Illuminati #4

[history79]

Comments

[cainofdreaming]

Right, make yourself really tiny. Like atom-sized. So it'll just be an... atomic... explosion...

[tugrul]

Ha ha! Yes! :) Such a well written and drawn moment.

[erikred]

Yeah, that did make lol.

[beyondthefringe]

The trick is to go bigger! So big you go into the Microverse!

[sagrada]

Technically that'd only really work with splitting apart iron atoms and such. But there's so much iron in places storing metal weapons you could probably get a decent boom out of it.

[cainofdreaming]

Could you elaborate? Why iron specifically?

[sagrada]

I forget most of the science behind it, but you need to liberate the energy from atoms above a certain benchmark of atomic weight before you get a viable explosion. It's why heavy metals like uranium are necessary for weapons-grade nuclear devices.

Iron is plentiful, dense and heavy, if that is iron and not urdu metal, so it'd probably be pretty bad if it blew regardless. But a regular piece of rock wouldn't be nearly as bad, no matter how much there was of it.

[cainofdreaming]

But you're already getting an explosion, from the Eric copy, so the threshold for the reaction to start has already been reached.

[tugrul]

Ahhh, clever reasoning. :)

Thank you, sagrada, for the scientific explanation though. Another thing learnt. Also, what do you think the Diana and Clark splitting an atom with her sword-moment?

[silicondream]

It's fairly nonsensical, physics-wise. Splitting a single atom is nothing special; atoms spontaneously decay all the time. To get a chain reaction, you need to put enough unstable atoms close enough together that each decay will trigger at least one other atom to decay. (For instance, you take two subcritical masses of a fissile substance and smush them together.) If you don't accomplish that, then splitting one atom will do nothing. If you do accomplish that, then you don't need to split an atom, because at least one atom in your supercritical mass will spontaneously decay within a split-second anyway and start off the chain reaction.

But, you know, rule of cool. Splitting an atom still sounds good.

[tugrul]

Yes, it does sound good. :)

[silicondream]

Actually, iron is pretty much the worst element to try to liberate nuclear energy from, because it's the stablest element on the periodic table. Heavier atomic nuclei release energy if they're split; lighter ones release energy if they're fused. But iron's right in the middle, and it gives you nothin' no matter what you do to it.

If you're ever attacked by a nuclear-powered monster of some sort, feed it some iron. With luck it'll have indigestion.

[sagrada]

Thanks for the correction! Always a good feeling to be science'd.

[skemono]

If you're ever attacked by a nuclear-powered monster of some sort, feed it some iron. With luck it'll have indigestion.

I believe they did exactly that in Smax.

[crinos]

I am deeply amused by Hood's suffering.

[shadowpsykie]

After what he did to Greer, he deserves more.

[crinos]

I kind of like the idea of Hood becoming some sort of cosmic yoyo, doomed to forever be able to attract group of loyal followers, come thiiiis close to achieving power and respect, then losing it all and ending up back on the bottom where he belongs.

And this keeps happening to him FOREVER.

[stubbleupdate]

This is my favourite of the relaunched Marvel books (The Continuing Thor doesn't count). It's really good.

[tigerkaya]

This is what should happen to Hood every time he recruits smarter villains.