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"Sonic Boom"
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Sonic Boom

by Paul Taylor on February 3, 2010 at 12:00 am
Story: Wapsi-Archive
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Discussion (133) ¬

  1. Zogh
    February 3, 2010, 12:03 am | # | Reply

    They are only 24 minutes from South Dakota?

  2. DJ
    February 3, 2010, 12:04 am | # | Reply

    And that lump is OUTTA THERE!!!

    • JustaPhilosopher
      June 6, 2011, 5:15 pm | # | Reply

      To Be Honest, I read half way through, saw alot of repeats, and didn’t read the rest. Plenty have already averted the whole “THIS IS BS!” claims, but I just want to repeat a few and add my own.
      Hodgson’s Law (use ctrl + F if you hadn’t read it yet)
      “Bud pulled the number out her ass” (as per our brilliant creator, Paul Taylor (And I dunno if he’s used that before, but with the rhyming, I say that’s a nice title, and I want credit should he decide to use it! ;p (J/K))) (Hey, I knew how many parentheses I used!)
      She possibly used a version of “Poit-Power” to make things be all better. Especially after she put in all that sod, etc. in the backyard. She’d NOT want to turn it into a crater, one would think.
      Perhaps there is some math wrong here on how much mass is really in that ‘lump,’ how much time it takes to travel to the sun (as the 24 minute number may or may not be accurate), how fast it may or may not have been going (assumedly above Mach 1 given the depiction in the comic), the mass of Bud in that form, etc. Bud is part of the Chimera, yadda yadda, so she can transform, seemingly altering her mass and momentum and etc… which leads back to “It’s Super Natural!” (Which leads back to it REALLY IS SCIENCE! just… really advanced science… *shrugs*)
      Part of the above stated point, related to “Why is there no crater?!”, Bud might simply be able to absorb the force she’s putting into that lump.
      As for the trail left behind by the lump, there may or may not be one. I would like to think there may not be enough scientific evidence to handle a simulation of something less than bullet sized, and potentially of a large or a small mass, exiting the earth’s atmosphere.
      If it ACTUALLY reached the sun, one may never know. There is a good chance it missed and became a comet or some other orbiting mass. There’s the chance it’ll return. There’s the chance that it colliding with something else, say, the moon, would potentially annihilate it (along with part of the object it collided with).

      Anyway, I think it amazing so much discussion is given to science even on such a topic as this. It may also be a bad sign that so many people are so scientifically serious over a webcomic.

      So, I think I’ve effectively summed up (repeated in a semi-shortened form) ALOT of the discussion that’s gone on.

      Also, I replied to the “It’s Outta Here” simply to have this near the top of the page. *shrugs* For all those “TLDR” people, now you can kinda NOT use that excuse (even if I did) because you just have to read this one post, not over half the page of comments.

  3. fatuncle
    February 3, 2010, 12:07 am | # | Reply

    24 MINUTES?!?
    Great Heavenly Days! We’re nine light minutes from the sun! She boosted that thing out of the atmosphere at better than a third of the speed of light!

    Hmmm.

    Say, Bud … have you ever given any thought to working for NASA?

    • fatuncle
      February 3, 2010, 12:09 am | # | Reply

      LOVE Brandi’s expression!

    • Russell Miller
      February 3, 2010, 12:18 am | # | Reply

      Hmmm… for me that kind of ruined the suspension of disbelief.

      You launch a mass even that large at a third the speed of light, you start getting into relativistic effects. I’m not sure what the redshift of something going at that velocity is, but I’m pretty sure a sonic boom is going to be the LEAST of your worries. Especially having been launched through the atmosphere – it had to START at that speed.

      That’s not just going to wake a few people… it’s going to show a glittery trail shooting straight up through the sky and with that much kinetic energy… it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a shockwave similar to a nuclear blast. And as I mentioned, some hard radiation too…

      Or maybe it’s just so fast it’s gone before the atmosphere’s even figured it out…

      Either way, I think we just went way beyond supernatural.

      • curious
        February 3, 2010, 8:04 am | #

        seriously? the comic contains a dwarf sized alcohol god who summoned clay demons and this is where you have problems?

      • Russell Miller
        February 3, 2010, 9:14 am | #

        That’ supernatural. It’s not supposed to follow physical laws. But in this case, once it leaves her hands… is she supposed to be controlling it all the way to the sun? It looks like she washed her hands of it and is no longer concerned.

      • Lemmo
        February 3, 2010, 4:45 pm | #

        There’s also the very likely chance that Bud is a bit of a fibber when it comes to the 24 minutes bit.

        Factor that into your equation, peoples!

      • Paul Taylor
        February 3, 2010, 5:46 pm | #

        Bud pretty much pulled that number out of her ass. =)

      • Leak
        February 3, 2010, 6:42 pm | #

        Well, no-one’s gonna go check if it really takes 24 minutes, no?

        But I bet throwing those remains off the planet must have been one heck of a stress relief for her… 😉

      • wpgDBA
        February 3, 2010, 9:21 am | #

        And here I thought you were going to mention the difficulty of hitting a target when you throw toward the centre of your angular motion, what with the conservation of angular momentum.

        It is extremely likely that Bud has created a new comet rather than deposited a small lump of matter into Sol. Yes, it might get there EVENTUALLY…

      • Brian
        February 9, 2010, 12:46 am | #

        I’d guess it’d be like a bolt of lightning (ionize/displace a bunch of air molecules, which glow and thunder back into place) except much straighter.

      • Sean Murphy
        September 5, 2017, 10:12 pm | #

        Relativistic effects are all but undetectable at anything less than 90% of the speed of light without exotiv detection equipment (If I recall correctly, Relativistic effects double mass at somewhat over 0.9c). At a “mere” (!) ⅓c, the main issue would be the formation of plasma in front of the lump as its speed compressed the air in front of itself – but it would be a rather small amount of plasma, and probably just caused an explosion that could be mistaken for the sonic boom of a much larger object…

    • TheOldWolf
      February 3, 2010, 12:28 am | # | Reply

      Fatuncle, you ninja’d my post, but I don’t begrudge it you – I’m gratified that my mind went to the same place.

      I love Wapi Square!

    • throopw
      February 3, 2010, 12:44 am | # | Reply

      Note that if she did, she just released more energy than a thermonuclear weapon the same mass as the calendar machine. And did it so efficiently that she only created a loud “boom”. As opposed to flash-frying several of the surrounding states. And she didn’t even need the illudium q-36 explosive space modulator.

    • Versatek6
      February 3, 2010, 8:40 am | # | Reply

      How about working for the Twins, instead.

    • Fnord
      February 3, 2010, 11:05 am | # | Reply

      Actually, since ‘c’ is ~186,000 miles per second, and the distance to the sun is ~93 million miles, and the fragment is traversing that distance in ~24 minute, the fragment is travelling at ~5.6% of c, and it will seem to the fragment as if only 23 minutes and 57.8 seconds will have elapsed on its trip to the sun.

      But I quibble…

      • Fnord
        February 3, 2010, 2:26 pm | #

        MAN! What was in my coffee? Corrected values are:

        ~149.6 x 10^9 meters between Earth and Sol
        c = 299.792458 x 10^6 meters per second (exact)
        ~499.0 light-seconds from Earth to Sol (~8m:19s)
        ~34.65% of c for fragment velocity
        ~1350.78 seconds (22m:30.78s) fragment subjective time

        I wonder how deep a hole Bud made when she accelerated the fragment so quickly to over 1/3 c?

        Let’s see … Ms. Acacia masses in at about 50 kilos … and the fragment’s mass is about … hmm …

      • Linux Learner
        November 15, 2010, 8:43 am | #

        Aaand maybe she’s just counting on it burning up in a reverse-reentry sort of effect.

  4. jwhouk
    February 3, 2010, 12:11 am | # | Reply

    BOOM BOOM (out go the lights!)

    • throopw
      February 3, 2010, 12:46 am | # | Reply

      Bang, bang, bang, bang. Vamanos, vamanos.

  5. Mew3
    February 3, 2010, 12:13 am | # | Reply

    NOW, that was Super!
    You go Goat!

  6. Hakkonen
    February 3, 2010, 12:17 am | # | Reply

    That is super badass. We need to see more of this side of Bud.

  7. stjen
    February 3, 2010, 12:19 am | # | Reply

    Called it (yesterday) — Bang! Zoom! To the Sun!

    • dumbgreek
      February 3, 2010, 8:14 pm | # | Reply

      I’m gonna laugh if she causes the sun to implode.

      • BMonk
        December 10, 2024, 1:18 pm | #

        Nah. Hurling several tons of highly compressed matter into the sun is Rule of Funny.

        Imploding sun, not nearly so funny. Nor justified by any Speed of Plot rule.

  8. Ravennixie
    February 3, 2010, 12:20 am | # | Reply

    One heck of a wake up call…I wanted to sleep in!!

  9. ziggy78eog
    February 3, 2010, 12:23 am | # | Reply

    Ralph Kramden would be proud, Bud. With an arm like that, maybe Bud should try out for the Twins.

    • jwhouk
      February 3, 2010, 3:09 am | # | Reply

      No, because her aim is lousy (she was trying to hit the moon, not the sun), and she throws like a girl. I mean, did you see her follow-through?

      {/sarcasm-mode}

  10. hewolf
    February 3, 2010, 12:28 am | # | Reply

    *cackles* YES!

  11. The Old Wolf
    February 3, 2010, 12:29 am | # | Reply

    This strip is orgasmically good. Oh, have I said that already?

  12. GunnerWalker
    February 3, 2010, 12:32 am | # | Reply

    I love how nonchalant she is after I just tossed an ancient, super-condensed, semi-apocholyptic machine into the sun. “I’m gonna go make some coffee” That either supreme cool headedness or a hella addiction

    • fairportfan
      February 3, 2010, 1:11 am | # | Reply

      “That either supreme cool headedness or a hella addiction”

      Addiction.

      Remember – her first encounter with Tina was because there was no coffee in the place … or maybe it was after Brandi offered her a wheatgrass drink…

      Make that “drink”.

      • Linux Learner
        December 15, 2010, 4:06 am | #

        Yes, addiction: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/coffeeaddict/

  13. GunnerWalker
    February 3, 2010, 12:34 am | # | Reply

    insert period between “after” and “I” damn not being able to edit comments

  14. Ian
    February 3, 2010, 12:43 am | # | Reply

    …at that fraction of c, and with the machine’s no doubt substantial weight (however compressed it is now) that’s effectively a relativistic weapon. Throwing one of those around in an atmosphere is a good way to IGNITE that atmosphere.

    That’s not going to just be a sonic boom, it will be–if everyone is lucky–a PILLAR OF FLAME.

  15. Wolf
    February 3, 2010, 12:45 am | # | Reply

    Yowsa!

    Though… superdense object moving at a bit better than .33c impacting the sun… not counting the acceleration from Sol’s own gravity well… gonna penetrate old Sol pretty deep… Super sun-spots, flares, auroras anyone???

    • Anji
      February 3, 2010, 12:51 am | # | Reply

      That sounds like one hell of a tan.

    • symbiote01
      February 4, 2010, 10:26 pm | # | Reply

      Well, we wouldn’t get the sunspots and such right away, would we? I’m sure stuff much more massive falls into the sun all the time. Still, I figure it might takes years for a real reaction. Say, two or so…

    • bmonk
      June 21, 2011, 5:14 pm | # | Reply

      OTOH, it IS pretty small, and the sun is a plasma, so it might not affect things too badly.

      More, it might take a few more than 24 minutes to get there, assuming it’s moving only 600-(say) 2500 mph.

  16. jordinyc
    February 3, 2010, 12:45 am | # | Reply

    so speed of sound x 24 minutes = from here to the sun?

    • fatuncle
      February 3, 2010, 1:03 am | # | Reply

      Speed of sound = Mach 1 – is about 768 mph in air. In 24 minutes that will get you a bit over 18,400 miles away.

      The sun is roughly 93,000,000 miles away. 93 million miles in 24 minutes works out to average roughly 3,875,000 miles a minute. Which is 232,500,000 miles an hour, give or take.

      And to correct an error, the sun is 8.317 light minutes away, not 9 — sorry, I pulled that out of memory, and it’s been years since I last used or needed that figure.

      Actually, the major boom might have been the shockwave created by Bud’s arm displacing air …

      • fairportfan
        February 3, 2010, 1:13 am | #

        “Actually, the major boom might have been the shockwave created by Bud’s arm displacing air …”

        Likely – the compressed calendar machine is so small that, even traveling at 63K miles/sec, it might not produce a big shockwave.

        OTOH, the trail of ionised air would be really pretty.

      • fatuncle
        February 3, 2010, 1:23 am | #

        Wouldn’t it be, though? A thread of incandescence, drawn so fast across the sky that there would be no indication of motion.

        jordinyc: unless I dropped a decimal somewhere, that works out to be Mach 302,734 !!

      • The Old Wolf
        February 3, 2010, 1:23 am | #

        Is the calendar machine composed of hyper-dense matter? Traveling at 1/3 C, how much of it would burn off before exiting the atmosphere?

      • fatuncle
        February 3, 2010, 1:42 am | #

        Hyper-dense matter, yes. As for the other, I dunno. You’ve got less than 24 minutes to go after it, capture it, and examine it for wear. Go, boy!

      • fairportfan
        February 3, 2010, 2:00 am | #

        Well, it wasn’t hyper-dense when it was bigger than any of the people there in the temple.

        However, after Bud squashed it down to the size of a large pea…

        Anmd at 1/3 C – well, it would exit the atmosphere so fast that i doubt it would have time to burn much off.

      • jordinyc
        February 3, 2010, 7:40 am | #

        eh, i’m going with the theory that she threw it at a globitty glob of dark matter that was exactly 18,400 miles straight up. XD

      • WoodGracie
        February 3, 2010, 10:40 am | #

        You guys are making my head hurt!! =)

      • Eee
        February 3, 2010, 11:02 am | #

        The Machine probably didn’t start off made of hyper-dense material, but after Bud squished it I’m sure it became very solid. Not on the level of neutron star or even inside of the Sun denseness, but really thick. As for burn off, it would have been moving so fast it wouldn’t have had time to heat up before it left the atmosphere. And for those saying physically impossible, or it should have had more devastating effects: The GGG are magic. Literally. Once they start doing things, normal rules tend to get bent…

        Brandi’s open mouthed gape is marvelous.

      • jwhouk
        February 3, 2010, 3:14 am | #

        I suspect that the calendar machine was made out of a lot lighter material than we believe. The main reason why there was so much trouble trying to repair it was the protection mechanisms, not the machine itself. Once it was in the demon realm, Bud probably found it was mostly carbon – and she can do Cubic Zirconia really good.

        So I’d wager the act of throwing is indeed what caused the sonic boom. She should have done it a bit later in the day when everyone would have just assumed they were putting the last beams in over at Target Field.

    • Katabatac
      February 3, 2010, 1:31 am | # | Reply

      No, not the speed of sound. 1/3 the speed of light, or about 300 times the speed of sound.

  17. wrog
    February 3, 2010, 1:36 am | # | Reply

    well, with the thing now going at roughly 100000 km/s (ie., a few thousand times solar escape velocity), here’s hoping she didn’t miss

    • fatuncle
      February 3, 2010, 1:43 am | # | Reply

      Well, if she did, it ain’t coming back!

      • André
        February 3, 2010, 1:52 am | #

        Sir Isaac would be proud.

      • fairportfan
        February 3, 2010, 2:06 am | #

        Boy, the Martians who were P.O’d over Art’s lawnmower {Part 2} are going to be really mad when that thing takes out the Presidential Gxnortz…

      • fairportfan
        February 3, 2010, 2:08 am | #

        Agggghhh! Typo in the HTML!

        First “Sequential Art” strip is linked at “Art’s lawnmower” – second is linked from everything after that…

  18. SoWhyMe
    February 3, 2010, 2:08 am | # | Reply

    OK … the machine has already been severely compressed. This means the gravity sorrounding the mass is far greater, per unit area, than anything else on earth. What happens when that reaches the huge gravity well towards the center of the sun? Compression runaway, possibly resulting in a pin-point black hole? Or would there have to be much more compression and/or mass to begin with? Or possibly, if there is a lot of carbon in it, might it briefly ignite into a pico-star? Either way Sol will burp.

    Of course there’s always the comic physics in which the sun’s energy will cause the machine to be instantly reconstituted, expanding to it’s original size and purpose. Perhaps greater than original with sudden “sentience” bestowed as well. It now takes up knitting solar threads and schemes to take over the universe, beginning with a cruel plot to destroy all candy except the reviled Necco Wafers. [cue evil laughter]

    • jwhouk
      February 3, 2010, 3:17 am | # | Reply

      Unfortunately, I believe Necco went out of business a few years ago. 🙁

      • Dr. Jeff
        February 3, 2010, 4:20 am | #

        Nope! The New England Confectionery Company (NECCO) is still very much alive. (www.necco.com) In fact, I just saw some Necco Wafers for sale at a local convenience store. :3

      • jwhouk
        February 3, 2010, 7:52 pm | #

        Oh. I forgot. See, they’re dead to me.

        (Looks sadly over the rise at the empty Necco plant here in Pewaukee)

    • fairportfan
      February 3, 2010, 5:20 am | # | Reply

      If nothing else, Necco Wafers make excellent targets for marksmanship practise with .22 rifles and airguns.

    • throopw
      February 3, 2010, 11:44 am | # | Reply

      “This means the gravity sorrounding the mass is far greater, per unit area, than anything else on earth. What happens when that reaches the huge gravity well towards the center of the sun? Compression runaway, possibly resulting in a pin-point black hole?”

      Well… basically… no.

      “Or would there have to be much more compression and/or mass to begin with?”

      Way, way, WAY more. And falling into the sun wouldn’t really compress it any more.

      “Either way Sol will burp.”

      Assuming the CM is several tons in mass, it’d release the energy of a very large thermonuclear weapon when it hits (presuming it hadn’t already done so upon transiting earth’s atmosphere, which it clearly didn’t since the tri-state area is still there). But the sun is very very very large and energetic. VERY large. So a “large thermonuclear weapon” is a gnat’s burp several kilometers away, in terms of noticeability from earth.

      Near as I can tell, anyways.

      • jwhouk
        February 3, 2010, 7:56 pm | #

        Hodgson’s Law, people. Hodgson’s Law.

        If you’re wondering how he eats and breathes,
        And other science facts,
        Repeat to yourself ‘It’s just a show,
        I should really just relax’…”

      • Linux Learner
        December 15, 2010, 4:18 am | #

        Why should we presume the Calendar machine is several tons? Atlantean materials science could well have suitable materials for it nowhere near as dense as, say, iron. Like a metal foam.

      • Sean Murphy
        September 5, 2017, 10:22 pm | #

        Well put.

      • BMonk
        December 10, 2024, 1:27 pm | #

        throopw, and besides, throwing a large thermonuclear explosion into the largest fission pile in the near neighborhood? It may have little noticeable effect at all.

        If we are talking several tons of mass, and given “According to NASA, a teaspoon of white dwarf matter would weigh 5.5 tons on Earth,” I’m thinking the ex-Machine is on the order of that density. Which is still way below black-hole densities at that scale. Yeah, the shock wave might make a difference, but we’re still not talking black hole creation.

  19. fairportfan
    February 3, 2010, 5:23 am | # | Reply

    Speaking of things hitting things and trails of incandescence and the like – today’s “Astronomy Photo of the Day”.

  20. Wildcat
    February 3, 2010, 5:58 am | # | Reply

    Fastball Special! XD

  21. Patrick
    February 3, 2010, 6:21 am | # | Reply

    1) We have no idea what the original mass/volume of The Calendar Machine might have been. For all we know, it existed interdimensionally and the part(s) of it in this dimension weighed next to nothing.
    2) If it DID have any kind of appreciable mass, then all of this relativistic talk is overlooking Newton’s third law…ie, how was Bud able to impart that much momentum to that much mass without breaking backwards through the Earth’s crust? Even if she did somehow manage to brace properly, how much damage did she just do to Earth’s orbit? Calculate THAT, eh?
    3) Way too many of Wapsi’s fan base is made up of Nerds.
    4) Magic!
    (Sorry if this ends up beng a double post, I think I lost the first submission attempt)

    • throopw
      February 3, 2010, 2:20 pm | # | Reply

      Well, if we’re generous and say the CM massed about a hundred tons, and she punted it at 1/3 lightspeed, then the earth would have to have aquired a velocity in the opposite direction of about one ten-billionth of a centimeter per second. Unless I’ve dropped a decimal point. On the other hand, yes, if Bud were transfering her momentum to the ground underneath her, there should have been a substantial crater. Of course, since poiting already violates conservation of momentum, I’d expect she just poited the reaction momentum away. See, eg, “The Journeys of Mcgill Feighan” for how the ability to poit interacts with the ability to fling objects at high velocity.

      • throopw
        February 3, 2010, 2:25 pm | #

        Oh… by that book reference I mean, the arm motion was likely pretty much theatrics. Really, she “should” have been able to simply hold it up and user her poiting to give it most any velocity she wants. As to why she doesn’t just poit it to the sun; in the portal cloth thread, it’s noted that if you don’t have any reference points, you can’t necessarily point somewhere you’ve never been. And see also the Vinge novel “The Witling” for similar issues with the interaction of poiting and flinging.

      • fairportfan
        February 3, 2010, 5:53 pm | #

        Superman has been shown to pick up buildings by one corner, and the buildings don’t fall apart, and he doesn’t sink into the concrete (which concentrating the weight of even a middle-sized building in the area of two average-size human feet ought do).

        Betsy, the Vampire Queen (Maryjanice Davidson’s Undead and… series…) wears stiletto heels and does things like uprighting overturned taxis with one hand. Not only does she not sink into the pavement, but the heels don’t snap off.

      • bmonk
        June 23, 2011, 11:35 am | #

        In the _Belgariad_, when Garion is learning to use telekinetic magic, he has to learn not only to push against the object being moved but to brace himself against a wide area of earth. The first time he tried to lift a boulder up he didn’t do this, and ended up sunk to his chin in the ground. . . .

  22. Deuce
    February 3, 2010, 7:00 am | # | Reply

    Oh for the love of the Catgirls! Will there be any left when this debate dies down?

  23. jayessell
    February 3, 2010, 7:01 am | # | Reply

    If she had waited until noon-ish or midnight-ish, a measly 18.5 miles per second would negate the Earth’s solar orbital velocity.
    The CCM would fall straight to the Sun, but it might take months to cross 93 million miles.

    Earth is near the lip of the Sun’s gravity well.
    Less energy would be needed to send it towards the stars.

    Or…
    TO THE MOON, ALICE!!!

    • fairportfan
      February 3, 2010, 5:58 pm | # | Reply

      “Earth is near the lip of the Sun’s gravity well.
      Less energy would be needed to send it towards the stars.”

      Huh?

      You still gotta climb out of that gravity well to head for the stars, while heading for the Sun is falling down the well.

      If you’re at the bottom of a ten-foot hole (representing Earth’s gravity well) five hundred hundred feet below the peak of a five thousand foot snow-covered mountain (representing the Sun’s), it takes less total energy to climb out of the hole and slide down the hill than to climb out and get to the top.

      • throopw
        February 3, 2010, 6:35 pm | #

        I assume he’s talking about solar escape velocity vs the delta-v needed to hit the sun from here. However, a qu ick google seems to show it takes 30-mumble kps to hit the sun, while solar escape velocity from here is 40-mumble kps. Easier to hit the sun. Without looking at the details, just approximately, the spot where it becomes easier to escape the solar system than to hit the sun is somewhere a bit beyond mars.

        On the other hand, I think it’s harder to hit the sun from here than to hit saturn, in terms of delta-v. Same ballpark in any event.

        And of course, one-third lightspeed is well beyond what’s needed to do either. Hitting much of ANYthing off earth inside 24 minutes is more than enough to do either.

      • bmonk
        June 23, 2011, 11:47 am | #

        I had these thoughts too. And, first, minimum delta-v to escape a gravity well is gonna make a long trip to the other end.

        Heinlein used that fact in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Mike can throw large containers at Earth and get them to hit where he wants–good as nuclear bombs, without the residual radiation and fallout. Problem is that he can’t throw to many in a given time. So he throws the first ones slower, so that they crawl over the gravity hump, and the later ones are faster. Result: lots of them arrive very quickly. Chyenne Mountain is hit often enough that “the mountain really isn’t there anymore”, and there are plenty of others fired at a grid.

  24. Ponyhome
    February 3, 2010, 7:14 am | # | Reply

    Relativity is not linear. The fact that the calendar is traveling at 1/3c does not mean that its mass is 1/3 of infinity (think about it). At that velocity, the calendar goes through the troposphere in 170 microseconds. Given that it’s compressed to about the diameter of a lightning bolt, I’d guess that the resulting shock wave would be comparable. Lastly, it’s clearly not compressed to degenerate matter. If it were, it would be microscopic–a lump of neutronium that big would mass millions of tons. Something that small hitting the sun at 1/3 light speed wouldn’t faze it. Solar flares LEAVE the sun at up to 1/2 light speed, and they have a lot more mass. I loved the visual representation of the sonic boom. Great wrap up, and I sensed a bit of a grudge from Bud, there.

  25. Dane
    February 3, 2010, 8:11 am | # | Reply

    It seems to me that Bud is considering the Cal Machine to be “just” a physical artifact– and perhaps Brandi is concerned that is it more than that; that reducing it to a squished lump of matter doesn’t necessarily mean that its supernatural properties are totally gone…

  26. fatuncle
    February 3, 2010, 8:25 am | # | Reply

    I went off to work, and about 0530 this morning my mind kicked up “Why 24 minutes? Why not a half hour, or an hour?” Then the penny dropped. Twenty four minutes divides neatly into 240,000 miles, the distance to the moon.

    That would give Bud an easier target – all she need do is aim at or near the the leading edge of the moon: as Luna is 3474 KM in diameter, and orbital volocity is just over a kilometer per second, the moon would move only 1440 kilometers while the calendar machine is in transit – and still calls for a respectable 600,000 mph fastball pitch – 10,000 miles a minute, 24 minutes to jump the gap. And hitting the moon at 166.7 miles/second would vaporize what was left of the calendar machine, I would think …

    • Eric
      February 3, 2010, 9:49 am | # | Reply

      Well, if that is the moon, it looks like a full moon, which wouldn’t be visible during the day. There wouldn’t be any late risers to wake up. I like the idea of the 24 minutes meaning something, though.

      I was wondering yesterday if she could just poit with it to the sun and poit back without it. I suppose if it were the sun she would come back with her clothing all burned off. I don’t suppose that would destroy her, would it?

      • throopw
        February 3, 2010, 11:50 am | #

        The full moon can be visible in “daylit” sky at dusk or dawn.

      • fairportfan
        February 3, 2010, 4:44 pm | #

        But not that high.

      • Virnin
        February 3, 2010, 9:53 pm | #

        Since the whole episode in the temple happened yesterday and required a *new* moon, that is NOT a *full* moon, unless it took half a month to poit back to Wapsi land.

  27. Lee M
    February 3, 2010, 9:34 am | # | Reply

    “Holy crap! Where did that new crater come from all of a sudden?”

  28. John K
    February 3, 2010, 9:38 am | # | Reply

    with an arm like that she should play for the Mets!

    • jwhouk
      February 3, 2010, 8:00 pm | # | Reply

      Twins. TWINS. She’s in MSP.

  29. Dauric
    February 3, 2010, 9:40 am | # | Reply

    I’ve just been playing Mass Effect 2, where you can walk past a Gunnery Sargent dressing down a couple of subordinates explaining in exactly no uncertain terms how much damage the heavy warship railguns do (the rounds aren’t that heavy, but they’re fired at relativistic velocities), and that once fired the rounds don’t stop until “acted on by an outside force”.

    “When you fire this weapon you ARE going to make misery SOMEWHERE and SOMEWHEN! That is why you do not “Eyeball It”! You are not a cowboy! You wait for the computer to give a firing solution!”

    24 minutes is a long time in orbital mechanics, and that’s definitely the sun she’s throwing at.

    Unless of course Bud hasn’t actually done the calculations and is just spouting “24 minutes” as a random time plucked from a movie she watched.

  30. fatuncle
    February 3, 2010, 9:50 am | # | Reply

    Dauric – but is that upper white light the sun? or the shock wave generated by the calendar machine? I couldn’t make up my mind. At first I thought the sun, but then I got to wondering about the 24 minutes figure Bud used, and thought maybe it was the latter.

    Oh, well, tomorrow or the days after will tell the tale, or Paul will take pity on us and give us a clue …

  31. WoodGracie
    February 3, 2010, 10:49 am | # | Reply

    Please Paul! Give them an answer! My head is going to pop trying to keep up with all these guys!!! LOL

  32. UncleRice
    February 3, 2010, 11:05 am | # | Reply

    You people have to remember that Bud is a 5000 year old magical construct. She probably knows a thing or two about what happens when something moves that fast. Her arm didn’t have to be traveling at 1/3 C when she let the chunk go. She could have launched it at a more sedate 20 kilometers per second and then accelerated it magically and maybe even slow it down before it hits the sun, while sedately drinking her coffee, so it doesn’t create the mother of all solar storms.

  33. kingklash
    February 3, 2010, 11:14 am | # | Reply

    Of course, she could have been aiming at a cloaked alien warship. You may hide from technological detection, but what about magical peepers?

  34. Gunnr
    February 3, 2010, 1:33 pm | # | Reply

    Oh, goodnight, Irene! It’s a comic, guys!

    She threw it at the moon., and the ejecta from the resultant impact crater will give the rabbit in the moon a peeper with a lovely little Paul Stanley star around it.

    No, she does not throw like a girl. Her motion was captured at the moment after the follow-through of her arm but before the follow-through of her leg. The only thing “girly” about her pitching mechanics is the angle of follow-through as her pitching arm comes over her shoulder and drops slightly as it clears the starboard twin. So there, mmnyaaah!

    Oh, and it was a side-arm curve, high and outside, to allow for orbital motion. Double mmnyaah!

    . . . . . . .oh, yeah, and the “sun” is the flash of atmospheric exit which was brief due to the fact that it was (a) spinning like any pitch does, and (b) so small that friction heating didn’t really kick in until the lump had almost cleared the atmosphere. . . .Geeze!

    Any of that coffee left, sweetie?

    • fairportfan
      February 3, 2010, 4:46 pm | # | Reply

      Friction heating is irrelevant – but it would drfinitely leave an ionisation trail.

      • Lloyd
        February 3, 2010, 11:38 pm | #

        Perhaps, this being a comic, “fiction” heating would be an appropriate term?

  35. Nimrod
    February 3, 2010, 2:14 pm | # | Reply

    This is another example of why the GG’s are so low on my list of characters I like. If I am to read Wapsi as a drama / supernatural story then I will not attempt to apply rational and scientific criteria to the events and developments in the storyline. However, when I do this the bulk of what makes for intriguing character development and plot conflicts gets severally weakened. How and why should there be concern when many of the basic aspects of cause and effect, action and consequence, and physical or mental limitations are not constant.
    In other words – if you make a magical world make one with magical rules otherwise you are destined to just have a series of deus ex machina type events that eventually make many of the characters and their actions meaningless.

    Basically I think, based on the actions and the story so far, that Bud is stupid, Brandy is judgmental and Jin is lazy.

    Now if Bud’s nonchalance ends up biting her in the butt – now that would be nice. Anyway – to use the few rules set out in the Wapsi universe so far, what Bud just did proves that the Calendar Machine has supernatural pan-dimensional powers and its effects are still being expressed. I would go so far as to suggest that based on the Wapsi universe that the physical destruction of the machine in the “Demon Realm” did not have the effect that it appears to have.

    If Paul proves me wrong, by working in future developments, that is great because it moves the baseline back toward the rational where I would like to see it and if it does play out that way then I get the perk of being correct. I so do love a win-win situation.

  36. fatuncle
    February 3, 2010, 3:09 pm | # | Reply

    Nimrod – the really fun joke about this is that I snuck an absolute howler into the calculations, and followed it up, tongue in cheek, with an impossible result … and no one caught it!

    For the record (edging for the exit), 24 minutes at speed of sound doesn’t move you 18,400 miles. 24 hours will do that. 768 miles per hour is only 12.8 miles per minute. 24 minutes will get you 307.2 miles downrange.
    (Runs like hell for the exit, one step ahead of the shower of rotten eggs)

    • The Old Wolf
      February 3, 2010, 3:36 pm | # | Reply

      Fatuncle, this old wolf is numerically challenged; you could have written 2 + 2 = 5 and I probably wouldn’t have noticed… ;^)

      • fatuncle
        February 3, 2010, 4:20 pm | #

        I would love to know what Paul is thinking about this. Is he shaking his head in bemusement, or rolling on the floor laughing until he cries?

      • Heather D
        February 3, 2010, 6:56 pm | #

        The former I’d say. 🙂

        Honestly, compared to the amount of energy needed to ‘poit’ using anything resembling real-world physics, this is utterly trivial.

      • Paul Taylor
        February 3, 2010, 7:49 pm | #

        I would have to say bemusement. 🙂 Honestly, I find it really cool that my comic can spark such a conversation.

    • fairportfan
      February 3, 2010, 4:50 pm | # | Reply

      There appears to be a major math error in one of my brother’s books (brother is SF author David Weber, for any who don’t know) – something like a factor of 1000 in the description of a hyper-velocity missile system. (I did the calculations twice – it involves acceleration and time-to-distance; i could still be wrong but i don’t think so.)

      I haven’t pointed it out to him. He tends to get snarky when he thinks i’m harassing him.

      (I tend to get snarky when i</i think he's harassing me, so i don’t bug him about small stuff.)

      • cbhacking
        February 4, 2010, 12:57 pm | #

        Considering he at one point gave relative dimensions of starships that resulted in on particular class being “slightly less dense than cigar smoke” or some such (I think those were the words he used) I hope he’d forgive you. The books are still amazing though.

        As is Waspi Square, of course, I was definitely thinking “wow, 33% c?” as I read this page… but it’s quite cool enough that I don’t care at all.

      • bmonk
        June 23, 2011, 12:04 pm | #

        Didn’t they develop “Space Opera” precisely to avoid such messy considerations?

        If you want to get from here to there in a few hours, or days, just do it. No need to go into all sorts of messy calculations.

        IIRC, the original Star Trek series had lots of these problems. To finish the “Five year mission” using the rule for “warp speed” (cube of the warp number times the speed of light) would take something like at least a century. Or the Romulan “sub-light” Warbird crossing the Neutral Zone must be going at relativistic speeds–or be on it’s way at least a year.

  37. Halex
    February 3, 2010, 7:50 pm | # | Reply

    Oh, my GOD! So many nerds. That’s why I love reading Wapsy. 😀
    And that’s why I love Bud.

  38. Silvril
    February 3, 2010, 9:18 pm | # | Reply

    nerdgasim ^_^ I don’t what’s better the comic or the community response.

    • fairportfan
      February 3, 2010, 10:56 pm | # | Reply

      My first encounter with that term.

      And more recent take on the same concepts.

  39. BloodyBoots
    February 3, 2010, 9:58 pm | # | Reply

    Hmm, assuming that in a parallel dimension the laws of physics and matter continue as here in the supposedly prime dimension? Perhaps the Calendar machine lost all mass when sent into a dimension where time has no meaning and magic rules? Therefore when compressed in that dimesion it becomes massless and when returned to this dimension has only a small fraction of its former mass?

    Magic, the true theory of relativity!

  40. Skip Sanders
    February 3, 2010, 10:42 pm | # | Reply

    Figuring 1 tonne mass, .347 lightspeed (the 24 minutes), you get 104,000 km/sec

    Energy = 1.3 Gigatons equivilent. Definitely nasty.

    • throopw
      February 4, 2010, 12:23 am | # | Reply

      Note that that’s 25 or so times the energy of the largest thermonuclear device humans have ever detonated.

      http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2046393742348211186#

      If only one percent of the energy had gone into waste, it would have fried everything within 10 or 20 kilometers, and knocked things over out to 100 or so (just finger-to-the-radioactive-wind estimate). As I said in another comment, lucky Bud is very efficient, and that there was only a window-rattling boom at such a throw is impressive. More impressive for how *little* muss and fuss, rather than how *much*.

  41. sonicthunder
    February 3, 2010, 11:15 pm | # | Reply

    People have joked about it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Brandi’s still worried the calendar machine isn’t “deactivated” and now Bud’s placed it on the sun (assuming gravital forces don’t ruin our fun). Going to be much harder to reset it a second time there. (>^_^)>

  42. Skip Sanders
    February 4, 2010, 4:54 pm | # | Reply

    The real worry is that if she ‘missed’ the sun, that little ‘rock’ is gonna come back. Since it started from earth orbit, it should have an orbit that will keep it sweeping through that orbit, and eventually it could hit.

    Though Paul has said the 24 minutes is not accurate, so it probably really doesn’t have that 1.3 Gtons of Energy. Maybe only 1/4 that, it it’s twice as long to ‘impact’. Call it 250 Mtons, say.

  43. CyberSkull
    February 5, 2010, 8:54 pm | # | Reply

    So it’s moving at ⅓c? Wow.

  44. coldelectrons
    February 5, 2010, 9:20 pm | # | Reply

    Boy, some people watch too many movies. Physics ain’t Hollywood, people!

    First, ignoring Bud’s own movement throwing the nugget, the “boom” would be the nuggets’ passage through the atmosphere. “Relatavistic weapons burning off the atmosphere” is pure baloney – the nugget can only directly interact with the volume it traverses. Since it’s still sub-c speeds, there would be ionization and superheating of a column of air only an inch wide, extending from launch point to exit. It would be like God’s Own Lightning Bolt. There would be a secondary effect, from those electrons and ions unfortunate enough to undergo direct collision with the nugget – EMP. Interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field would cause those moving charged particles to emit radio waves, or rather a single powerful wave all at once.

    The time scale in which this would all take place is a blink of an eye, or a lightning strike. Also, don’t forget the inverse square law for the EMP: Like the “boom”, it would be highly localized.

    The reason for such mild effects is that our atmosphere is not that dense, so not that much energy would be imparted in it’s parting.

    On the other hand, the Sun has a calculated density slightly higher than water (on Earth). Unlike water, the Sun is plasma of a few light elements. Plasmas behave much differently than ordinary matter – being electromagnetohydrodynamic, capable of superturbulence, and other really cool stuff.

    Also, the Sun is so HUGE – the calendar is an insignifigant mass in comparison. That little nugget, however energetic, is hardly going to make a ripple – again, it has a very small cross-section it can interact with in it’s passing.

    Interaction is the key, here. Ballistic bullets are not effective unless they transfer momentum: Mushrooming bullets do more damage because they widen and transfer more.

    IF the nugget is 0.3c, then it would pass right through the Sol, creating a solar prominence on the side opposite the Earth where it wouldn’t be seen.

    IF the nugget is below Sol escape velocity, passage through the solar layers would create enough drag to eventually halt the nugget, all the while evaporating it into plasma. I assume it would “dissolve”, because even though Bud compacted the calendar, it’s still made of atoms, and the Sun is hot enough nothing can exist as atoms – as it assumed ambient temperature, the nugget, too, would become plasma.

    The only way I see that nugget actually having so-called “megatonnage”, is if it hit something solid and dense. Signifigantly greater mass to interact with, as well as a solid-to-plasma conversion phase, would make a much bigger boom than such paltry stuff as air.

    Eh, whatever. It doesn’t really matter, unless there’s a demon out there with a catcher’s mitt, waiting for the mother of all fastballs.

    • Tygr
      February 7, 2010, 8:56 pm | # | Reply

      I’m not a fizzy-sist, but I play one on teh internets. I gots my degree from the University of Wikipedia, and according to it, “the core of the Sun is considered to extend from the center to about 0.2 to 0.25 solar radii. It has a density of up to 150 g/cm3 (150 times the density of water on Earth) and a temperature of close to 13,600,000 kelvins (by contrast, the surface of the Sun is around 5,800 kelvins).”

      So, for up to a quarter of its diameter, the sun is over 11 times denser than lead and over 13 million degrees hot. The photons created therein take over 10,000 years to escape from it.

      I’m gonna assume that the god-like power of a Golem Girl gives her the ability to bulls-eye a star, and say it’s no stretch to call that calendar-nugget fully vaporized.

      BTW, what IS the escape velocity of the sun?

  45. Maureen Dee
    February 8, 2010, 7:56 pm | # | Reply

    I agree with Curious – and find it amazing that among all of the incredible suppositions of this comic, the physics of this action are what you find unbelievable? I certainly understand the “feel good” aspect of sending the offending lump if not to the moon (“, Alice”) then into the sun – physics notwithstanding.

    Whether it takes half an hour or half a millenium to reach there does not really affect the story, it is the emotional release associated with it that I empathized with. If the concern is the reappearance of the calendar machine, perhaps one can hope that it melts into a harmless bit of molten metal and bothers them no more.

    Personally, the only part that really rings true is that it is nearly impossible to find a bra that fits and supports. I have enjoyed this comic from the start. Thank you.

  46. Chris Mayer
    March 16, 2010, 6:18 pm | # | Reply

    Even though their humanity is rapidly returning, they’re physically still golems-super powered ROBOTS! at the speed she threw that, it will take 24 minutes to reach the sun. i.e. LIGHT SPEED VELOCITY!!! (how cool is that; no wonder it made a sonic boom!)

  47. KaiserFrazer67
    June 29, 2010, 11:28 pm | # | Reply

    I would back this discussion all the way up to where she had the nugget with her. When shown in the strips pre-crushed, it looked about the size of a small tool shed. Crushing all that mass into that tiny nugget, wouldn’t that super-compact the matter to the point where it would weigh about as much as a skyscraper, if not more? Even if Bud were superhuman enough to pick it up, the resulting weight of that hyperdense nugget should have punched her right through the floors of the apartment (or wherever she was staying) all the way to the basement, maybe even deeper.

    …Don’cha just love the way we nerds obsess over this silly crap? I can hear the sane people screaming: “IT’S JUST A &?@#$% COMIC STRIP!!! SHUT THE @#$%& UP!!! XD

    • MikeB
      January 30, 2011, 10:52 am | # | Reply

      Oh, hell, no! You did not just say that crushing it would increase it’s mass, did you? It’s mass (and therefore it’s weight) remains identical. It’s DENSITY would go up, yes, but not it’s weight.

      The reason a supercompacted object might go through the floor is not because it’s heavier, it’s because the object has a smaller footprint. The reason a nail comes to a point is the same reason: to concentrate that force into a tiny area.

  48. Centaur1971
    July 26, 2010, 2:37 am | # | Reply

    God bless all nerd boys and geek girls like us; where would pseudo-science be without us to pick it apart, huh?

  49. arjay2813
    February 1, 2011, 2:15 pm | # | Reply

    disaster averted what now!!!??
    coffee.

  50. ChattaStarhawk
    March 31, 2012, 8:59 pm | # | Reply

    While doing yet another read through, I found one MORE factor that no-one has considered. When we look at the Sun, we’re seeing it where it was a little over 8 minutes ago; therefore, to throw the CCM into the Sun with a transit time of 24 minutes you have to aim it at where the Sun will be in 32 minutes (+/- a minute or two) from its current perceived location.

    It’s a standard space travel problem.

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