Prakat Posted July 11, 2012 Posted July 11, 2012 What would happen if you tried to hit a cricket ball bowled at 90% the speed of light? LetÃÔ set aside the question of how we got the ball moving that fast. We'll suppose it's a normal delivery, except in the instant the bowler releases the ball, it magically accelerates to 0.9c. From that point onward, everything proceeds according to normal physics.: The answer turns out to be ÅÂ lot of things? and they all happen very quickly, and it doesnÃÕ end well for the batsman (or the bowler). I sat down with some physics books, a Nolan Ryan action figure, and a bunch of videotapes of nuclear tests and tried to sort it all out. What follows is my best guess at a nanosecond-by-nanosecond portrait: The ball is going so fast that everything else is practically stationary. Even the molecules in the air are stationary. Air molecules vibrate back and forth at a few hundred miles per hour, but the ball is moving through them at 600 million miles per hour. This means that as far as the ball is concerned, theyÃÓe just hanging there, frozen. The ideas of aerodynamics donÃÕ apply here. Normally, air would flow around anything moving through it. But the air molecules in front of this ball donÃÕ have time to be jostled out of the way. The ball smacks into them hard that the atoms in the air molecules actually fuse with the atoms in the ballÃÔ surface. Each collision releases a burst of gamma rays and scattered particles. These gamma rays and debris expand outward in a bubble centered on the popping crease. They start to tear apart the molecules in the air, ripping the electrons from the nuclei and turning the air in the stadium into an expanding bubble of incandescent plasma. The wall of this bubble approaches the batsman at about the speed of lightÃÃnly slightly ahead of the ball itself. The constant fusion at the front of the ball pushes back on it, slowing it down, as if the ball were a rocket flying tail-first while firing its engines. Unfortunately, the ball is going so fast that even the tremendous force from this ongoing thermonuclear explosion barely slows it down at all. It does, however, start to eat away at the surface, blasting tiny particulate fragments of the ball in all directions. These fragments are going so fast that when they hit air molecules, they trigger two or three more rounds of fusion. After about 70 nanoseconds the ball arrives at the batting crease. The batsman hasn't even seen the bowler let go of the ball, since the light carrying that information arrives at about the same time the ball does. Collisions with the air have eaten the ball away almost completely, and it is now a bullet-shaped cloud of expanding plasma (mainly carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen) ramming into the air and triggering more fusion as it goes. The shell of x-rays hits the batsman first, and a handful of nanoseconds later the debris cloud hits. When it reaches the batsman, the center of the cloud is still moving at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. It hits the bat first, but then the batsman, stumps, and keeper are all scooped up and carried backward through the sightscreen as they disintegrate. The shell of x-rays and superheated plasma expands outward and upward, swallowing the sightscreen, both teams, the stands, and the surrounding neighborhoodÃÂll in the first microsecond. Suppose youÃÓe watching from a hilltop outside the city. The first thing you see is a blinding light, far outshining the sun. This gradually fades over the course of a few seconds, and a growing fireball rises into a mushroom cloud. Then, with a great roar, the blast wave arrives, tearing up trees and shredding houses. Everything within roughly a mile of the park is leveled, and a firestorm engulfs the surrounding city. The ground is now a sizable crater, centered a few hundred feet behind the former location of the sightscreen. (Slightly modified from this)
velu Posted July 11, 2012 Posted July 11, 2012 i am not sure , but the ball might evaporate before it reaches the batsmen due to friction :dontknow:
velu Posted July 11, 2012 Posted July 11, 2012 ^ :hmmm: answer in OP... is that a serious article and r they factually correct ?? :dontknow:
Mariyam Posted July 11, 2012 Posted July 11, 2012 Shouldn't this be merged with that Higgs Boson thread? As far as I know, if you fire a Higgs boson particle from one side, a cricket ball at the speed of 90% light from the other side and shine a torch light from the top such that it travels exactly to the point of impact of the earlier two aforementioned 'objects', there would be a cataclysmic reaction and the universe would get destroyed. Only olives would survive. :dontknow:
Mariyam Posted July 11, 2012 Posted July 11, 2012 why olives? Why only olives? :hmmmm2: Sorry Pravin, I don't have the time or the inclination to explain this right now. :icflove: When you develop an understanding of relativistic physics, particle physics, astronomy, the reitnerstongenoff model and fuerstronen reactions as robust as mine, answers to such questions like "why olives?" would be self evident.
Prakat Posted July 11, 2012 Author Posted July 11, 2012 Sorry Pravin, I don't have the time or the inclination to explain this right now. :icflove: When you develop an understanding of relativistic physics, particle physics, astronomy, the reitnerstongenoff model and fuerstronen reactions as robust as mine, answers to such questions like "why olives?" would be self evident. I assure you Mariyam, that my fuerstronen reactions are as full and robust as yours. But being so the answer does elude me yet. And in any case, why only olives?
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