How would you go about destroying the Earth?

loinburger · February 21, 2003, 21:45

So? How would you do it?

I'm not talking about any half-assed measures like "wiping out all multi-cellular life on the Earth" or "covering the Earth in a cloud of radioactive dust" or anything like that. I'm talking about the real deal -- transforming the Earth into a cloud of stellar dust, or at the very least into a new Asteroid belt.

Boris Godunov · February 21, 2003, 21:46

Id convince Bush that Putin had once tried to assassinate his cousin. I'd then watch the nukes fly.

monkspider · February 21, 2003, 21:46

I would put several hundred pounds of TNT in the Moon's core so that it will collide into the Earth, knocking it into the Sun.

red_jon · February 21, 2003, 21:47

I would position an idiot war mongerer and a spineless suck-up as leaders of the US and UK and cause WW3.

Bet no-one's thought of that

Az · February 21, 2003, 21:51

Hmm, I would think a lot, and find an asteroid that would be the right mass, and will get the right trajectory after the right push. Then, I'll use the entire nuclear aresnal of the earth, if needed, to give it the right push in the needed direction.

Then, the asteroid will collide with earth, and earth will be destroyed.

Ta-da.

loinburger · February 21, 2003, 21:51

Boris and jon: I said "no half-assed measures" with the idea being that a nuclear war is most decidedly half-assed.

I like monk's idea, except that I'm not sure how putting TNT in the moon's core would knock it off course.

Boris Godunov · February 21, 2003, 21:53

If a nuke war blew up the whole planet, there'd be nothing half-assed about it.

loinburger · February 21, 2003, 21:54

Sure, but we don't have enough nukes for that. We probably couldn't even level the Rockies with the world's combined nuclear arsenal, let alone vaporize the entire planet.

I suppose we could always build more nukes, but imagine how frightfully inefficient that would be.

Az · February 21, 2003, 21:55

A nuke war wouldn't blow up the entire planet.

It would blow up the surface, perhaps, but that's nothing.

It takes a 20Mega tonn charge to transform a mountain into a crater.

Earth is humongous in comparison to any mountain, and there are only around 10000 nukes, or so.

Sandman · February 21, 2003, 21:57

Create a truly enormous hydrogen bomb, with a size measurable in cubic kilometres. If the explosion doesn't erase the Earth, with 'luck' it could leave behind a black hole. The physicists on the board will probably say that that won't happen, however.

monkspider · February 21, 2003, 21:58

Quote:

Originally posted by loinburger
Im not sure TNT in the moon's core would knock it off course.

The details can all be worked in due time, of course.

loinburger · February 21, 2003, 21:58

I suppose you could always try detonating them all in the center of the earth, but I'd imagine that the nukes wouldn't fare too well when they're encased in molten nickel...

red_jon · February 21, 2003, 21:59

I would build a giant lasoo and use it to pull a black hole towards the Earth.

General Ludd · February 21, 2003, 21:59

Use lots of slave labour and mining camps to slowly dig up the earth and launch the debris into space with small rockets. Long and painful, but it wouldn't destroy the earth completely.

Boris Godunov · February 21, 2003, 22:03

Well fine then.

Under the aegis of a blandly-named, inconspicuous but somehow fantastically wealthy global aerospace corporation, i'd win numerous contracts to deploy satellites, both for governments and private organizations. However, each satellite would be part of a secret super-weapon. Upon activation, the satellites would come together like a giant transformer, becoming a space station with a massive super-laser which would be capable of disintegrating the planet. From the space station, I'd hold the world ransom for $100 Trillion Dollars.

I'd then fly out into deeper space, destroy the Earth with the laser anyway to prevent anyone from following me, and then go off with my horde of wealth to--

Oh. ****, nevermind.

loinburger · February 21, 2003, 22:10

I remember reading some book or another where some aliens or zombies or ninjas or robots or somebody like that took a hunk of neutronium (the degenerate matter that makes up neutron stars) and a hunk of anti-neutronium (the same stuff, only made out of anti-matter) and fired them at the Earth. The two hunks of (anti)matter orbited around each other a few times, and eventually met at the center of the Earth, annihilating each other and blowing apart the Earth. The alien zombie ninja robots won the day.

For the life of me I can't remember the name of that book, though.

flash9286 · February 21, 2003, 22:13

i would call back all of Ameicans foriegn forces causing destablization and nuclear war

monkspider · February 21, 2003, 22:18

Another possibilty is to use a time chamber to send a robot back in time to when the Earth was just a single-celled rock and use TNT to blow it up.

red_jon · February 21, 2003, 22:21

Creating a confusing time paradox.

Lancer · February 21, 2003, 22:22

At our current technology the earth can't be destroyed. Therefore I would invent a totally new technology, the 'Fusion Worm'. Basicly a fusion powered geneticly modified worm w/ a propulsion digestive system. The worm would need to be the size of Manhattan. Then, turn him loose and watch him eat dirt. When he gets a load of dirt he shits it at near light speed in the general direction of the sun. The earth is consumed in its firey bowels.

Finis...

red_jon · February 21, 2003, 22:28

Best so far.

Lancer · February 21, 2003, 22:29

Or, how about setting off a huge nuke at the equator every night in the exact middle of the night...slowly driving the earth towards the sun. Or, at 3 AM, slowing the earth in its orbit until the orbit degrades and the planet falls into the sun.

It would have to be set to be done automaticly because the devices would eventually destroy the ability of the world to sustain life.

GePap · February 22, 2003, 01:03

If we need a new tech, then get moving on producing large quantities of anti-matter. no better way to blow things up than to give it a sudden meeting with its opposite.

Skanky Burns · February 22, 2003, 01:55

Build a massive ion engine, set many of them up around the equator and then turn them on at different times, so that combined they both slow the earth's orbit down and push it closer towards the sun.

I'm assuming that the earth becoming part of the sun counts as sufficiently destroyed.

DinoDoc · February 22, 2003, 02:00

Death Star!

That's no moon...

Inverse Icarus · February 22, 2003, 02:15

just find a sizeable asteroid (or, the moon if you're lazy) and slam it into the planet with some futuristic anti-gravity ray or a large enough boom. hey, they tried it in stargate.

Shi Huangdi · February 22, 2003, 02:27

I would eat it.

DinoDoc · February 22, 2003, 02:29

Quote:

I would eat it.

How would you deal with the indigestion, Galactus?

MosesPresley · February 22, 2003, 02:30

A moon sized tums tablet.

Kramerman · February 22, 2003, 03:02

Sun Crusher...