In the world of martial arts, only quickness is the best!
A screw hits the spacecraft in space. Since its movement speed is as high as more than ten kilometers per second, even if the mass of the screw is not large, it will cause serious damage to the spacecraft.
A small bullet can produce huge destructive power because it moves extremely fast when it rushes out of the barrel and has great kinetic energy.
If the mass of this bullet becomes extremely small and the speed of movement becomes extremely fast, for example, it becomes a particle and enters the human body at 99.99% of the speed of light, then how much damage will it cause to the human body?
Some netizens said, haven’t you ever been exposed to the sun? Light can indeed be regarded as a particle, but photon moves at the speed of light, and the rest mass of the photon is 0, so photons are not considered here.
There are many types of subatomic-level particles in nature. In fact, in addition to photons, we are also hit or penetrated by countless other types of high-speed moving particles every day. This scene happens to you and me every day, but we cannot perceive it at all in our daily lives.
According to scientists' estimates, about 4 billion neutrinos from the sun pass through our bodies every second. The speed of these neutrinos reaches more than 99.999% of the speed of light.
But don’t we live well every day?
This is because the mass of neutrinos is very small, much smaller than electrons, and they carry no charge. Therefore, they basically do not interact with the substances in our bodies and will not cause any damage to any tissues and organs in our bodies. According to scientists' predictions, neutrinos can even penetrate the earth without any hindrance.
The greater the mass of the particle and the faster it moves, the higher the energy it carries and the stronger its destructive power.
Neutrino is one of the smallest particles among all types of subatomic particles. If it is a proton , what impact will it have on the human body?
The rest mass of a proton is 1836 times that of an electron. A proton, which is a hydrogen nucleus, can reach 99.99% of the speed of light through a particle accelerator. Calculations show that the particle will have an energy of 210 GeV at this time.
The eV here is called electron volt , which is a unit for measuring particle energy. 1eV is a small energy unit, equivalent to only 1.6×10^-19 joules of energy. Particles carrying hundreds of gigaelectron volts of energy are indeed nothing in the macroscopic world, but in the microscopic world they already belong to high-energy particles .
In fact, the universe is full of such high-energy particles. According to scientists' estimates, a large number of cosmic rays pass through the atmosphere and penetrate our bodies every second. Every few minutes we are hit by such high-energy particles with energies above hundreds of gigaelectron volts or even thousands of gigaelectron volts.
From an energy perspective, when a proton travels at 99.99% of the speed of light, even if it is hit, it will not cause any harm at all, because the energy it carries is very weak.
However, if you are bombarded by a large number of particles of this energy level in a short period of time, there is still a risk, because such high-energy particles can destroy DNA molecules, and there is a certain probability that they can induce cancer and even damage tissues.
In 1978, a Russian physicist named Anatoly Bugorsky was hit in the head by millions of protons with an energy of about 76 GeV due to an accident. To put it simply, he was hit in the head by protons . Although he was still alive afterwards, he also suffered a certain degree of injury and suffered facial paralysis.
In fact, the color-changing nuclear radiation that everyone talks about is essentially a collection of various high-energy particle flows such as photons, neutrons, protons, electrons, etc. These high-energy particle flows can trigger ionizing radiation. When a large amount of radiation hits us, it will cause serious damage to the tissues and organs in our body.
The universe is full of such high-energy cosmic particles. One of the reasons why astronauts need the protection of space suits and cannot stay in space for a long time is to reduce the harm caused by cosmic rays to astronauts. Fortunately, due to the protection of the earth's atmosphere and magnetic field, people living on the earth do not have to worry about the harm caused by cosmic rays.
In short, for a microscopic particle with extremely small mass, even if its movement speed reaches 99.9999% of the speed of light, the energy it carries is very weak and cannot cause significant damage. But if it were a grain of rice, even if it only reached 1/2 the speed of light, its destructive power would be staggering.
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