you 😄🙏
@_Siloam_ kind of sure that if there's a god up there they're not really fond of me. Righteously, I must say.
@_Siloam_ I don't mean to be disrespectful, but how are god and Jesus involved with the original point?
@_Siloam_ begone, bot! also, really? pick a deep cut next time
Type of question that would make the whole class including teacher laugh at you but when starting to explain, it reveals a lot of mechanisms and variety of physic laws. It's so important to have proper people in the education field
3:23 Given energy output projections, that may well be the actual last ever straw
Why didn’t they use that
It would be the straw that broke more than just the camel's back.
@ChrispyNut
"The straw that broke the Turtle's back"
@ChrispyNutthe straw that broke the world.
Yeah, which would suck
You underestimate the power of those nice metal straws you can get
Niagara Falls: It's over straw! I have the high ground!
@pieceofschmidtgamer Metal Straw: You underestimate my power!
*proceeds to have the power output of a small star*
Do you want to see a magic Trick? I'm going to make this straw disappear...
@Marcel-yu2fwI don’t want to know where it went.
What if it was just a REALLY big straw? Like Niagara size
Things went totally off the rails after this of course, but the water ignoring curves in the pipe moment at 1:49 reminded me of the scene in _Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom_ where the water is flowing so fast through the mining tunnels that it causes long strips of rock to blast out of the cliffside.
Earth Getting Destroyed: Collateral Damage
Getting Sued by Multiple Organizations: WE CANNOT DO THIS
Reminds me of the Joker in an old Batman cartoon: "I'm crazy enough to take on the Batman - but the IRS? No-o-o thank you!"
😮
Average modern day corporation
This is Randell in a nutshell
This is almost a German behavior
I really liked the joke from the print version where there's a graph showing 5 committees angered and 1 planet destroyed, so they say, "the first number is bigger, so it's probably more important."
The beginning had me worried he was going to prove all the ways you couldn’t do it, missing the point of the hypothetical, but he delivered at the end
I actually cannot put in to words the amount of thanks I could give you. You saying "Water always wants to boil, but is held down by air pressure" just clicked. I never really understood why water boils in a vacuum but that simple explanation just made it all click. Thank you so much. Great video as well.
Well, what is 'boiling'? It is evaporation WITHIN the fluid (and not just the surface).
@at1the1beginningIf you suddenly removed the pressure, the surface would boil first, and most, as the fluid tension and reaction forces would cause a slight pressure in the bulk.
It boils at the bottom of the pot because that's where the temperature is highest and overcomes both air and fluid pressure. And the act of expanding absorbs input energy as entropy and keeps the bulk from getting hot enough to do the same.
All liquids are like that, btw. Their boiling point rises and falls with the surrounding pressure. At low enough pressures, elements no longer have a liquid phase, instead turning directly from solid to gas and vice versa.
Dry ice is a good example, which is cold CO2. When you watch it melt, it never turns into a liquid (hence why it's called "dry"). In order for CO2 to turn liquid, you'd need at least 5 atmospheres of pressure (at its melting point) and around 65 atmospheres for liquid CO2 at room temperature!
The sentence: "water always 'wants' to boil, but is normally held together by air pressure" makes it sound like water has anger management issues, lol
It can get cold as ice and also burn your face off - if you are careless. It surely has anger issues.
I always want to boil, but I'm held together by peer pressure
Wait until you hear about salt water.
It has anger management issues, hates everything and holds grudges.
The atmosphere is water's emotional support gas
@dicerson9976hahaha that’s amazing
I love how every xkcd what if ends in "the earth/universe would get destroyed in an instant"
1:28 To be fair, the whole of Niagara falls shooting out in a 10-meter across jet stream is already insane
17 trillion psi
i wanna drop stuff in the imaginary 10m radius jet stream and see what happens
@faedwellerinstantaneous annihilation lol.
Sam?
@Flarvik who?
Ah, of course. We all die. Again. I love that almost all of these "What if..." physics questions usually end with "... and we destroy the Earth via catastrophic energy release!"
Oh! What a delightful man to stumble upon, i recognized you in a heartbeat! Big fan of super hostile, good man 🍻🍻
These longer than 15sec, shorter than 8-10 min videos keep me happy. Like the old days of RUclips. Quick information without the fuss. Thanks for tickling my brain today
"Hey Ferb, I know what we we're going to do today"
Literally every episode of this show lol
😮
"You see, Perry the Platypus, in my youth I was constantly tormented by local bullies using plastic straws as blowguns to shoot spitwads at me. Hence, my newest creation: The NoStrawsAnywhereInator!"
@jordansean18 Followed immediately by "Hey, where's Perry?"
Candace: MOOOOM!!!! Fineas and ferb are gonna destroy the world...
Dr. Doofincemertz? I can't spell:Behold my plasma straw pluginator...or something idk😂
Cavitation is no joke, it pits and chips boat props and the wrong prop and pitch can completely remove the blades.
@lougottlieb156 There is no vacuum in water. There will always be water molecules within those bubbles. I agree that bubbles of water vapor is technically the more correct term because most people associate boiling temperatures with steam, which is room temperature at those low pressures...
Plus, pistol shrimps use it offensively to knock-out or around other creatures...
It keeps dentists employed, though.
The excessive noise can also let Reapers hear you.
Cavitation also destroys motor pumps of fire trucks if you're not careful ... 😢
I am absolutely shocked by the fact that this show is narrated by Randall Munroe, the guy who's book my parents gifted me some time ago! I was fascinated, and it's great to come across you randomly that much later in my life!
I am amazed that not only something as innocuous as "forcing a large amount of water through a straw" is somehow *more* destructive than a lightspeed baseball turning into a nuke.
Ooh! Let's try that baseball directly opposed to the plasma spewing straw!
*Near* light speed. Crucial distinction.
Look at it this way. Yes, a baseball at 0.75c is really energetic compared to most things.
But 100,000 cft of water has a huge head start in the mass part of the kinetic energy equation. And that's per second, not per event...
@isavenewspapers8890 I mean, would sending it any faster than they did significantly alter the outcome? it's already a damn nuke.
@lankymaccrazyhair264 Closer and closer to light speed, there's more and more energy, which increases without bound. You could destroy the planet if you wanted, or the galaxy, or worse. When the ball is *at* light speed, you break physics.
'Also the Earth would b destroyed'
The deadpan delivery is perfect as ever
It wouldn't be an XKCD "What If" if it DIDN'T end in a nuclear explosion.
He says it so often that it's routine now.
@stevenscott2136
To be fair the earth is a fairly delicately balanced we are so far the only planet we've found that's like us, and we've explored pretty far out there, we've found "life" but at most it's bacteria, earth is pretty unique so i imagine the processes were very precise and very little changes effect everything from big to small
But what if we pointed the Water Jet of Relativistic Doom *up* away from the planet? Would we have to point it directly at the zenith to avoid precession effects? Could we get away with pointing it at the north celestial pole? Obviously we would want to avoid letting it intersect the moon, because that would be a different xkcd video.
@artsyscrub3226delicately balanced? You talking about the once green ball of water which turned red because breathing is cool which ended anything that hated breathing. Or when it decided to become a microwave for a change while salting the ocean which managed to end the trilobite? Or maybe that one time it wanted to roleplay as a refrigerator.
Seems kinda like torture.
This is exactly why I love What If scenarios! 🤯 You took a wild hypothetical question and turned it into a super fun mix of science experiments, physics facts, and even space-level energy. It felt like a brain workout but in the best way possible 😂 Subscribed!
I would drink it because im kinda thirsty rn
verified comment W
Username checks out
But remember
Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer
In your case your thirst be annihilateeed.
I'll remember to call you if I'm in a similiar situation
Agreed. I too am quite thirsty.
Fun fact: Randall mentioned how most of Niagara's water goes to hydropower but a certain amount is legally mandated to go over the falls. In contrast, the world's tallest manmade waterfall (Marmore Falls) *is* in fact almost completely "turned off" most of the time and 100% diverted to hydropower, and only turned on for brief periods twice a day for people to watch. It's also more than 2000 years old--Marmore Falls was built by the Romans to drain a highland swamp, and no one in the following millenia has ever topped their feat.
According to Wikipedia, it was built in 271BC, which is remarkably early in Roman history for such a feat of engineering.
But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, public health, and Marmore Falls, what have the Romans ever done for us?
@evieb8412 thats bit too broad of a scope man... there were few relatively advanced civilizations before rome that did many of those. Sure rome improved on things but thats the same as saying that Josef Mengele gave us surgery and anesthesia
@Eksistenssi You do realize that evie was referencing Monty Python's Life of Brian, right?
> no one in the following millenia has ever topped their feat.
The Dutch would like a word.
I have been using this video to help me fall asleep for the last two nights..... worked like a charm! sometimes I don't even make it past the first minute before I pass out.
"This is the last straw" 💀
E
came here to say this 🤣
literally
The straw to end all straws.
That bit had me in stitches.
Cubic feet per second over square millimeters is an interesting choice of units.
This made me pause as well :s
That is ((l*l*l)/t)/(l*l), which simplifies to length over time, which is speed.
@robertjarman3703makes sense, although I guess it would be in 5 dimensions?
@nathansos8480 no, 2 length units cancel out at the top and bottom, leaving only length over time
@nddragoon oh. I just counted the ‘l’s
"Also, the earth would be destroyed." Yeah, like that's anything new here.
don't worry guys I used a paper straw so the earth is safe
Oh thank god. I was worried for a second. Don't worry, he's got it.
Thanks man, you're a real one
SOUPEARTHOFFICIAL AND CHESSEDGAMON????
Problem solved
yummers
I always love how after we render the earth uninhabitable it comes back to, oh and you will get a $200 ticket and a stern talking to
Obviously, the second part is more worrying. 😆
Hit by pitch...
Well, you know... destroying the world is bad and all, but nobody likes to deal with paperwork.
a fate far worse than any death one could imagine
So, let m get this straight, its the international Niagara committee thats been holding us back?
It's always the Niagara committee.
I do NDT (Nondestructive Testing) inspection work on pipes in Nuclear plants, and cavitation is a HUGE issue
but the fact water boils at a certain pressure is also very USEFUL, so when its expected, you can simply use a tougher (more expensive) steel, or atleast design it in such a way that the pipes can be replaced easily.
There are two types of common wear that pipes receive on a nuclear plant. FAC and EPC
Manual Erosion is called Erosion in Piping and Components (EPC). This describes Cavitation, as well as a unique phenomenon where the water flows so fast that jets of steam form within the water stream that hit the walls (instead of a vacuum being formed as described in cavitation) creating a wear pattern that is known as Tiger Striping. This commonly happens at pipe reducer or expander boundaries, as well as Elbows.
Also, water chemically erodes pipes as well! This is called Flow Accelerated Corrosion (FAC) as the water flows, the molecules bond with the metals in pipes slowly eroding it over time. kind of like the worlds slowest acid. Suuuuuper fascinating stuff, I love my job so much.
There is a Third type of wear a pipe can recieve that I do not remember the name of (Its fairly uncommon). I havent encountered it yet, but its basically colonies of bacteria that grow within the pipe and consume the steel itself over time in a chemical process. This typically happens in water intake manifolds and piping, and is surprisingly common on oil and gas refineries as well.
Super interesting, thanks!
FAC isn't _like_ the world's slowest acid. It _is_ acid. Hydronium Oxide is _the_ weakest acid and only really happens if you dump lots of energy into the water (heating it up and/or pumping it at speed;) at low energy levels the hydronium and oxide tend to settle down into a couple water molecules.
Calling water 'the universal solvent' is only a slight exaggeration.
Huh, that second factor seems like it might explain why eathernware pipes can last for centuries. Sure, they are annoyingly brittle (and therefore have a big mass vs capacity), but if they don't get broken, they can last a very, very long time. Of course there are metals in earthenware, and basic friction obviously still exists, so nothing's immune to "water wear".
Thanks for sharing, loved that. It is super fascinating.
Your description of 2 common events and a rare one reminded me of dialogue from an episode of Lower Decks that I enjoyed named "The Least Dangerous Game":
"There are only three types of prey. You are the first type, immobilized by your fear. The second type scurries away to hide, delaying the inevitable."
"Uh, what's the third kind?"
"The third is a winged lizard-type creature, that doesn't really apply to you."
Water is indeed a really really weak acid, chemically. The pH of neutral water is at 7, but that still means it contains 10^-7 moles of H3O+ Ions, and these ions are what makes an acid an acid. It's also a really really weak base, that's basically the opposite effect.
So yeah, it actually dissolves the pipe like an acid, because it is one. Really cool :)
Sad you left out the "Speed in Quater c" table, as this is one of my favorite xkcd gags of all time.
Water speed in 1/4 c Problems?
0 maybe
1 yes
2 yes
3 yes
4 very yes
5 please stop
I know, right? I was hoping for it to come up :(
That was probably among the best things in the second book in my opinion.
"I guess the water is going back in time? Maybe we should call a plumber."
i appreciate the alignment. very well done
@nekrugderzweite8298 thank you 😊
It took a minute or two, but I'm happy with how it turned out
Destroying the planet: 😃
Angering the International Niagara Committee: 😭
So you're telling me Niagara Falls would become the ultimate water gun? Sounds like a good idea to me!
sure, if you wanted the ultimate water gun to be able to destroy planets.
@lankymaccrazyhair264 That's what makes it the ultimate one!
Only after you’ve built the ultimate death ray to accelerate it
Or at least, an idea
::Jots down some notes for our next interplanetary conflict.::
OMG!!!! This 2:15 i was always wondering why during the winter when i visted Niagara when i lived in Buffalo it always flowed slower than in the summer. All this time i thought it was due to ice and stuff. Thank you, my 30-year wonderment has been solved. (sure, i could have looked this up, but who has time for that? )
I once visited a different famous waterfall during the off season, and yep, it looked pathetic! My fault for not checking beforehand.
@randomuser-xc2wr same thing that happened in the Nile happened in the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq. Almost every river that held some importance would be molded by humans.
I lived there for a couple years. I had NO idea they TURNED THE FALLS OFF essentially
I live in buffalo 😂
I can go sleep well at night knowing that the International Niagara Committee is standing between some mad scientist and destruction of the world.
Love the "This is the last straw!" at the end!
There's something inherently hilarious about "if you try to make water... go that fast, it tends to start ignoring the turns in your pipes"
3:00 If there was a way to do it. There would be a scientist willing to try. There is always one
I think a bigger problem is pumping the output of Niagara Falls across the Atlantic
@padre764 While the LHC is the one depicted in the video, there are particle accelerators in the USA as well, they're just several orders of magnitude less powerful.
2:19
idk why but I laughed out loud at the idea of a waterfall being turned off at night
(Even though this is just a waterfall being turned down, no off)
They do a lot of work on all 3 falls (Horseshoe, American, and Bridal Veil falls) to control things like erosion and flow rate.
Just think, after we hit peak oil and peak nuclear, there will be a strong financial incentive in the 23rd century to use 100% of the water for drinking and electricity.
At some point, the falls may be turned off completely for maintenance. (And to see what cool stuff they can find)
I used to run a set of hydroelectric generating stations, and some of them had no restrictions on river flow. To send water to the generating unit intakes, we'd turn on one particular river every morning before people started waking up, and then we'd turn it off when everyone was going to bed and we didn't need the additional power any more. I operated the valve in person once (as opposed to using the computer control), and it was spectacular.
@gavros9636such as the endless amounts of corpses.
He wasn’t joking that it would destroy the world
3:24 without context is great
For those who only watched the end of the video. Basically the international niagara comittee keeping us all safe from planetary destruction
@ScreamingManiac Or failing to.
@bardsamok9221they're trying their best
So is 2:37
@ScreamingManiac Viagra Falls is an SCP
Loving the sound design at 3:03 🐿️
Tiny angry voices!
If you want to see what happens when all that water is forced into a narrow canyon ( which it is) go down below the falls a mile or so and take a walk on a walkway that has been built to do just that. It takes you above the water a bit and along side of it and allows you to see the rapids that are formed that are so wild, they are above the scale they use to grade rapids. It is awesome to view if not a little scary!! People have died trying to kayak them and it is now against the law. That said, it has been successfully navigated by a professional that was given permission. It is hard to imagine while looking at them!! I think it is one of the best things to see at the falls and highly recommend taking the walk. Very well done walkway that many don’t know about. Take the time to see it. You will be glad you did! About as close as it can be to a straw!!
"ignoring the bends in your pipes," is a bit of an interesting phrase.
I have forgotten the name now, but there are engineering structures to resist the forces at the bends in pipes, especially municipal-size pipes for water and waste water.
It's basically another way of saying that it turns into a waterjet cutter.
One of the scenarios in one of the What If? books, Randall takes the prompt in the opposite direction as expected, calculating decreasingly destructive answers to the prompts and finishes the chapter with something like "sometimes it's nice to not destroy everything".
Which means he's capable of taking the narrative in a direction where the Earth isn't destroyed every single time, yet chooses not to. I kinda respect that.
Cautiously picking up a straw "The power of the sun, finally, in the palm of my hand."
the seriousness that is taken to answer these questions is beyond amazing. TY
That's the great thing about asking engineers weird questions: They wanna figure out the answer too!
Bro just wanted to put a straw in water and accidentally created the Death Star...
The Death Straw
This will be very helpful for my Fluid Dynamics test tomorrow.
Good luck! I had an end of year science test this morning so I can relate.
I just had mine today, you got this, good luck!
I never took fluid dynamics as an undergrad. I haven't regretted it to this day.
Everything turns to plasma so Magnetohydrodynamics is more applicable here.
Man, if destroying the planet is better than sitting it😊, that is one *harsh* test...
I'm working on a series with a hydrokinetic character and now I have the perfect idea for a late stage power-up. Thanks Randall!
Fun fact
If the straw is 6 feet off the ground, the water would hit the ground 29,800 miles away, or 3.76 times around the earth
Would it not have enough force to escape earth's gravity and burst through the atmosphere?
...If the straw was 6ft above the ground, then the water would hit the ground in 6ft? And the circumference of the earth is 24,091 miles, so even if your first figure is correct, the second should be ~1.24 (29800/24091) times around the earth
If it was going 0.25c I'd suggest it's likely well beyond escape velocity and would actually be spraying like a hose into the void of space.
@morosis82, and then we need to consider the friction of that water moving through the atmosphere on its way and turning to steam before being expelled into space.
So you're saying we can use it as some sort of galactic tourist attraction where Alien tourist can visit the galaxy fastest manmade water stream
0:17 okay apologies for the pedantry but why is this explosion centred on northern Europe
Because thats the important part of the world where the USA is.
Because that’s where the Large Hadron Collider lives?
Beg par'n but I'd say more like Zankt Pieterborg.
The high-speed water plasma made it that far before superheating the atmosphere into the characteristic mushroom cloud.
Nah nah, your all wrong
It’s just a really long straw
new wacky scifi weapon tech just dropped
dont mind me
just gonna slot this here thang into my worldbuilding
There is already water jet cutting. This is that but more. Death Star water jet cutter.
Based
Watch out he's gonna piss on the moon!
World's most deadly Super soaker. 😂
i just learned about bernoulli’s principle and now im seeing it everywhere (not really everywhere)
The instant i see the title: "ok how does this innocent question kill everyone on earth this time?"
so many XKCD WHAT-IF stories end with "it would boil away the oceans and make the Earth uninhabitable"
Maybe because, like he said, water already *wants* to boil! 🤔
In this case, it even boils away the Earth and makes the oceans uninhabitable.
Well, when most of them come down to "If you tried, you'd add an absurd amount of energy to the planet" you don't really get to be surprised when the energy does energy things.
The timing of this is incredible. Something similar happened to me a few days ago after a mexican all you can eat buffet
I've always wanted a What If? for "What would happen if Niagara Falls instantaneously eroded back to Lake Erie (presumably far enough in to reach an equivalent depth of the current falls if possible)?" Other than it being a bad day to be living in Toronto, I'm sure Randall could have a great time coming up with all sorts of interesting issues that would occur...
We get to build more Cleveland.
Think it would be bad for Toronto? Try living in Buffalo.
@TimChipp Why? Most of Buffalo's waterfront is on Lake Erie, including downtown, and they would just see Lake Erie drain below them, like Cleveland would. Yeah, there would be some serious erosion along the new Niagara River canyon, but that would probably only affect at most a few blocks nearest the river (although I-190 would be toast in that area). And, given that the western branch of the Niagara River around Grand Island has the wider channel and the shorter route (and thus making it more likely the water would tend to flow that way), I'd be far more worried about the erosion that would happen across the river in Fort Eire ON rather than what happens in Buffalo. Meanwhile, Toronto would be facing massive and very quick flooding, probably inundating most if not all of the city.
I appreciate that, despite how many questions can be answered with “The Earth would explode”, they still take the time to explain how it could happen. 😊
It's not much of a video if you donn't bother to explain why.
I hope if anyone ever gets super powers they're an xkcd fan so they know better to not accidentally combust the atmosphere...
I love these videos! His educational and hysterical all at the same time!
"This is the last Straw !" genius 😆
"it starts ignoring the bends in your pipes". Love that casually said sentence. With the accompanying illustration. 🙂
NGL, the fact I used to live across the street from where this guy used to work, and at the same time down the street from a particle accelerator, honestly makes me happy to still be alive.
0:33 This is... the first time I've seen one of your videos. I appreciate the driest sense of humor and you, sir are a desert. I am subscribing.
Odd since this may be one of the wettest videos he’s made…
Can always rely on this channel to answer the questions I never knew needed to be asked
As a local Canadian, I was impressed to learn about the minimum flowrate for Niagara Falls - awesome video!
0:10 Reminds me of the people's front of Judea 😂😂
Same here! 😂😂
We’re the Judean People’s Front!!
Splitter!
You mean the Judean's peoples front
i thought it was the Judean People's Popular Front? or was it the Popular People's Front?
I love the 0.25c jet of water/plasma at 2:38 drilling through the panel border!
I'm from here. Niagara Falls has been totally stopped before, but it would never be attempted today. Its current flow, however, is very tightly controlled both for the purposes of electrical power generation but also for the preservation of one of the Wonders of the Natural World from its own erosion. The flow of water over the Falls today is a manageable fraction of what it would otherwise be.
2:03 oh right they explained that "mandated by law" bit here
I love your approach to these is always "well here's the real answer... and here's the answer you're probably looking for"
I really appreciate the pun at the end.
"The last straw"...that is one of the best puns I have ever seen in my life.
The gigantic pipe labeled "Niagara Water" being slammed into the Large Hadron Collider "building" caught me off guard and made me laugh out loud. 😂 Thanks for that.
2:49 But what if we had more power?
... the straw might just disintegrate?
@irrelevant_noob It's a reference to a different What If, about what would happen if everybody on Earth pointed a laser pointer at the moon at the same time. The real answer is "not much", but one of the stick figure guys keeps asking "What if we tried more power?" So the power gets cranked up step by step until we get to "the moon would get partly vaporized and blasted out of orbit (except not really, because that would definitely fry the Earth and all the lasers first)."
oh god not again
3:36 is the exact amount of time that I want to watch a video about an interesting silly question. Thank you for recognizing that.
So you're saying that doing this would cause a lot of
(•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
splash damage.
Get out. XD
AoE damage too...
@lancedicker858that is splash damage
Deserves more likes.
It's not remotely scientific or even appropriate for polite company, but those interested should track down the website version of this question as it was originally inspired by an analogy made to the behavior of one's digestive system after consuming certain sugar-free gummies. The Amazon review that made this analogy is totally worth a read for the schadenfreude alone, though (as Randall originally stated) "It described the reviewer's gastrointestinal response to the candy in rather *memorable* detail".
I think the review got link-rotted, though.
Fortunately, we're not in polite company.
Well, I got my quirky supervillain plan to destroy the world now, thx for helping!
ChemE with lots of experience in internal flow applications, you did a pretty good job.
"experience in internal flow applications" okay plumber
The aliens in another galaxy wondering why a giant water jet is cutting their planet in half:
"This is the last straw!" The *very* last straw.
Best one of these I've seen - what a delight.
This is obviously the most effective way to make a hydroelectric dam.
I loved physics in school and found this video fascinating!
I think all I'm learning is that I did not pay enough attention in my fluids class at college
LOL! This did not go where I expected. I thought you'd go off on how the water would back up and flood Ontario and the Midwest. . .25 c is not what I expected, but it's what the question deserves.
Mood instantly lifted. Thank you for this
Cant believe the NIagra falls committee employees are strong enough to withstand the energy of a small star long enough to be angry about the 100,000 cfs law
"THIS IS THE LAST STRAW!!" at the end killed me
"Apparently our water will be moving 1/4 the speed of light"
That made me laugh out loud for some reason!
😅😅😅😅😅