Talk:3306: Accelerator Energies

I asked Gemini and the data point actually makes sense: A 1000 kg car driving at 60 km/h has approximately 8.67 x 10^{23}{ eV} (or about 867 sextillion electron volts) of kinetic energy. Andy311 (talk) 00:42, 3 October 2026 (UTC)Andy03

Did you really need Gemini to calculate ½mv² for you? Wolfram Alpha could probably have given you that answer without burning the rainforest... as much. 2A02:6EA0:C803:6245:0:0:0:32 03:50, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Even better question would be "did you really need to mention what you used?". Imo that's an ad bot and that comment should be removed 159.224.64.162 09:35, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

I agree, and also it's a bad answer for scientific reasons. The assumptions (1000 KG & 60 KM/H) are bad - the cars used in that racetrack weigh at min 3200 lb empty & 3400 lb with driver + fuel; 3300 lb (~1500 kg) is a better estimate; similarly, track averages for an entire race are vastly higher, and during an entire race, average speeds appear to be ~230-240 KM/H for recent Daytona 500's (single lap records are significantly higher, but from context it seems Randall is looking for an average race) - 60 km/h is so far off that it's a common minimum speed limit on US interstates. And lastly, the estimates in the original post have only one significant figure, so the output can't have more.

Wolfram Alpha says the kinetic energy of 3000 kg @ 465 KM/h (double both single car estimates, because two cars in opposite directions) is 25 MJ, aka ~1.6x10^26 eV. As a bonus, since other people can see my work and reasoning, they can easily spot where (if anywhere) I messed up. 9x10^23 is more than two orders of magnitude off from my answer, and also clearly not Randall's, because I think we can all agree the track is placed above 10^24.

I wouldn't entirely commit to it being spam - but I think "I asked a LLM how to think" is antithetical to XKCD & all wikis everywhere, and so I think it should be removed either way. 2603:8002:AE00:2F2D:79A6:33F0:A067:813 18:38, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

You can't "double both single car estimates" (you can, but it is wrong). This would magically increase the energy by a factor of 8 (instead of 2). Hitting an opposing car of same mass and speed is effectively like hitting an indestructible/inflexible wall. --134.102.219.31 14:24, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Yes. The total energy is double the energy of one car hitting that wall, because both cars have kinetic energy (if the reference frame shows tham as having equal and opposite velocity). Nitpicking (talk) 03:13, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

It's still really impressive that the LHC can accelerate fundamental particles weighing less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a kilogram to even a trillionth of the kinetic energy of a race car. That means a single bunch of 100 billion protons (with total rest mass 10^-16 kg) accelerated by the LHC will have energy comparable to a race car. 174.160.19.108 07:48, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

We should get two remote controlled stock cars going in opposite directions and different lines going around Daytona. Once they reach top speed (which takes a few laps, thanks to restrictor plates), crash them headlong into each other and see what's left--2600:6C50:D00:6:8D06:71D6:F0A2:C19C 08:26, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Description for Daytona Speedway. I don't trust myself to actually edit the wiki, but it would be useful to describe what the Daytona Speedway is for people like me who don't know. Also linking the wiki page for it is a good idea. Da0neDatGotAway (talk) 09:07, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Done Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 12:38, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Each lap is 2 1/2 miles, or about 4 km. I'm guessing "8 km" in the graph is "4 km for the regular car, 4 km for the antimatter car." 150.221.155.241 23:02, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

@Da0neDatGotAway Wait, why do you not trust yourself to edit our wiki? We want everyone to want to help! Is there something that we can do to make the experience of editing the wiki more enjoyable/less stressful for you?? FaviFake (talk) 19:44, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

I'd like to see more attention to the "excited" pun: the spectators are emotionally excited, and very soon their atoms and subatomic particles will be excited into higher energy states by the influx of energy emitted by the the matter/antimatter collision. 2601:19B:4103:97F0:4C25:69BD:828:E819 12:38, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Someone needs to add a table listing parameters for each of the accelerators listed on the plot. And the transcript should just list the approximate X/Y values for them. Barmar (talk) 13:25, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Check the history for the Transcript when it was temporarily a table. You can use that actual table in the Explanation and 'make more approximate and only casually informative' the Transcript, without losing any hard-won original researched information. 92.23.3.72 21:19, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

There are names for the higher orders of magnitude too. In increasing order, starting from 10¹⁸: EeV, ZeV, YeV, ReV (and QeV also exists, but is not on the graph, for it only goes up to 10 ReV). 1 QeV would be close to the upper end of the image. 2001:4C4D:12D3:9400:482:1C16:1CFB:F131 15:26, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Seems dubious to me - how would you even go about fitting 10^27 EVs into Daytona Speedway? You'd have to stack them ridiculously high. 86.22.132.121 08:29, 5 October 2026 (UTC)