Heat Obliteration Unleashed- Mathematically

[Blackhoof]

I was thinking tht we can figure out roughly how powerful Obliteration's explosions are (the week-long sun bathing ones he used to destroy Houston et.al) with maths and science! Both for fun and to see how accurate Sanderson's science is haha

 

Now, first we need to calculate the surface areas of his torso and arms. 

To do so, I calculated his whole body surface area- assuming since he was described as tall and thinnish, an above-average height of 72" and a below-average weight of 80kg. I got the figure of 2.02m squared.

 

I then looked up the porportion of body area taken up by each body section, and added together what would be the uncovered sections of his body- torso, face, and arms. I got the figure of 49.5%. Therefore, the surface area of these parts combined is roughly 1m squared.

 

Looking around, I found this helpful paragraph, nicely performing calculations for 1 square metre.

"We can also turn the σT4 relation on its head and say that a patch of full sun (at the ground) receiving 1000 W/m² corresponds to a radiant temperature of 364 K, or a blistering 91°C. This means that a black panel in full sun could get this hot if no paths other than radiation were available for cooling the panel. We would then say that the panel is in radiative equilibrium with the Sun. But air can carry away heat by convection. The self-convection of a hot, flat plate will be about 10 W/m² per degree of difference between the panel and the surrounding air. Requiring the sum of radiative and convective losses to add up to the input power of 1000 W/m² yields a solution of about 55°C (328 K; 131°F) if the surrounding air is at 20°C. "

Source: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/basking-in-the-sun/

 

 

Since we know Obliteration loses heat through a glow and by giving it off passively, it is accurate to use the second measurement. (this is over an hour, btw)

 

 

Therefore, to find the amount of heat Obliteration is absorbing, we just need to multiply 55 by the hours he spends in the sun. To find this, I decided to continue using solar panel terminology, by reducing each day to its "Peak Sun Hours", which is the amount of energy supplied to solar panels per day expressed as a number of hours, if each hour supplied 1000W/m squared of energy. I've used the figure of 5, which seems accurate: http://www.letitgo.com.au/solar-engineering/19--estimating-solar-system-yields.html

 

Therefore, over a week, we can assume Obliteration absorbs 55*(7*5) degrees celsius worth of heat, for a grand total of 1925 degrees (3497 FH, 2198.15 K), wow that is hot.

however, it actually isn't that hot as explosions go, certainly not the nuclear effect described in Firefight.

 

for example, 1 Kiloton of explosives produces 2203148279.94 degrees Celsius of heat, and the Hiroshima bomb was between 12-18 kTs. There is no way such an amount of heat destroyed all of Houston.

I guess, however, that perhaps Obliteration can project more heat than he absorbs? After all, Epic powers defy physics all the time haha. In that case, he could increase the amount of heat by an unknown margin, and conceivably match any nuclear bomb in heat.

[natc]

We Epics need not make sense. It is beneath us.

Speaking of inaccurate science I kind of want to see an electrokinetic Epic launching arcade coins fast enough to melt through solid objects now. If anybody even recognizes a reference like that here.

[Paranoid King]

We Epics need not make sense. It is beneath us.

Speaking of inaccurate science I kind of want to see an electrokinetic Epic launching arcade coins fast enough to melt through solid objects now. If anybody even recognizes a reference like that here.

Haha. I'll give you a upvote for your current title of misting

[Topomouse]

I'm sorry but, WHY are you measuring thermal energy in celsius degrees? Really, your idea is good, and I would like to help you develop it, but physics just doesn't work that way.

[king of nowhere]

your physics is wrong because you are measuring the thermal energy in degrees, that's  a temperature. you should be measuring the energy in joules, because the same amount of heat will cause different heating if applied to a big tank of water or to a small pebble.

 

Anyway, even without calculation, his blasts should be nuke-level in power to destroy a whole city, and there's no way he can absorb enough energy from the sun in one week to do that. if the sun was that powerful, we woudn't have to worry about clean energy because a single rooftop covvered in solar panels would generate enough electricity too power the whole city.

Also,  the planet would be a ball of olten metal for the extreme heat, so we wouldn't exist and we wouldn't have to worry about anything at all.

 

But epic powers defy the laws of physics, so that's not a concern. obliteration can probably store much more than just the amount of energy he absorbs.

[Voidus]

Well it depends if it's just the sun or if he's passively absorbing all the heat around him, if all the air that touches him is reduced to near absolute-zero I can see that being quite a lot of energy over an entire week.

[Blackhoof]

But it would only be the air that touches him.

[natc]

But it would only be the air that touches him.

Once the energy begins to drop the surrounding heat moves in. It's still a tendency to positive entropy you know. The air doesn't stay frozen.

[king of nowhere]

Still nowhere near enough to accumulate a nuke's worth of power over a week.

[TheSpartanDuck]

Correct. It takes at least 16 solar panels to power one moderate household for a single DAY.

[Voidus]

If it were purely from sunlight which is about 1100 W/m^2 at sea level over a week gives about 665,280,000 Joules which isn't even 1 ton of TNT.

If the air around him were reduced to absolute zero, so a drop of roughly 300 K is roughly 300kJ (It's roughly 1 kJ of energy to increase 1 cubic metre of air by 1 degree) of energy per cubic meter of air, even if it circulates the full m^3 every second that's 181.44 GJ over the whole week which is only about 40 tons.

As was pointed out nuclear blasts are on the level of a few kilotons at least so we're a few orders of magnitude off.

[natc]

I'm just saying "just the air touching him" is, in fact, a lot of energy. Just not enough.

Which I guess means we have Epic physics going on. After all, Prof destroys part of the matter he turns to dust without any noticeable energy release (which would be enough to nuke the area really).

[Voidus]

I'm just saying "just the air touching him" is, in fact, a lot of energy. Just not enough.

Which I guess means we have Epic physics going on. After all, Prof destroys part of the matter he turns to dust without any noticeable energy release (which would be enough to nuke the area really).

Still a lot, certainly a lot more than just the sunlight just not enough to blow up a city. There's a few things that could boost it even more like the energy the earth radiates, background radiation and such but I don't think they'd be enough of a boost to compensate so yeah I think there's just a bit of handwaving going on.

The Rule of cool prevails.

[Blackhoof]

Indeed. I think it likely that he both absorbs heat, and magnifies it within him.

 

Which is why he can absorb the heat from a plant, and project an incinerating blast that must be far hotter than the plant could ever be.

[Voidus]

Indeed. I think it likely that he both absorbs heat, and magnifies it within him.

 

Which is why he can absorb the heat from a plant, and project an incinerating blast that must be far hotter than the plant could ever be.

Well if he reduced it to absolute zero that's around 300 degrees C, which is pretty hot.

[TheSpartanDuck]

Good idea. You are correct, and if he magnified it to Kelvin, then brought it to absolute zero, that'd be even hotter.

[natc]

You do realize that the actual scales for Kelvin and Celsius just have 0s in different places?

Cooled down to absolute zero would give you the same degrees in both, the actual number is just different because absolute zero itself has a different number.

[TheSpartanDuck]

o-0. *facepalm* My science teacher should whip by freaking butt right now.

[king of nowhere]

the specific heat of wood is 1.7 J/g according to a table i found. so, if he can drain all the heat from 300 K to 0 K, he should get 510 kJ for every kilogram of wood (of course that's aa gross approximation, as the specific heat varies with temperature, especially over such a huge range of temperature, but I can't be more accurate with the data I have). which is about the energy released by burning 20 mL of gasoline.

So, considering the plant was small enough to grow indoor (a few tens of kilos) he should get an energy equal to a few liters of gasoline. Which is not so small, when released all at once; a hand granade has less power than that.

So, I don't remember exacctly how big was that blast, but it seems the energy was roughly conserved in that scene.

[natc]

So, wait, ignoring nuke force for a moment, how much energy would it take just to take out a city? More or less than a nuke?

[Voidus]

So, wait, ignoring nuke force for a moment, how much energy would it take just to take out a city? More or less than a nuke?

Depends on the size of the city and the nuke, but I'd say it's at least on the same order of magnitude, a couple kilotons at least.

[TheSpartanDuck]

Wow. Awh I'm sooooooo POed! I just spent like an entire hour doing calculations and then the web page reloaded as I was doing work in other pages of safari! ERGH!

[TheSpartanDuck]

Ok, I'm honestly not seeing any of y'all's POV, so I'm going to do my own calculations using the Bombing of Hiroshima as a base. The one thing ya'll neglected to do was go off of a physical event that has scientificly been recorded, not using straight up estimates.

The equation of Joule transfer in the bombing of Hiroshima, with an Atomic Bomb, (which btw flattened an entire city, just like in Huston's case) was 6.3•(10 to the power of 13) joules. That's 63,000,000,000,000 joules of energy. Also, the conversion can be used in this calculation as well. 4.181 is the amount of joules in one ton of TNT. The amount of tons in the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons. There are 1000 tons in a kiloton. So to find the amount of joules in the bomb on Hiroshima, 4.181•(10 to the power of 9)= 4,181,000,000 joules. Then we have to multiple that by 1000 to equal a kiloton= 4,181,000,000,000 joules. Multiple the result by 15 to get 62,760,000,000,000,000 joules of energy transferred instantly. Accounting for the shock wave of the blast, and the destruction of power plants and explosives in Hiroshima, it easily rounds up to 63,000,000,000,000 joules.

Hiroshima's area is 349.4 mi squared. (From this point I did all my work on my calculator)

Houston's area is 627 mi squared

Houston is 1.8 times bigger than Hiroshima

There was 179.5 joules of energy per square mile in Hiroshima, so by using my formula, we can formulate how many Joules of energy it would take to destroy Houston.

By multiplying 179.5 by 1.8 we can determine how many joules per square area there were in the blast of Houston. Then by multiplying that number by the area of Houston.

179.5•1.8= 323.1 joules of energy per square mile in Houston. 323.1•627= 202,583.7. 202,583.7•4•(10 to the power of 9).

The final total of the amount of Joules that it would take to destroy Houston is ... DRUM ROLL PLEASE!.....

810,334,800,000,000 joules of energy. That's an incredible amout of energy.

This is only the first half of my calculation's but I have more where I'll explain how many tons, kilotons, and if Obliteration could actually store that much energy in just a single week, and if not, how much he'd have to magnify the energy and heat in his body to produce the required 810,334,800,000,000 joules to destroy 627 squared miles worth of real estate.

Edited April 9, 2015 by TheSpartanDuck

[king of nowhere]

So, wait, ignoring nuke force for a moment, how much energy would it take just to take out a city? More or less than a nuke?

well, depends. It is generally assumed, for the sake of an argument, that nuke=destroying a city. That's actually an oversimplification, because some nukes are more powerful than others (the tsar bomb was over 3000 times more powerful than the hiroshima bomb) and some cities are bigger than others (the hiroshima bomb dropped on new york would have only destroied downtown manhattan, which is a lot of destruction but nowhere near the whole city).

However, as a general assumption, it works. the hiroshima bomb (15 kiloton, about 60 billion kiloJoules) caused widespread destruction in a few kilometers radius, which is easily an average-sized city, although many people and buildings outside the city center survived, so whether it counted as "destroy the city" is left to your judgment. The tsar bomb instead knoked down concrete buildings 50 kilometers away.

In this case, to cause the level of destruction that obliteration is capable of, at least a few kilotons would be needed. If he wanted to destroy all of manhattan, more than that.

EDIT: many ninjaas

Edited April 9, 2015 by king of nowhere

[TheSpartanDuck]

Dood. I litterally JUST SAID THAT!!! And btw the unit we've been measuring in is just Joukes, so kiloJoules is incorrect when you said that the Hiroshima bomb was 60 bil kilaJoules. It's 63 TRILLION JOULES.