What would happen if an ant hit you at half the speed of light?

According to this:

Illustrative Mathematics

The average ant weighs in at about 4E-6 kg. Half the speed of light is 1.5E8 m/s.

Ignoring relativistic effects (for a moment), the kinetic energy of this ant is

[math]\frac{1}{2}mv^2[/math] = 45,000,000,000 J (4.5E10 J)

According to this:

Orders of magnitude (energy)

that’s almost as much energy as one of these:

This is the MOAB (Massive Ordinance Air Blast aka Mother of All Bombs).

Amazingly, if we include the relativistic effects, we get about 15% more energy.

Our collision with the ant is slightly more energetic than a MOAB.

I think the take-home message is clear: Don’t mess with ants.

Read other answers by

Dave Consiglio on Quora:

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from Quora https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-an-ant-hit-you-at-half-the-speed-of-light/answer/Dave-Consiglio