Way off unfortunately. A billion gigaton bomb would have an energy output of about 10^27 joules. The current orbital kinetic energy of Mars is about 10^32 joules - about a (EDIT hundred thousand times greater. The required energy to move Mars to the orbit of Neptune is probably even bigger.

More problematic is that fusion reactions aren't self-sustaining at the kind of conditions found in Jupiter. It's not like fission when once you start it it goes like crazy. Even in the sun fusion is surprisingly slow - a kilogram of the sun's core produces less energy (edit: I meant power, as should be evident by context) by fusion than a kilogram of a person produces by metabolism. The Sun's only powerful because it's ridiculously big.

Hi Cantab


Agreed, but IF ( and what a big IF ... ) one could kick Mars from orbit using an impulsive event ( assuming Mars would move rigidly ) like that, Its momentum would not vanish like that, and considering a convenient emplacement of masses like Jupiter or Saturn, and the relative positions of Mars and Neptune, one could use the gravitational SlingShot effect :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist

To eyeball Mars into colliding with Neptune, IMHO ( did not make the calculations yet... ROTFL )


Agreed too, this is why I said it was highly speculative... the only way you get a fusion reaction to start and go, is by heating the fuel material, and holding it together so tightly that effective collisions among Nuclei occur at a frequency high enough to compensate for the energy loss by radiation... :

In short, the Density at the core of the Sun is way lesser than the density in the Secondary of a W-80 thermonuclear warhead, when it goes bang, which is still considerably smaller than the density of an Implosion capsule used in an inetrial confinment experiment driven by High power Lasers,...

So... Smaller "stuff" fuses more difficultly than bigger "stuff", ...Surface/volume ratios for similar geometries...


In a thermonuke, you only acheive this by heating Adiabatically : In NO WAY can the radiation from the primary heat the secondary, before it has been imploded ( compressed ) to its maximum density, In fact you use the radiation to drive the implosion process in a Mechanical way : the radiation ablates a tamper made of a dense, essentially opaque ( to the thermal radiation issued from the primary ) material, ( Tungsten, LEU, Platinum, Lead, stuff like this will do ) causing it to vaporize its outer successive layers, propelling the inner still unperturbed ones centripetally ( think of a spherical inward directed rocket )... this is called the Hydrodynamic radiant shock.

This means IMPLOSION ( quite unlikely to occur in physical conditions in Jupiter ), not Explosion, like most ppl figure it happens...



Allow me to disagree on that... the energy content of a kilogram of the sun's mass is Huge,considering it will be released by Fusion, but the rate at which it is released, THE POWER, may be less than the thermal power of metabolic reactions... so, regardless that the power of metabolics is bigger than the Sun's power ( on an extensive basis ), The Sun's "metabolism" will keep on burning for longer than the average man's metabolism... IMHO...


BRGDS

Alex

Missing option:
Ourselves - i.e. we are all terrorists, and as such it is our duty to our country (whichever it may be) to put a loaded gun in our mouths and pull the trigger. Russian roulette also works, but everyone must die.

But we are already in this war, so it can't be next. You know, a wise man once said. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

Ok, I'm sorry. Calling Bush smart was a bad joke ;P

I'm thinking I would rather live and win than concede defeat. It does make you wonder though if they are ready to quiet the resistance building from within.

example: Senate Bill 773
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-773

section 18 states:
:tinfoil:

Unless I'm missing something, that just allows government systems to be isolated. Seems quite reasonable, though I'm not sure why any new law is needed. IIRC a UK police department got cut off from the Police National Computer after their systems got confickered.

Check the definitions in section 23

Hi

This is an easy one... ROFL... consider giving the terrorists a Pistol to play Russian roulette, not a Revolver... LMAO

Ah, indeed, I did need to read more closely.

This would potentially give whoever the power to kill the internet - or at least that part of it which is in the US (which would do serious damage to the whole). I would expect the phrase "by the President" to be debated - determination of what is considered critical probably ought to be given more oversight (eg by Congress), even if the actual decision to take action needs to rest with the President.

I can certainly see such steps being necessary.

In any case, if the usual meaning of 'compromised' is taken, a system can only be cut off if it's been hacked into. Meaning it can't so easily be used to cut off for example websites criticising the government (unless a claim of compromise is trumped-up, but then anything can be trumped-up, eg just accuse the servers of holding child porn and have them confiscated).

Somewhat tangential - the term "cyber" is incredibly dated. I don't think anyone outside governments really uses it much.

Good, then that is the time to play Russian roulette.

I'd say create a block of antimatter and shoot it into Mars. Just my idea :lolflag:

Isn't 10^27 10000x smaller then 10^32, not 100x?

Gah...I really failed to proofread that post. A hundred thousand I believe it should have said.

The moon. It's time we break it off. All we do is keep spinning around eachother. It makes us stable but what we really need is to be chaotic and free. We're tired of spinning on our axis.

Maybe it's time we declare war on the sun too, then, because we keep orbiting around it once every 365.25 days...doesn't that get boring after a while? We should break ourselves from its orbit so we can see the rest of the galaxy without having to build spaceships!