What if the Death Star was real?

[@FieldMarshalFry]

none the less, the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force

[@FieldMarshalFry]

Jean-Luc Martel bah, rubbish, Pax Britannia was brought about by controlling everyone's trade, the abandoned colonies are a bunch of amateurs

[@JeanLucCaptain]

only the friggin US of A would consider this anything but a farce!

[@project_X_design]

Or the power of 1 missile that can blow it apart...

[@Octopossible]

+Whatar_you well, it was a proton torpedo

[@TheStevehuff]

I concur.

[@clockWorks10]

I like the non-trademark Imperial March variation he used as the soundtrack lol. It's a similar chord progression but not the famous melody.

[@judyhopps9380]

and the imperial march just rips off baa baa black sheep so it's swings and roundabouts

[@GarlicPudding]

Given how the Death Star can be destroyed by a single-seat dogfighter, I think I'll go for another superweapon.

[@dimitri-petrenko]

+GarlicPudding Just board up the hole :D

[@GarlicPudding]

Dimitri Petrenko Not much help...wouldn't a wooden board stand out against all that grey metal? It'd just give a fighter jockey something brownish to aim at! D:

[@RealTonyMontana]

+Dimitri Petrenko it's a vent shaft

[@dimitri-petrenko]

PolateGaming Some sort of shield that lets air out

[@RealTonyMontana]

Dimitri Petrenko i thought a grille or something that a normal vent would have could help

[@brandonthesteele]

Rogue One trailer: "The power we are dealing with here is immeasurable." Prof. Merrifield: "Bitch, please"

[@SkyrimHod]

You need to vaporize a Mount Everest worth of mass, but if you could use pure antimatter, you would only need half that much mass since it would annihilate an equal amount of mass on the target planet. Therefore, you could use a much smaller sized mountain. I would suggest targeting the Matterhorn. Then you would only need to fire the Antimatterhorn at it in order to destroy the Earth.

[@Binkophile]

"Antimatterhorn" Oh, well done! :D

[@mariusmuller2420]

+SkyrimHod As the reaction between matter and antimatter produces pure energie you could theoreticly chanel it into a beam (starting with MANY seperate beams wich meat at impact (not like the actual death star)). If enaugh energie is "placed" in 1 spot you could theoreticly create a black hole which destroys the planet

[@sdegueldre]

+Stanislav G. no they don't annihilate and explode, they just annihilate, you could call annihilation a sub type of explosion, but that would be like saying firing a gauss cannon is a sub type of firing a gun.

[@vuurniacsquarewave5091]

+SkyrimHod But first the antimatter would hit a couple hydrogen and helium atoms on the way towards Earth, and then the gases in the atmosphere.

[@mariusmuller2420]

za909returns Don't shoot the antimatter, use it to "produce" the energie...

[@jamesosullivan532]

Lol love the fake Star Wars music due to copyright

[@Kavetrol]

+James O'Sullivan Yeah, should had just played Chopin's Funeral March on double speed instead. It's basically the same thing.

[@r3d0c]

+Kavetrol pls tell me u not srs brah

[@trollkenobi6727]

5 billion years later Sun: He He Earth go boom!!!!! to be continued . . . . .

[@chrisp187]

Just proves Star Wars isn't science fiction, its space fantasy.

[@thattheretyguy]

as if "the force" was not enough already

[@whitemanstand72]

Some dumb ass still refer star wasr as science fiction. What idiots

[@chrisp187]

AKAHimself The dame thing litterally starts with "A long time ago, in a galaxy [should be land] far, far away.." like an f**ing fairytale! Furthermore, all there science/technology is wrong or useless. Not like Star trek or SG1. to name two examples.

[@whitemanstand72]

AKAHimself Call it Science Fantasy is contriditable. its like saying Science is proven with magic

[@chrisp187]

AKAHimself The reason I think of it as space fantasy and not science fiction is that science in star wars isn't central to the theme. So there is no attempt to make it even a little scientific. Everything could be replaced with magic, exotic animals and exotic landscapes and the story would remain virtually the same. Compare it to TNG where the stories revolve around the science. Biology, physics, chemistry, astrophysics as well as the social sciences like economics, political science, and philosophy are all central to the plots. So much so that there is care taken to include real scientific theories. Like using Anti mater as a power source, warping time-space, and silicon base life forms. Each species represents different political ideologies. Klingon: War/honour, Borg: communism, Ferengi: fascist/capitalism... When you see just how jam pact TNG and other real science fiction are, you realize SW doesn't cut the mustard. Great fantasy genera, but not science fiction. sorry for the rant.

[@AllHailZeppelin]

The factor out front is 0.6, by the way. Yes I worked it out.... (the total energy is about 2.2x10^32 J)

[@manguy01]

I love how no consideration was given to the tidal effects of putting something that big, that close to the earth.

[@daveh9474]

MicManGuy well if the death star isn't full of iron... not much? it's the iron core that gives the major celestial bodies their mass. without it gravity would be too weak to hold a solar system together.

[@manguy01]

Dave H Do the math, man. The Space Station is very very close.

[@manguy01]

***** Newsflash: the tides are caused by gravity.

[@manguy01]

***** Like I said. The Space Station is very very close

[@manguy01]

***** You clearly don't understand how gravity works.

[@jrlepage2a03]

Watching this, the first thing that comes to mind is XKCD's "What If" blog. This video shares a lot of similarities in both the way it gives a sensible explanation to a silly question, and the comedic delivery of Merrifield's explanation. Great video!

[@ClosetYeti]

5:34 "How could I power my Death Star" such a silly sentence :P

[@Tech_Planet]

How much antimatter(to matter reaction) would you need to make this laser fire?

[@elliottmcollins]

The Death Star doesn't sit in low-Earth orbit! It's an interstellar ship capable of long-range hyperspace travel. No need to get all up in Alderan's face; just stop next to the moon. And Oroson Card's "Dr. Device" offers an elegant alternative to a space-based laser. What if that green ray is hitting Mt. Everest and causing _it_ to vaporize with some clever ultra-nuclear chain reaction?

[@Vanewolf29]

That in essence is what it did do Elliot, The gentleman here was correct it did use "hypermatter" a material from hyperspace. It is extremely unstable in "realspace" and when charged and fired like it was, the impact created millions and millions of matter, antimatter pairs that spun off in a chain reaction of singularities vaporizing nearby atoms and continuing the processs

[@jadewhite766]

you'd need to be hitting it with something that would be causing it to annihilate, so basically one mount everest's worth of antimatter. the Earth is almost entirely made of non-fissile elements, so there isn't really a chain reaction TO cause. You COULD technically cause some of the mountains components to undergo fusion, but at that point you're releasing enough energy that you might as well just blow up the world directly

[@mage1over137]

So in my undergrad classical mech class we had problem where we had to calculate the gravitational energy of a planet, and the solution was actually posted on a website on how much energy the death star would need to produce. The factor in front is 3/5.

[@deadaces7949]

So.................. when do we start? :p

[@JohnSmith-qy2fh]

Now

[@351cleavland]

+Dead Aces I just finished...only thing is you can't use it for a while-the paint is still drying.

[@Radicalbacon1]

+Dead Aces well i finished but it was blown up by some teens, so onto mk II

[@JohnSmith-qy2fh]

VIVE LE REVOLUTION!

[@paulplanchon6618]

+John Smith In french we say : VIVE LA REVOLUTION :D

[@superstringcheese]

I was hoping you'd talk about tidal forces, the amount of materials needed to construct the machine, how to keep it from collapsing under its own gravity, and so on. You should do a follow up on this.

[@devingendron2287]

In the Star Wars Universe, Hypermatter is meant to be matter derived from Hyperspace, an parallel dimension where the speed of light is substantially faster. In fact, that is how faster than light travel works in the Star Wars Universe, ships sort of phase into Hyperspace, travel the relevant distance, and then phase back out. Not terribly practical in the real world, but just an interesting note from a Star Wars Fan and aspiring Astrophysicist (my career goal that is, after a lot of college).

[@joaothomazini]

You should aim to build the DS after college!

[@ShowMePryzzm]

FilmTheory did a video similar to this. They suggested the lazer was an antimatter lazer, with a few diffferent calculations and such, a lot more in detail as a whole.

[@danylbekhoucha6180]

Nice video. You should mention the Death Star II which is 5.6 times bigger with 900 km of diameter. ;)

[@DeepSkyVideos]

I'm sure he'll be pleased to read this!

[@thany3]

It might be a lot easier to just hurl the Everest into the planet as it is, rather than trying to annihilate it somehow, and channel that energy into a laser somehow.

[@DigGil3]

+thany3 When you have cheap energy...

[@mindgush]

+thany3 Who gave Ultron his Internet Access back?

[@chickensbelike2790]

The new movie has a huge man made planet that's weapon energizes by destroying a sun and is capable of destroying a system is what the movie shows

[@irispark1381]

+thany3 that would work. that's how dinosaurs died.

[@ulysses21]

Planetary Annihilation?

[@julessmith2]

Love how excited he gets when he says "but if you're gonna build a Death Star, you wanna kill things". LOL.

[@Hugmir]

obviously not too perfect, but still a really nice and thought-inspiring video~

[@lightsidemaster]

Hypermatter is either matter from the hyperspace or it is the energy out of the hyperspace itself like someone in the comments said already. So a hypermatter generator would work similar to the ZPMs in Stargate. The Death Star doesn't actually blow a planet up completely by it's own power. It igniteS a chain reaction in the planet's core. Which kinda makes sense as in most planets there are great masses of Uran and Plutonium in the core. So that energy would add to the power of the laser. It's basically using the materials a planet already has to blow it up. Like the scientists on earth use lasers to ignite hydrogen or deuterium fusion processes in very tiny gold spheres.

[@L1Games]

Who says it's the power of the laser that blew up Alderaan? it ran on "hyperMatter", but that could just be what fuels the death star and it's weaponry. But.... What if it was a type of laser that activates expansion in the planets molten core? Or perhaps the empire perfected the teleportation of basic inorganic materials and beamed elements to the core of the planet that reacted explosively. This way the energy created by the planet itself would be the key to it's destruction and the Death Star would only be activating it. Of course I have not read the Tech Specs online, so I can't say with 100% certainty if these are possible scenarios.

[@L1Games]

I agree with you on your points. 1. It is a movie. 2. Applying our own natural laws to fiction doesn't make sense.

[@DavidSanchez-xx7gw]

***** That is way cooler than I had originally thought...lol

[@mooviies]

***** Well for 2 not really... Since it is not fiction. It is Science fiction. Which is fiction based on some level on real science. So that, things make sense without necessarily be possible. But we still can suggest and hypothesize has to how that would be possible.

[@L1Games]

mooviies Actually, Star Wars is indeed fiction. (as Science fiction is a genre of fiction.) I was just generalizing because I think this applies to any fictional writing. Anyway, I do agree. Though we have to suspend disbelief, there's no reason not to hypothesize.

[@RealRaynedance]

The laser on the Death Star (and the second one) destroyed the planet from the outside from what I can tell. (I'm using Star Wars Wiki stuff from this point on) A composite beam superlaser could destroy a planet's core and make the planet uninhabitable, but the concave dish version is supposed to be more powerful, so it wouldn't surprise me if the sheer force of the shot could blow it apart from the outside. Then again, the shot may go straight through the planet and the force blows it apart the entire way down.

[@kyler133]

Awesome video idea. Very well executed.

[@francoislacombe9071]

In the opening scene of Men in Black 2, we see a ship travelling from planet to planet, destroying each of them as it departs. The ship is later revealed to be about six inches tall. Clearly, such a small ship cannot carry enough energy to explode a single planet, let alone several of them. Instead of destroying planets with brute force, that ship's weapon is obviously triggering some sort of chain reaction in the planet, and that's what is producing the energy needed to destroy it. The Death Star could be doing something similar, generating a powerful beam of high energy exotic particles that triggers a self sustaining chain reaction in the mass of the target planet. Such a weapon would require far less energy to work because the bulk of that energy would be provided by the matter of the planet itself. Of course, this would require exotic physics in order to work, but we already know the Star Wars universe has technology based on very exotic physics, like light sabers, hyperspace travel and faster than light communications.

[@ekuliyo]

whiteorangatange one atom? An atom is an atom dude.

[@ekuliyo]

Francois Lacombe You're just explaining one type of exotic science (finding enough energy to blow up a planet) with another (some sort of chain reaction that would cause it).

[@francoislacombe9071]

Yeah, but this is science fiction, I'm allowed to do that =8)

[@ekuliyo]

True :D science fiction is just a matter of continually pushing the fantasy back through layers and layers of plausibility.

[@phuturephunk]

whiteorangatange What is one atom of plasma mean? If you're talking about one atom of hydrogen (the primary fuel of stars) then no, you don't have that energy in one atom of hydrogen in a plasma state. All plasma is, fundamentally, is matter (already in the gaseous state) that has been heated up enough or subjected to a sufficient magnitude of electromagnetic field to ionize the gas. You still need a gigantic amount of it to really have an effect (see: The Sun).

[@Corpsecreate]

Yes your right, it is more than 2 times 'larger'. But by larger here you mean area/volume. I was talking about distance. The circle of radius r WILL be twice as far from the centre as another circle with radius r/2.

[@MrTomaszLukasz]

The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

[@kobil316SH]

yet they never used it to destroy a planet...

[@Skelezig]

The Sith were pretty much absent from galactic affairs since the Rule of Two was implemented up until the end of the Clone Wars, and the Jedi weren't exactly all about galactic-scale genocide.

[@Skelezig]

PhilfreezeCH And how many times did the Death Star win against Luke?

[@BetterCoder]

Be sure to tell Alan that his music made my brain completely think I was listening to Star Wars. It wasn't until a second watch when I listened closer that I realized it was his take on it. Great work emulating it!

[@BlockrealmMC124]

Dat fake star wars music so they don't get sued by disney

[@NeidalRuekk]

Apparently the first Death Star didn't vaporise Alderaan. What made Alderaan explode so spectacularly was the laser pushing a good portion of the planet into hyperspace, and the destruction just ran rampant from there

[@thecheesefactor]

The power to destroy a planet is nothing compared to the power of the force.

[@terawattyear]

That was just great! I loved this. Great fun and I appreciate your effort at running the numbers.

[@PhigNewton1]

They might use a neutron star, somehow keep it from destroying the ship and use a little bit of it at a time.

[@fryncyaryorvjink2140]

Interesting, I wonder how slowly Darth Vader and the emperor would age that close to such a gravitational source

[@ekuliyo]

PhigNewton1 The mass of a neutron star is held together like that by its incredible gravity. If you separated a bit of it from the rest of the star it would explode immediately.

[@ThimbleStudios]

Luke and the forces needed to keep that from happening (exploding) would be the same as moving the entire neutron star... so.... no.

[@PDionneGosselin]

ThimbleStudios An the energy you would need to pull out those bits out of the extremely powerful gravitational field of the star would be enormous, just like pulling pieces out of the Earth (but worst). Plus, the planet would start orbiting round the death star, because the neutron star inside would have a larger gravity. Worst, if you're doing it with the earth, the sun will start to orbit around the neutron star, as neutron star are at lease 1.1 solar masses. Of course, in this case, they would actually orbit each other (the barycenter would be outside both objects), but it would still be rather messy. Oh, and the gravity isn't just strong, it also builds up very quickly as you get closer. So either what Thimble said (which would melt any magnets (what else?) used to support the death stars, because the current through the coils would have to be enormous) or the death star would have to be in a kind of orbit around the neutron star in the center. In that case, the rapid build up of gravity would destroy the death star by tidal forces, and the earth for that matter, so no need for a laser canon.

[@ThimbleStudios]

Philippe Dionne-Gosselin Dude, its not real. Its NOT. But if it were, it would be really broken, because there are so many things wrong with the physics.

[@matt92hun]

The comic filter option is a nice touch.

[@Watsonincorporated]

Step 1: Pause Step 2: Back it up to 0:00 Step 3: Guy makes funny face Step 4: LOL!

[@PrivateAckbar]

The Theoretical physicists and astronomers are my favorite interviewees. More video's with Mike please Brady! :)

[@atrumluminarium]

I actually derived a formula taking the changes of M and R into account (giving you an idea of how bored I am) but I'm having some trouble. I got: G(4πρ/3)^(1/3) × [((3M^(5/3))/2) - M] I averaged m_n = [Σm_n]/n n=Σm_n=M so M/=n I then considered all of masses to leave the system once they are removed so there is no need to sum them up as M. Working out the radius to be R=[(3M)/(4πρ)]^(1/3) such that it is dependant on M and then since M(n)=M_(initial)-n I substituted for M. Then after some tidying up I got: G(4πρ/3)^(1/3) Σ (M-n)/(M-n)^(1/3) (summing over n) since n is not necessary an integer so I just switched the sum over n to an integral with respect to n from n=0 to n=M/ and evaluated it when I plugged in the values I used 1< m < 10,000 and the answer ranged from ~10^31 to ~10^39. Anyone know how I can get rid of ? because it seems obvious to me that that is the flaw here because it shouldn't matter the average size of the debris.

[@starwarsandmore7327]

speak english

[@necromancerpencil]

Brady, all of your comments in this video are fantastic. =]

[@resonantdave]

So in one trillion years you guys better watch out for us Americans.

[@frankwu4747]

David Kirk the sun will gobble earth up long before that time.

[@ThimbleStudios]

David Kirk in one trillion years you'd better be watching out for the big Rip.

[@Jackcabbit]

ThimbleStudios Big rip? I had that last night after a few too many burritos.

[@ThimbleStudios]

Jackalope That's some Dark Matter for ya...

[@HansenSWE]

Frank wu We'll write a law against that. No space-gobbeling! And a huge signpost on an asteroid.

[@AstroMikeMerri]

Hi fellow Mike! The gravitational force does, indeed, vary inversely with radius squared, but the gravitational potential energy, which we were using here, is inverse with radius.

[@stegatops1]

We were discussing the death star superlaser at great length during science club, and unless they have some super technology we don't know about, the converging 8 beams of light cannot be focused into one super beam. (will continue this discussion later.)

[@insertusername7342]

+stegatops1Well, the "laser" is probably plasma. Plasma beams behave differently from lasers. Moust weapons in star wars fire plasma beams, not lasers. But anyway, yes they do have a lot of "suer technology" if the plasma theory doen´t work.

[@jarvensucksballslolo]

They arnt beams of light though. The Death Star uses hyper matter not electricity so you can't create photons then.

[@insertusername7342]

well ok. Made any progress in the theory? Interested in any ideas of what it might be, though some unknown "super technology" is my best bet.

[@plop0000]

+stegatops1 The people of star war create sentient being out of metal junk as a hobby...I think they know a thing or two that we don't.

[@cptant7610]

+stegatops1 Actually gravitational lensing is a real physics phenomena that might actually cause something like this.

[@Mg43-v7w]

Great video. The math is beyond me but it is explained so well I can actually grasp it.

[@darthsidioustheemperor5542]

Hey stop trying to build my death star all you people don't have enough technology enough resources to build a death star

[@Falcrist]

LOL Brady, the symbol for hyper-matter is PERFECT. Time for a whole video! ROFL

[@ShinyRayquazza]

Umm... isn't it r^2?

[@ObjectsInMotion]

Work is force times distance. The force equation is r^2.

[@rikuurufu5534]

While the point still stands that it would take the same amount of energy to fly the earth apart no matter how you did it, be it with a pair of tweezers or a Concave Dish Composite Beam Superlaser, I'd like to point an important point. The "laser" weapons of the Star Wars universe are not true lasers, but plasma beam weapons.

[@arthurbrandonnielsen]

Richard Collins More like plasma particle accelerators, but I'm probably arguing semantics with that.

[@ImperialEarthEmpire]

you only need a laser powerful enough to penetrated the planet's core... n let the core do the rest of the job...

[@blastech4095]

Thats not true, pseudo scientific misconception. You'd probably make the planet uninhabitable and cause volcanos and earthquakes worldwide, but the planet wouldn't "blow up" just cos you penetrated the core.

[@MateusKahler]

That's a lot of energy... And seems quite hard to do... BUT WE WILL GET THERE EVENTUALLY! Urray!

[@themanwiththepan]

And according to google the wattage of the sun is 10^26 so....

[@Mastikator]

+themanwiththepan If you collect all the light of the sun and focus it into a beam that beam could destroy the Earth in a matter of seconds. Seems legit actually.

[@FrappuccinoAlfredo]

+Mastikator That's what happens in the new Star Wars movie. You'll see what I'm talking about when you see it.

[@Mastikator]

Domino the Dominator Seen it, honestly I thought it was bs that one star could only destroy a few planets.

[@FrappuccinoAlfredo]

Mastikator But it kind of makes sense, using the power of the sun to power it.

[@Mastikator]

Domino the Dominator (spoilers for anyone who hasn't watched) That part did make sense, more so than the original death star IMO which was just powered by "hypermatter"/ applied phlebotinum. But it shouldn't have eaten the entire star. That part made me cringe a little in the theater. And if they had skipped the part where it ate an entire star they could've also skipped that line "as long as there's light we still have hope", was a bit on the nose. They even defeated that line when the star was consumed but they still won.

[@Montecation]

That's pretty cool you're thinking about that kind of stuff. As far as supernovas go, they are what happens when a sun runs all out of fuel in its core, another way to say it is when there gets too much iron in the center of the star. Stars need a constant supply of energy from their cores to keep themselves stable, and it is in the center of the star where fusion goes down. Thing is iron and all elements heavier than it don't give off energy when they go through fusion

[@partridge_rutabaga]

lol at the knock off sound track....thanks copyrights

[@Morfeusm]

And then they play snippet from the movie

[@Corpsecreate]

Yep your absolutely right. The question is not linear in nature and would definitely take some sort of calculus to solve.

[@RainingArtillery]

Okay, here's an idea how to power it. Black hole cells. If there was a way to contain a blackhole, and a way to create/harvest them. And also a way to harvest anti-matter blackholes. And also a way to direct the resulting energy into a laser beam. Black holes, being extremely dense, wouldn't require that much space. So we have two black holes in a black hole cell - they're both 1/2 of the required mass to be annihilated. One of them is an anti-matter blackhole. When we want to fire the laser, we allow the two to merge (and possible annihilate each other?), and then we use pure magic to direct the entire energy of that into a beam.

[@totoritko]

The losses would happen inside of the laser components, not in some isolated tunnel. Also, you can't simply stop energy from flowing - energy cannot be destroyed (1st thermodynamic law). All shielding really works by spreading the energy over an area or diverting it (that's how tank armor works). Based on Newton's 3rd law e.g. a tank cannon releases the equivalent energy of the shell back into the cannon assembly itself. The shooting tank is not destroyed because it spreads the energy via recoil

[@elkikex]

Hi Mike, r squared is for Force, he talks about energy with is force times distance, that's why he's removing one distance component. Cheers.

[@pdxyarnho]

LOL, I love your icon for hypermatter!

[@sparrowlt]

Geek mode: i think i readed somewhere that the Death Star superlaser worked pushing part of the target mass into hyperspace ..or more preciselly "trying to" (and failing) .. that would create a catastrophic reaction with the rest of the target wich is what destroys it. obviosly for George Lucas is just a "big gigantes mega-powerfull laser"

[@Kram1032]

Lol. Amazing take on the Imperial March, Alan! It occured to me that this week has a lot of Mt. Everests in it. Made of gold or diamond... Vaporized, or actually destroyed even more rigorously... Poor Mt. Everest!

[@JamesLewis]

The "science fiction" states that the reactors on the death star produce the energy output of "several" main sequence stars... which I believe, ironically puts the energy input requirements for the laser within reach.... assuming you could make such a reactor and harness it's output.

[@elkikex]

Certainly when he says "take off a piece" he's considering complete compounds and structures, messing up with molecular bonds or atomic bonds would boost up the required energy.

[@kimniklasson7162]

agreed. But in the video he's implying that he changes the gravitational forces with the laser, which is a weird way of using a laser. Breaking the molecular bonds with heath from the laser would be the more obvious principal here.

[@CrackSmonka]

Loved the creative commons version of imperial march. Loved it.

[@Tech_Planet]

Thanks, we really need to figure out how to mass produce antimatter then! lol

[@Mojosbigstick]

And that is why I love these videos!

[@kerr1221]

Someone pointed out that we don't *need* to accelerate every bit of matter to escape velocity. I figured they were following what was seen in the movie. I Just rewatched the destruction of alderaan, and it does indeed appear that most of the mass was accelerated to escape velocity, or in any case if it wasn't escape velocity, it's within an order of magnitude of escape velocity. If we want to start changing the way a planet is destroyed, then they could have easily just used asteroids to render the planet largely uninhabitable for a few hundred years. (then the empire doesn't lose use of alderaan permanently, either).

[@squamish4244]

Poor Jimmy Smits. Just chilling on Alderann, drinking a cold one and BOOM

[@blastech4095]

FYI he calculates the KE required to accelerate a planets mass to escape velocity of roughly 12Km/s. At that rate the explosion of the planets debris would only be slightly larger than the planet itself because the planets 12,000Km wide, and its mass is only expanding outwards at 12 km/s. Because Alderaan's debris/mass travelled several planetary diameters in seconds in the film the KE would actually be hundreds of thousands - if not millions of times greater than what Professor Mike stated!

[@whajtohdlsdkfn]

I think there are a couple things wrong. First is that the entirety of the station can be used to create power using whatever means necessary. Second is that it doesn't have to fire that quickly. Third is that I would assume that once you zap the core with enough energy I would guess that some kind of explosive chain reaction would take place.

[@ronaldderooij1774]

If one would concentrate so much energy in the Death Star, it would immediatly collapse into the black hole it created by concentrating all that energy in one place. It would probably take the earth with it, by the way, so the net result would also be that the earth would be vaporized and radiated partially out, before the remnants fall into that black hole. So essentially the only difference between firing the laser and destroying the earth in science fiction and in science would be that the Death Star survives in science fiction, but in science it would not.

[@vectorconcepts1]

you know something ? the fun part about all of this ! is !....................he was fun, alive, cheerful and ...................BELIEVABLE ! i love this guy approach to this fascinating subject ! he was lively and serious and fun all in one ! thanks for ppl like him ! .,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, but someday somebody is gonna take this VERY SERIOUS ! thanks doc. great video

[@arekwittbrodt]

Thank you for your appreciation ;-). Yes, indeed I used average densities - but not for the crust (it's really thin). I divided Earth into inner & outer core and lower & upper mantle. The actual method of decomposing a planet (one piece at a time, a thin shell at a time or everything at once or something else) doesn't matter - in theory of course, because, as you noticed, in reality there are many factors which would influence whole process (like friction, for example).

[@TheRomichou]

Thanks for the clarification!

[@veggiet2009]

There should be an update video to this... talking about the star destroyer.

[@samcooke343]

I did finish the video after commenting, I didn't realise he would address this!

[@TheMotoben]

If Nottingham ever lets you go Professor Merrifield, or notices their lasers going missing; my associates and I can offer you employment on our underground island.

[@ViKtoReinKILL]

I like the back of the envelope calculation type videos

[@orbital1337]

Using some basic calculus I determined that if you were to remove infinitesimal shells from the planet (peel it like an onion) the required energy would be (3/5)*GM²/r. The correctional factor mentioned in the video would therefore be 0.6, which really makes no difference on these scales.

[@siegemos]

Jeez... I think we have a new winner of the Buzz Killington award!

[@alfeberlin]

XKCD has a What If article about what happens if a very powerful laser was pointed at the moon. Interestingly, its surface would be vaporized on one side, thus creating a cloud of debris, dust and fog which would be heated up further by the laser and thus expand rapidly, effectively rather pushing the object away instead of exploding it from the inside. It would be a bit like shooting at a balloon with a water pistol.

[@pmcgee003]

One point. Mt Everest isn't very dense. A blackhole would provide the same mass in much less volume of space ... and would look extremely cool doing it. :)

[@totoritko]

Even so you can't get around the laws of thermodynamics which state that the laser *cannot* operate at 100% energy conversion efficiency - all real machines have energy losses associated with their operation. Since the total amount of energy handled here is so enormous, even slight energy loss of a fraction of a percentage point would cause the laser to explode and/or vaporize nearly instantaneously.

[@mbanana23456]

They could try and capture a star, force it to undergo supernova and direct that into a concentrated beam..... but that would be insanely difficult to do

[@bringsonfligson5803]

And we would die because it would never happen in our life

[@223Warlord]

This is a good question for physics..... Perhaps i should ask that question class today

[@violincrafter]

First 5 seconds killed me XD

[@arekwittbrodt]

Hi! I made some crude calculations. I divided Earth into 4 layers and used constant p for every layer, and then integrated over them separatedly. Final result is that actual energy needed to destroy Earth is lower than 3/5 * G*M^2/R (about 0.79 of that value). I suppose something similar apply to any real planet or star.

[@vocnarsr]

Well 1 tablespoon of neutronium is about the mass of Mount Everest correct? couldnt you do a Anti-mater reaction with that to power the 12 Super Lasers that make up the Main Weapon? the Hyper-Matter is said to be somehow mined from black holes...they never say how they do this though.

[@JonathanM-JMart]

I wanted him to talk about the amount of steel and other material requiered to build it. Or in this case whatever the deathstar is made out of lol.

[@MonsieurArlequin]

Guessing from the name, it could be something that is super dense and is able to convert itself to energy very quickly.

[@JesseFisher-can-has-coffee]

Could the problem of power generation required by the Death star be resolved with zero-point energy? As an aside, I'd love to hear more about zero-point energy. Thanks for all the amazing videos, Brady!!

[@benjaminmatthews6935]

well dang. the professor makes it seem utterly impossible at first and then makes it merely a matter of efficiency. hope we get our x-wings and proton torpedoes before then.

[@wlan246]

LOL @ 6:15. Could be equally useful at a Star Trek convention.

[@Khannea]

There is an other possibility - the beam of the Death Star might be a type of device that disrupts matter and turns matter struck in to pure energy.

[@j.s.b.6299]

It's not a laser! It's a focused plasma blaster powered by khyber crystals. Figure out that one. They channel the force. Subtitute the force for zero point energy (I don't know if that's real or not but I've heard talk of it) and would there be more power then?

[@Starchface]

I was thinking something similar. Destroying the planet gradually should involve less work because as each particle is removed, the gravitational attraction to the remaining mass decreases. It is more efficient to slowly break the planet apart. However, to do it all in one shot, as it were, the total energy must be applied over a short duration, and the entire mass driven apart at near the planet's original escape velocity. As pictured, the velocity seems far higher than strictly required.

[@cheguevaraisgod]

Hahahaha, looks like he had a lot of fun filming this ahahah

[@12tman12]

That energy requirement isn't all that bad. iirc something like a teaspoon of neutron star material is about that mass (900 pyramids of Giza is the reference I got in a quick search). So certainly doable size wise. Works well with the hypermatter label :)

[@DeepSkyVideos]

only if you turned that meteor into pure energy (E=mc2) - a mere collision would not suffice!

[@Elku]

But then once you bring it aboard the death star, the lack of gravitational pull would have all kind of effects on it. First, a neutron star being full of neutron in plasma (ignoring the outer layers of core which, if I remember correctly, are composed in part of iron and other elements that are built in a star), would immediately cool down and disperse, it would lose its density EXTREMELY quickly. Next, neutrons aren't stable, they decay relatively quickly, meaning you'd have to fire soon.