The Oh-My-God particle

en.wikipedia.org

9 pointsmootothemax3 comments

> in other words, a subatomic particle with kinetic energy equal to that of a 5-ounce (142 g) baseball traveling at about 100 kilometers per hour (60 mph)

Similar energy but, luckily for us, completely different impact dynamics: a myriad of small interactions along its path in the atmosphere and in the Earth (I don't know the maximum depth, maybe it's even possible for it to traverse the planet), releasing energy a bit at a time, instead on one single sudden crash.

Yes, baseball is still more dangerous than an "Oh my God!" particle :-)

Especially if we accelerate that baseball to relativistic speeds: http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

Am I the only one that thinks the latest What Ifs aren't quite as good as the first few? It seems the first ones took a lot of research, time and energy while the last several were whipped up in half an hour.

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