Most energetic matter, pound for pound

[rat_avatar]

@chacoguy

What about a Black Hole?

How big would a Black Hole need to be to slurp up the entire Earth, say, within a year?

Depends on the size of a black hole and from what clock you are using. For super massive black holes the general accepted, but unsettled events would be as follows. For a external distant viewer would basically see a traveler passing the event horizons clock stopping and it would stay that way for effectively forever. For the person passing the event horizon they would not notice the change and they would die of old age or starve before ever reaching the singularity.

As for the OP, it is not only the contents the individual components that effects the total energy but also the arrangement of those parts.

As an example hadrons like protons and neutrons tend to have more energy and mass than the quarks that they contain. When compared to an electron a proton only has ~1% more mass (2*mass of up quark + mass of down quark)/(mass of electron)

The rest of the remaining 99% mass differential comes from the gluon binding energy (and a tiny amount from random non valence quarks).

Compare this to hydrogen which is lighter than the sum of the mass of and electron and proton.

This is not consistent across all elements, and is demonstrated by stars inability to create elements (in quantity) larger than Iron. Nucleosynthesis of those elements heavier than iron requires more energy than is produced, while elements that are iron and lighter release energy during fusion. Heavier elements are produced only during supernova.

I think most of the confusion stems from the popularity of e=mc^2, but that formula is a simplified version that only applies to objects that already have mass and are not moving. e^2=(mc2)^2+(pc)^2 is a more complete form where p is momentum.

Take for example a photon which has mass, and would be e = pc, or a non-moving object where p = 0 you end up with famous e=mc^2.

Fusion in elements that are lighter than iron tend to have less “potential” energy and you can consider their tight arrangement as being similar to a rock rolling down a hill.

If you had a sensitive enough scale you would find that a rock has less “mass” or energy in this context.

TLDR there is no scientific basis for the mass equivalence transmutation, it is manufactured game play. So it may be more fruitful to look at flaws within that gameplay than trying to find a QFT workaround.

[Dr.Strangelove]

@Chronos

And if you’re allowing sufficiently tightly-packed electrons, I don’t think that there’s actually any known upper bound to the energy.

Sure there is, if the specification is “a kilogram of electrons”. You can’t ignore the mass of the EM field itself. But you’re right that there’s no (reasonable) upper bound to the ratio of mass vs. the rest mass of the component electrons.

@Chronos

But I suspect that this falls afoul of the same rule as “no machines”, which is probably actually more like “no fine details”.

Maybe. But transmutation is concerned with the fine details. Any kind of normal transmutation is just rearranging the electrons/neutrons/protons. Were I the DM, I’d probably say that making antimatter is a step too far, but taking some hydrogen and separating it into some jars of electrons and protons is not. You’re just changing the location of the particles.

If we’re really not limiting ourselves by the type of matter, except for charge conservation, then one could just ask for a 1-kg box of photons. Still not as good as antimatter, though it does have perfect efficiency.

[Derleth]

@snfaulkner

Cool band name/metal song: Distracted by Gamma Rays.

Their first album could be “Hadrons Ripped My Flesh”.

@chorpler

The consequences of free-form transfiguration have been explored in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality as well as several of its meta-fanfictions. (“You are NOT to transfigure anything into a pound of free electrons! It’s very important that you never try this. Do you understand how crucial this is? Because we considered just snapping your wand and obliviating you!”)

I found it highly entertaining.

One of the throwaway lines in HPMOR was about free transfiguration creating configurations which violate color confinement. So, if you wanted to be a little shit, you could conjure up a pound of red quarks, and test the physical laws of the game world in a realm no real physics experiment will ever touch, as all of the jessiejacksons (free particles of color) violently exchange gluons with everything else, tearing all of the atoms apart at the subnucelar level as everything frantically attempts to obey the laws of physics before the Auditors notice. Rocks hadronize, everyone dies.

[Mangetout]

@snfaulkner

any matter will do.

Arguably the best song from Dirac and the Amazing Nucleosynthetic Dreamcoat.

[chorpler]

@Derleth

One of the throwaway lines in HPMOR was about free transfiguration creating configurations which violate color confinement. So, if you wanted to be a little shit, you could conjure up a pound of red quarks, and test the physical laws of the game world in a realm no real physics experiment will ever touch, as all of the jessiejacksons (free particles of color) violently exchange gluons with everything else, tearing all of the atoms apart at the subnucelar level as everything frantically attempts to obey the laws of physics before the Auditors notice. Rocks hadronize, everyone dies.

Are you referring to the part at the end where he thinks something like “What if someone transfigured a cubic millimeter of up quarks, with no down quarks to bind them? Harry didn’t know, and all it would take is one muggleborn who knew the names of the six quarks trying it, and that might be the prophesied end-of-the-world, right there.” Or a different part?

[Ignotus]

@riffraffselbow

So, a friend of mine is participating in an RPG campaign, in which his character has the absurd ability to transmute one material to any other material. The rules are that the materials must preserve mass (so, 50g of water can become 50g of lead, but not 100g of hydrogen), and that they can’t form machines; nothing more than basic shapes or blobs. So he maybe could conjure a sword but not a handgun, and not a piece of wood.

(snip)

3. Less-energetic but otherwise “interesting” suggestions are very welcome.

If the player’s powers allow him to target some specific element in a wide area (rather than all elements in a very specific area, which actually seems like a much more complicated task!) he could theoretically (non explosively) kill an army of 20,000 for a pound of matter by transmuting all selenium in their bodies into something else.

He might be able to do even better targeting some ultra-trace element like cobalt or vanadium, but there’s a lot of those in metal alloys too, so much of his effort would probably be wasted on dead matter.

[Der_Trihs]

@chacoguy

What about a Black Hole?

A small black hole would immediately evaporate via Hawking radiation, releasing all its mass as particles and energy; that’s about as good as antimatter without having to worry about much of it being wasted as neutrinos.

[Pasta]

@Der_Trihs

A small black hole would immediately evaporate via Hawking radiation, releasing all its mass as particles and energy; that’s about as good as antimatter without having to worry about much of it being wasted as neutrinos.

A small black hole would release its mass democratically among particle species, and neutrinos would be plentiful.

[Machine_Elf]

@Dr.Strangelove

You can do almost as good as antimatter (close to 50%) without antimatter.

Conjure up a mass of electrons compressed into a small volume. Almost all of the overall rest mass will be in the EM field, not the individual electron masses. Once conjured, it will explode very energetically.

Relevant XKCD “what if” scenario.

[Derleth]

@chorpler

Are you referring to the part at the end where he thinks something like “What if someone transfigured a cubic millimeter of up quarks, with no down quarks to bind them? Harry didn’t know, and all it would take is one muggleborn who knew the names of the six quarks trying it, and that might be the prophesied end-of-the-world, right there.” Or a different part?

Oh, probably, and I just mis-recalled due to my pre-existing curiosity about color confinement.

[chorpler]

@Derleth

Oh, probably, and I just mis-recalled due to my pre-existing curiosity about color confinement.

OK, I was just curious if that was what you were thinking of, or if there was another such awesome part that I didn’t recall.

[Leo_Bloom]

“RPG”?
“MG”?

Otherwise, carry on.

[newme]

@Leo_Bloom

“RPG”?
“MG”?

Otherwise, carry on.

RPG = Role Playing Game (like Dungeons and Dragons)

GM = Game Master

[dtilque]

If this is a typical RPG like D&D, the spells usually have a limited range that they work in. Some are touch spells, which means the caster has to be touching the object transmuted. If it’s a ranged spell, the distance the object can be is usually limited to some tens of feet, a couple hundred or so at the most. (The distance for ranged spells is usually a function of the caster’s level, typically 10 ft/level plus a constant. But I’d be surprised if this isn’t a touch spell. It would be if I designed the game, just to avoid many of the suggestions in this thread.)

In either case, unless the player wants his character to commit suicide, antimatter and many of these other explosives are right out.

@watchwolf49

If the character has to touch the material to transmute it, I’d go with TNT … safe, easy to use, will take out Rust Monsters …

Then you have to create some other explosive to detonate the TNT.

[coremelt]

@dtilque

If this is a typical RPG like D&D, the spells usually have a limited range that they work in. Some are touch spells, which means the caster has to be touching the object transmuted. If it’s a ranged spell, the distance the object can be is usually limited to some tens of feet, a couple hundred or so at the most. (The distance for ranged spells is usually a function of the caster’s level, typically 10 ft/level plus a constant. But I’d be surprised if this isn’t a touch spell. It would be if I designed the game, just to avoid many of the suggestions in this thread.)

Yeah I was going to say this. If the GM allows this power to transmute matter at any appreciable distance then his game is pretty much broken, this character can just instantly annihilate any threat. If was running the campaign I’d say not only that the character has to touch the substance to transmute it but that they have to stay in contact with it for a full round (10 seconds in most game systems). That would eliminate most of the over powered silliness and make it a cool, but not ridiculous, power.

(lets not even get into the fact that he can create unlimited quantities of gold, platinum or any other precious element, I guess the GM counted on that and money isn’t an issue in the campaign)

[dtilque]

@coremelt

(lets not even get into the fact that he can create unlimited quantities of gold, platinum or any other precious element, I guess the GM counted on that and money isn’t an issue in the campaign)

Maybe it costs two pounds of gold to make one pound…

[Quartz]

For different values of ‘energetic’, consider selenium dioxide or tellurium dioxide. If you think sulphur dioxide stinks…