The offshoot of the main XKCD strip: http://what-if.xkcd.com/
Has anyone here submitted ideas to them? Mine was “What did the inhabitants of Krypton experience as the planet blew up?”. Maybe some ideas would be Dope discussion worthy.
What if I could drop telephone pole size tungsten rods from orbit? Could I be sure then?
I asked what would happen it someone actually DID feed a T. Rex to a Saarlac.
I don’t think he’s going to answer.
The Sarlaac would digest the T Rex. Sure, the T Rex would chew up some tentacles, but then would begin the long, tortuous digestion process.
Jet plane. Treadmill.
“If the entire planet was stuck in a permanent drought, how long would it take for the oceans to dry up?”
I asked what if our moon disappeared.
I’m not expecting much, but I really want to know. ^^;
Forever. Entire planet + permanent drought = no rain anywhere, so all the water will eventually flow downhill to the oceans and stay there (minus however much water vapor the atmosphere can hold without precipitation occurring).
Wow, it has been way too long since Geo Science class for me, obviously.
Given the nature of many of the answers to the “What-Ifs?”, one could assume that the atmosphere had an infinite holding capacity for water vapor, and that no clouds would form to reduce solar radiation at the surface (or to make it easier, cloud cover stays the same as now).
As a quick calculation, the current rate of evaporation is about 1.2 meters per year on average and the average depth of the oceans is 4,267 meters, thus it would take about 3,556 years for them to evaporate at the current rate (of course, even this would have to assume that the depth is the same everywhere, since evaporation varies with latitude, so some areas will dry up first, reducing or increasing the average evaporation rate).