Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/02/biggest-explosion-ever-seen-in.html
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The headline is a bit hyperbolic [1], but it’s still pretty impressive.
[1] Seriously, more than ten billion years and most of it not visible and we spot it in our veritable back yard, and recently?
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Eh, I’ve seen bigger.
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Aren’t we living in a bigger one?
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To be fair, that’s what the headline and story are saying, isn’t it. It’s the biggest explosion we have ever seen.
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— Look up there. That corner of sky. What do you see?
— Nothing. It’s just black. No stars, no nothing.
— That used to be the Tiberian Spiral Galaxy. A million star systems, a hundred million worlds, a billion trillion people. It’s not there anymore. No more Tiberian Galaxy. No more Cybermen. It was effective.
— It’s horrible.
— Yeah. I feel like a monster sometimes.
— Why?
— Because instead of mourning a billion trillion dead people, I just feel sorry for the bloke who had to press the button and blow it all up.
— Doctor Who, “Nighmare in Silver”
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The or if you’d prefer the theory from Liu’s The Dark Forest:
So every civilization other than your own is a likely threat. At the very least, they are occupying a planet that you could use to expand your civilization. At worst, they are more technologically advanced and will wipe out your civilization to expand their own.
When two civilizations meet, they will want to know if the other is going to be friendly or hostile. One side might act friendly, but the other side won’t know if they are just faking it to put them at ease while armies are built in secret. This is called chains of suspicion. You don’t know for sure what the other side’s intentions are. On Earth this is resolved through communication and diplomacy. But for civilizations in different solar systems, that’s not possible due to the vast distances and time between message sent and received. Bottom line is, every civilization could be a threat and it’s impossible to know for sure, therefore they must be destroyed to ensure your survival.
I really don’t think Mt. St. Helens is the best analogy. Krakatoa 1883 would work far better. And still be kinda lame.
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I’d always wondered if the big bang was just lots of stuck-together black holes that went kablooey.
Scientifically-speaking, of course.
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Hey, if spagettification can become an actual scientific term, why not kablooey? A barn is also an actual measurement in nuclear physics (yes, because of, well, barns as in hitting the side of one) and the term quark was picked up from Finnegan’s Wake.
That is the second biggest monkey head I’ve ever seen!
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