Perhaps unsolvable, but not unknowable. Nuclear explosions happen in billionths of a second, while the human body’s central nervous system reacts in hundredths of a second.
If you stood next to an about to explode nuclear bomb, you would in fact be vaporized before your body and mind was aware of it. Thus, I don’t think you would feel a thing.
The apprehension while waiting for the explosion would be nerve wracking though.
Best,
Sky
Judo student checking in as requested.
A well-applied sleeper hold or other “blood” strangle will produce unconsciousness in probably 5-10 seconds. The mechanism involved is as described, but basically loss of consciousness is caused by a sudden extreme drop in blood pressure.
Abrupt decapitation is going to produce the same drop in pressure, as the pumping of the heart will not push the blood thru the vessels, since they are no longer attached.
I don’t believe the shock of the blade passing thru the neck is going to produce concussion, especially if it is sharp and the neck is braced as in a guillotine. So I would guess that unconsciousness would follow decapitation in less than ten seconds. I imagine there would not even be much pain from the severing of the neck, as the nerves would be shocked.
All in all, a rather quick and relatively painless death. Electrocution is even more so, and lethal injection is no more physically painful than any other shot, so if I were given the option when I am executed, I would pick lethal injection. But the guillotine is a good second choice.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m sure elucidator will remember that, come the revolution. 
Oh, I was just looking for an example, any example, and I struck upon that. Wrongly, it turns out.
How about, instead of my nuclear explosion example, I say “it’s unsolvable like knowing what dinosaurs looked like”? Sure, we have educated guesses, but nothing concrete…
I guess if there’s ever a nuclear war, tho, I want to be near ground zero. Knowing that you’re going to die is for the birds, anyways.
–greenphan
In 1887 Alfred Porter Southwick of New York was a member of the New York State Commission on Capitol Punishment. (aka “The Death Penalty Commission.”) Their mission was to look for and recommend a more humane method of killing criminals than hanging.
In the course of the commission’s work, Southwick investigated the guillotine. After initially beig intrigued by the “painlessness” of the guillotine, Southwick eventually concluded the following:
“The guillotine is a barbarous mode of execution. Death does not ensue instantaneously, as it should in such cases. In fact, a condemned man and I can agree upon certain eye and mouth signals before his head is laid on the block, and I can communicate intelligently with the severed head for some time after the excution by means of such signals.”
Reference: “Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death” by Mark Essig, 2003, Walker and Company, New York.
The book has no details of how Southwick reached his conclusion.
Regards,
Sky