{"id":159,"date":"2012-10-11T22:34:28","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T22:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dave0.nfshost.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2012\/10\/11\/xkcds-what-if-is-an-excellent-soft-sci-fi-template\/"},"modified":"2012-10-11T22:34:28","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T22:34:28","slug":"xkcds-what-if-is-an-excellent-soft-sci-fi-template","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2012\/10\/xkcds-what-if-is-an-excellent-soft-sci-fi-template\/","title":{"rendered":"XKCD’s “What If?” Is an Excellent Soft Sci-Fi Template"},"content":{"rendered":"

I *love* these about 32 billion times more than XKCD itself–which I do, in fact like. But these I *really* like. Like all good scifi, they address the human ramifications of physical, scientific facts. SF, more so than any other literary sub-sect, seeks to directly address the question of how humans react to the things humans have done, and to try to fully imagine and enact how that plays out.
\nEverybody Jump<\/a><\/p>\n

\nWhat would happen if everyone on earth stood as close to each other as they could and jumped, everyone landing on the ground at the same instant?
\n\u2014Thomas Bennett (and many others)<\/b>
\nThis is one of the most popular questions submitted to this blog. It\u2019s been examined before, including by a ScienceBlogs post and a Straight Dope article. They cover the kinematics pretty well. However, they don\u2019t tell the whole story.
\nLet\u2019s take a closer look.
\nAt the start of the scenario, the entire Earth\u2019s population has been magically transported together into one place.
\nThis crowd takes up an area the size of Rhode Island. But there\u2019s no reason to use the vague phrase \u201can area the size of Rhode Island\u201d. This is our scenario; we can be specific. They\u2019re actually in Rhode Island.
\nAt the stroke of noon, everyone jumps.
\nAs discussed elsewhere, it doesn\u2019t really affect the planet. Earth outweighs us by a factor of over ten trillion. On average, we humans can vertically jump maybe half a meter on a good day. Even if the Earth were rigid and responded instantly, it would be pushed down by less than an atom\u2019s width.
\nNext, everyone falls back to the ground.
\nTechnically, this delivers a lot of energy into the Earth, but it\u2019s spread out over a large enough area that it doesn\u2019t do much more than leave footprints in a lot of gardens. A slight pulse of pressure spreads through the North American continental crust and dissipates with little effect. The sound of all those feet hitting the ground creates a loud, drawn-out roar which lasts many seconds.
\nEventually, the air grows quiet.
\nSeconds pass. Everyone looks around.
\nThere are a lot of uncomfortable glances. Someone coughs.
\n. . .\n<\/div>\n

These are also quite nice; the “one-way” mirror section is a little weak, but the final answer is rock solid: Short Answer Section<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I *love* these about 32 billion times more than XKCD itself–which I do, in fact like. But these I *really* like. Like all good scifi, they address the human ramifications of physical, scientific facts. SF, more so than any other literary sub-sect, seeks to directly address the question of how humans react to the things … Continue reading “XKCD’s “What If?” Is an Excellent Soft Sci-Fi Template”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}