What If? (46 page)

Lethal Neutrinos

Karam, P. Andrew. “Gamma and Neutrino Radiation Dose from Gamma Ray Bursts and Nearby Supernovae,”
Health Physics
82, no. 4 (
2002
): 491–99.

Speed Bump

“Speed bump-induced spinal column injury,”
http://akademikpersonel.duzce.edu.tr/hayatikandis/sci/hayatikandis12.01.2012_08.54.59sci.pdf

“Speed hump spine fractures: Injury mechanism and case series,”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21150664

“
Th
e 2nd American Conference on Human Vibration,”
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/UserFiles/works/pdfs/2009-145.pdf

“Speed bump in
Dubai + flying Gallardo,”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg79_mM2CNY

Parker, Barry R., “Aerodynamic Design,”
Th
e Isaac Newton School of Driving: Physics and your car
.” Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, 155.

Th
e Myth of the 200-mph “Lift-Off Speed.”
http://www.buildingspeed.org/blog/2012/06/the-myth-of-the-200-mph-lift-off-speed/

“Mercedes CLR-GTR Le Mans Flip,”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQbgSe9S54I

National Highway Transportation NHTSA
, Summary of State Speed Laws, 2007

FedEx Bandwith

“FedEx still faster than the Internet,”
http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/04/11/fedex-still-faster-than-the-internet

“Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2012–2017,”
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-481360_ns827_Networking _Solutions_White_Paper.html

“Intel® Solid-State Drive 520 Series,”
http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/ssd/pdfs/intel_ssd_520_product_spec_325968.pdf

“Trinity test press releases (
May 1945
),”
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2011/11/10/weekly-document-01

“NEC and Corning achieve petabit optical transmission,”
http://optics.org/news/4/1/29

Free Fall

“Super Mario Bros.
—
Speedrun level 1-1 [370],”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGQGvAwqpbE

“Sprint ring cycle,”
http://www1.sprintpcs.com/support/HelpCenter.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=1531979#4

“Glide data,”
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=577711#577711

“Jump. Fly. Land.,”
Air & Space,
http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/Jump-Fly-Land.html

Prof. Dr. Herrligkoffer, “
Th
e East Pillar of Nanga Parbat,”
Th
e Alpine Journal
(
1984
).

Th
e Guestroom,
“Dr. Glenn Singleman and Heather Swan,”
http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2010/08/24/2991588.htm

“Highest BASE jump: Valery Rozov breaks Guinness world record,”
http://www.worldrecordacademy.com/sports/highest_BASE_jump_Valery_Rozov_breaks_Guinness_world_record_213415.html

Dean Potter, “Above It All,”
http://www.tonywingsuits.com/deanpotter.html

Sparta

According to a random stranger
on the Internet, Andy Lubienski, “
Th
e Longbow,”
http://www.pomian.demon.co.uk/longbow.htm

Drain the Oceans

Extrapolated from the maximum pressure tolerable by icebreaker ship hull plates:
http://www.iacs.org.uk/document//files/35/92/f3592/public/Publications/Unified_requirements/PDF/UR_I_pdf410.pdf

“An experimental study of critical submergence to avoid free-surface vortices at vertical intakes,”
http://www.leg.state.mn.us/docs/pre2003/other/840235.pdf

Drain the Oceans: Part II

Donald Rapp, “Accessible Water on Mars,” JPL D-31343-Rev.7,
http://spaceclimate.net/Mars.Water.7.06R.pdf

D. L. Santiago et al., “Mars climate and outflow events,”
http://spacescience.arc.nasa.gov

D. L. Santiago et al., “Cloud formation and water transport on Mars after major outflow events,” 43rd Planetary Science Conference (
2012
).

Maggie Fox, “Mars
May Not Have Been Warm or Wet,”
http://rense.com/general32/marsmaynothave.htm

Twitter

Th
e Story of Mankind
,
http://books.google.com/books?id=RskHAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false

“Counting Characters,”
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/counting-characters

“A Mathematical
Th
eory of Communication,”
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pdf

Lego Bridge

“How
tall can a Lego tower get?”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20578627

“Investigation Into the Strength of Lego Technic Beams and Pin Connections,”
http://eprints.usq.edu.au/20528/1/Lostroh_LegoTesting_2012.pdf

“Total value of property in London soars to £1.35trn,”
http://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/total-value-of-property-in-london-soars-to-135trn-8779991.html

Random
Sneeze Call

Cari Nierenberg, “
Th
e Perils of Sneezing, ABC News,” Dec. 22, 2008.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ColdandFluNews/story?id=6479792&page=1

Bischoff Werner E., Michelle L. Wallis, Brian K. Tucker, Beth A. Reboussin, Michael A. Pfaller, Frederick G. Hayden, and Robert J. Sherertz, “ ‘Gesundheit!’ Sneezing, Common Colds, Allergies, and Staphylococcus aureus Dispersion,”
J Infect
Dis
. (
2006
), 194 (8): 1119–1126 doi:10.1086/507908

“Annual Rates of Lightning Fatalities by Country”
http://www.vaisala.com/Vaisala%20Documents/Scientific %20papers/Annual_rates_of_lightning_fatalities_by_country.pdf

Expanding Earth

“In conclusion, no statistically significant present expansion rate is detected by our study within the current measurement uncertainty of 0.2 mm yr−1.”

      Wu, X., X. Collilieux, Z. Altamimi, B. L. A. Vermeersen, R. S. Gross, and I. Fukumori (
2011
), “Accuracy of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame origin and Earth expansion, Geophys.” Res. Lett., 38, L13304, doi:10.1029/2011GL047450,
http://repository.tudelft.nl/view/ir/uuid%3A72ed93c0-d13e-427c-8c5f-f013b737750e/

Lawrence Grybosky, “
Th
ermal Expansion and Contraction,”
http://www.engr.psu.edu/ce/courses/ce584/concrete/library/cracking/thermalexpansioncontraction/thermalexpcontr.htm

Sasselov, Dimitar D.,
Th
e life of super-Earths: How the hunt for alien worlds and artificial cells will revolutionize life on our planet
. New York: Basic Books, 2012.

Franz, R.M. and P. C. Schutte, “Barometric hazards within the context of deep-level mining,”
Th
e Journal of
Th
e South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy

Plummer, H. C., “Note on the motion about an attracting
centre of slowly increasing mass,”
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
, Vol. 66, p. 83,
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1906MNRAS..66...83P

Weightless Arrow

“
Hunting Arrow Selection Guide:
Chapter 5,”
http://www.huntersfriend.com/carbon_arrows/hunting_arrows_selection_guide_chapter_5.htm

“USA Archery Records, 2009,”
http://www.usaarcheryrecords.org/FlightPages/2009/2009%20World%20Regular%20Flight%20Records.pdf

“Air flow around the point of an arrow,”
http://pip.sagepub.com/content/227/1/64.full.pdf

STS-124: KIBO, NASA,
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/228145main_sts124_presskit2.pdf

Sunless Earth

“
Th
e 1859 Solar–Terrestrial Disturbance and the Current Limits of Extreme Space Weather Activity,”
http://www.leif.org/research/1859%20Storm%20-%2Extreme%20Space%20Weather.pdf

“
Th
e extreme magnetic
storm of 1–2 September 1859,”
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/8787/1/02-1310.pdf

“Geomagnetic Storms,”
http://www.oecd.org/governance/risk/46891645.pdf

“Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900–2005,”
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2476-2008.02.pdf

“A Satellite System for Avoiding Serial Sun-Transit Outages and
Eclipses,”
http://www3.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol49-1970/articles/bstj49-8-1943.pdf

“Impacts of Federal-Aid Highway Investments Modeled by NBIAS,”
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/2010cpr/chap7.htm#9

“Time zones matter:
Th
e impact of distance and time zones on services trade,”
http://eeecon.uibk.ac.at/wopec2/repec/inn/wpaper/2012-14.pdf

“Baby Fact Sheet,”
http://www.ndhealth.gov/familyhealth/mch/babyfacts/Sunburn.pdf

“
Th
e photic sneeze reflex as a risk factor to combat pilots,”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8108024

“Burned by wild parsnip,”
http://dnr.wi.gov/wnrmag/html/stories/1999/jun99/parsnip.htm

Updating a Printed Wikipedia

BrandNew: “Wikipedia as a Printed Book,”
http://www.brandnew.uk.com/wikipedia-as-a-printed-book/

ToolServer: Edit rate,
http://toolserver.org/~emijrp/wmcharts/wmchart0001.php

QualityLogic: Cost of Ink Per Page Analysis, June 2012,
http://www.qualitylogic.com/tuneup/uploads/docfiles/QualityLogic-Cost-of-Ink-Per-Page-Analysis _US_1-Jun-2012.pdf

Sunset on the British Empire

“Eddie Izzard-Do you have a flag?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEx5G-GOS1k

“
Th
is Sceptred Isle: Empire. A 90 part history of the British Empire,”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/empire/map

“A Guide to the British Overseas Territories,”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks-files/london-wikileaks/8305236/A-GUIDE-TO-THE-BRITISH-OVERSEAS-TERRITORIES.html

“Trouble in Paradise,”
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/01/pitcairn200801

“Long History of Child Abuse Haunts Island ‘Paradise,’”

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103569364

“JavaScript Solar Eclipse Explorer,”
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/JSEX/JSEX-index.html

Stirring Tea

“Brawn Mixer, Inc., Principles of Fluid Mixing (
2003
),”
http://www.craneengineering.net/products/mixers/documents/craneEngineeringPrinciplesOfFluidMixing.pdf

“Cooling a cup of coffee with help of a spoon,”
http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/5265/cooling-a-cup-of-coffee-with-help-of-a-spoon/5510#5510

All the Lightning

“Introduction to Lightning Safety,” National Weather Service, Wilmington, Ohio,
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/iln/lightning/2012/lightningsafetyweek.php

Bürgesser Rodrigo E., Maria G. Nicora, and Eldo E. Ávila, “Characterization of the lightning activity of Relámpago del Catatumbo,’’
Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
(2011),


http://wwlln.net/publications/avila.Catatumbo2012.pdf

Loneliest Human

BBC Future
interview with Al Wolden (
April 2, 2013
),
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130401-the-loneliest-human-being/1

Raindrop

“SSMI/SSMIS/TMI-derived Total Precipitable Water-North Atlantic,”
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mimic-tpw/natl/main.html

“Structure of Florida
Th
understorms Using High-Altitude Aircraft Radiometer and Radar Observations,”
Journal
of Applied Meteorology,


http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/912/edop/misc/1736.pdf

SAT Guessing

Cooper, Mary Ann, MD., “Disability, Not Death Is the Main Problem with Lightning Injury,”
http://www.uic.edu/labs/lightninginjury/Disability.pdf

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (
NOAA
), “2008 Lightning Fatalities,”
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats/light08.pdf

Neutron Bullet

“Influence of Small Arms Bullet Construction on Terminal Ballistics,”
http://hsrlab.gatech.edu/AUTODYN/papers/paper162.pdf

McCall, Benjamin, “Q & A: Neutron Star Densities,” University of Illinois,
http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=16748