Question: What Happens If...

[Coloumb Dude]

So here I am just a regular kid wondering in the realms of physics.

 

Yes, nuclear bombs, TNT, whatever it is - products that explode produce such a substantial amount of force. Nuclear bombs when in effect produce so much force it could level an island, it is utterly devastating.

 

However I want to bend the realm of physics a bit.

 

Assume, just, assume we humans have the capability to generate the force equivalent to that of a nuclear bomb in a single punch/jab.

 

What would happen?

 

Will there be explosions like we see in nuclear bombs and TNT's?

 

Please dear people of science forums, enlighten me.

 

Thanks .

[Fuzzwood]

Your entire fist will shatter because of the effect of impulse.

[imatfaal]

For a different, yet similar question have a look at the very first XKCD What-If It deals with a baseball which (somehow) is thrown at a signficant proportion of the speed of light.

 

From back of the envelope calcs I think the energy is about the same - ie 10^17 ish joules all in a small package

https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

[Phi for All]

If you could generate that much power with a punch, you have to also pretend you had a body that could use it. If your arm were traveling fast enough to deliver a blow like that, your fist wouldn't survive the trip. It would have to be moving so fast that, for a jab that's only going a few feet, you'd probably leave everything but bone behind, all the soft tissue would stay at your side while your skeletal arm slid right out. The bone wouldn't survive much longer.

 

I don't think the punch would ever land, but it wouldn't have to.

[DrP]

Someone done the calculations once for being punched by Superman. He hits even harder!

[swansont]

Also keep in mind that how would recoil from whatever force you exerted. Punch the ground and you would launch yourself into orbit. In fact the rest of your body would begin to recoil even before the punch landed; your CoM would stay the same but your body would have to move in the opposite direction and twist in order to conserve linear and angular momentum. Then the punch would land and the ground would exert an equal and opposite force on you. But you, being roughly 10^24 times lighter, would go flying. Just like jumping with such a force. Of course, you would also liquify (or vaporize) the ground from the pressure, which would complicate the calculation of the details.

[Sensei]

Assume, just, assume we humans have the capability to generate the force equivalent to that of a nuclear bomb in a single punch/jab.

 

What would happen?

Ionization of whatever you punched and thing that was used for punching,

if more energy is used, then disintegration of atoms, they would separate to protons, neutrons, alpha particles, etc.

f.e. to disintegrate Deuterium atom there is needed 2.22 MeV energy per nucleus.

 

Actually it happens all the time in the atmosphere, at quantum level, highly accelerated incoming cosmic ray is hitting particle of air, or anything on the ground, and devastating it.

Lucky, it's pretty low quantity. Otherwise there would be no living organisms (destruction of DNA chain, destruction of cells).

Edited August 18, 2015 by Sensei

[Phi for All]

In fact the rest of your body would begin to recoil even before the punch landed; your CoM would stay the same but your body would have to move in the opposite direction and twist in order to conserve linear and angular momentum.

 

It sounds like throwing a punch fast enough to have that much energy would rip you in half (a solitaire game of crack-the-whip), since the recoil takes effect before the punch lands.

[swansont]

 

It sounds like throwing a punch fast enough to have that much energy would rip you in half (a solitaire game of crack-the-whip), since the recoil takes effect before the punch lands.

 

Sure, but if you're going to posit one physically impossible thing, why let other limits hold you back? I mean, the discussion isn't about physiology and what limits the actual punching power of a human.

[Phi for All]

 

Sure, but if you're going to posit one physically impossible thing, why let other limits hold you back? I mean, the discussion isn't about physiology and what limits the actual punching power of a human.

 

Well, I'd hate to get ripped in half a millisecond before I was vaporized, just because I forgot and used my atomic punch. I just want to be responsible about where the other half of my body goes.