Lethal Neutrinos

Randall Munroe, on XKCD’s What If?:

Supernovae provide that scenario. The physicist who mentioned this problem to me told me his rule of thumb for estimating supernova-related numbers: However big you think supernovae are, they’re bigger than that.

Here’s a question to give you a sense of scale: Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina:

  1. A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or
  2. The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball?

Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. And indeed, it is … by nine orders of magnitude.

XKCD is one of the few sites that can make me laugh out loud through absurdism. I love it.