Original static webpage version: https://what-if.xkcd.com/115/

28 points

I usually feel like I have an intuitive answer to “what ifs?” This one really surprised me to find that the answer is basically “nothing”

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7 points

And I was then double surprised that being inside the sun for a nanosecond would be so devastating!

  • 10^-5 J on the surface, when 5 J is needed for a burn
  • Surface of the sun is a few thousand degrees, inside is a few million

So like a jump off 10^3. No problem, should still be fine.

Not even remotely! I didn’t look too close, but the equation he linked has temperature raised to the forth, so a temperature jump of 10^3 would result in 10^12 difference in energy.

Which would increase the 10^-5 J on the surface to 10^7 J. Which explains why you’d only have femtoseconds!

A real double whammy of unintuitive results.

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1 point

Yeah I’d have been interested to know how long it would take to suitably warm up from the surface. I guess we’ll never know.

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15 points

The video goes on to say that if you’d managed to teleport into the core of the sun, you wouldn’t fare so well.

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