No Bomb Powerful Enough To Destroy an On-Rushing Asteroid, Sorry Bruce Willis 352
coondoggie writes "Maybe it's the doom predictions about the end of the Mayan calendar this year, or maybe these guys are obsessed with old Bruce Willis movies. Either way a class of physics students from the University of Leicester decided to evaluate whether or not the premise of Willis' 1998 'Armageddon' movie — where a group of oil drillers is sent by NASA to detonate nuclear devices on an asteroid that threatens to destroy Earth — could actually happen. The students found it would take a bomb about a billion times stronger than the biggest bomb ever detonated on Earth."
What do you mean OLD Bruce Willis movies (Score:5, Funny)
Armagedon is not that old at all.. uhmm.. ohmm...
Fuck, get of my lawn
Quoth North Korea (Score:5, Funny)
We have a bomb that big! OoooOOOOOooh!
Obligatory Chuck Norris comment (Score:4, Funny)
Forget Bruce Willis, you just have to land Chuck Norris up there and have him stomp his foot once.
No worries! (Score:4, Funny)
Everyone knows that in such an event Sam will open a hyperspace window and the asteroid will fall right through.
"You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water."
Lt. Col. Samanth Carter
New Bomb Powerful Enough... , Says Bruce Willis (Score:4, Funny)
... or so I misread the headline at first glance.
Re:What do you mean OLD Bruce Willis movies (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck, get of my lawn
You want them to do both at the same time?
I'll assume the preferred order is in the order written.
Re:Don't forget who directed the movie (Score:5, Funny)
Plot points aren't exactly Michael Bay's MO...
FTFY
Re:not about destroying (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, if only there was a way to know what the students meant, like, oh I don't know, reading the article?
Re:not about destroying (Score:5, Funny)
Don't you mean:
"Siri, we got an asteroid that will hit us!"
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that. Would you like me to search the web?"
misplaced modifier (Score:5, Funny)
You've got the brackets in the wrong place.
It's not an old (Bruce Willis movie), it's an (old Bruce Willis) movie.
Re:Bruce still has a shot (Score:2, Funny)
To stop the communists taking away our SUVs and forcing free healthcare on us.
Re:Quoth North Korea (Score:5, Funny)
Funny, I thought you were quoting Hollywood. Perhaps The Happening [imdb.com]? One of the biggest bombs I've seen in a long time...
Re:A billion times. (Score:3, Funny)
OK. I think I've had this discussion before, but maybe people need a fucking refresher on basic newtonian motion.
BLOWING UP AN ONCOMING ASTEROID will ABSOLUTELY NOT 'MOVE' IT TO EITHER SIDE. My fucking GOD did the entire planet fucking fail basic physics? It WILL guarantee that we are, instead of being slammed with one giant rock, showered with millions of smaller rocks, but WE'LL STILL BE FUCKED SIDEWAYS in that scenario.
We could, yes, potentially build a really big bomb. It's not the fact that it's too "heavy" that is why it is impractical. It's because IT CAN NEVER, EVER, FUCKING EVER POSSIBLY WORK as a solution to an oncoming asteroid. That's because making a big rock into littler rocks is not how you stop it.
Diverting the asteroid is a LOT less expensive and though it is disappointingly big hardon-creating explosion-free, (Sorry Mr. Teller, your pyro days are in fact over as I recall) it actually has an advantage over just blowing up the asteroid in that it is a solution created by an adult and not the world's most-respected Beavis-inspiring physicist child who just liked to blow shit up, and that it would work
Sorry, had to get that one off my chest. Mr. Teller and his pyromaniac fantasies have caused a mighty disturbance in a conversation that needs to be deadly serious. We do not have time for the sniggering little Beavises of the world to fantasize about making great big fire. Jesus.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Funny)
Or better yet, say that it's just too expensive to bother with, and do nothing. Engage in a public program of portraying any efforts to deflect the asteroid as "socialism". Call this project "Nero".