The question, posed on an online physics forum by a user named “Billy-bodega,” was simple enough:
“Supposing that the entire Earth was instantaneously replaced with an equal volume of closely packed, but uncompressed blueberries, what would happen from the perspective of a person on the surface?”
Where some might have seen silliness, Anders Sandberg, a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, saw opportunity — and lots of jam.
On Monday, he revealed his findings to the world, presenting a portrait of “Blueberry Earth” in a seven-page preprint paper.
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Left image: anilakkus, iStock
The question, posed on an online physics forum by a user named “Billy-bodega,” was simple enough:
“Supposing that the entire Earth was instantaneously replaced with an equal volume of closely packed, but uncompressed blueberries, what would happen from the perspective of a person on the surface?”
Where some might have seen silliness, Anders Sandberg, a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, saw opportunity — and lots of jam.
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On Monday, he revealed his findings to the world, presenting a portrait of “Blueberry Earth” in a seven-page preprint paper.
So what would happen if the earth turned into blueberries? For one, our planet would immediately shrink in both mass and radius. Gravity would weaken. Oh, and there’s the blueberry geysers.
To envision Blueberry Earth in all its glory, read the paper.
Here are the five best passages:
1. “Enormous amounts of air will be pushing out from the pulp as bubbles and jets, producing spectacular geysers (especially since the gravity is low). Even more dramatic is the heating: a lot of gravitational energy is released as the mass is compacted … [totaling] the energy output of the sun over 20 minutes, nothing to sneeze at: blueberry earth will become hot. “
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2. “The result is that blueberry earth will turn into a roaring ocean of boiling jam, with the geysers of released air and steam likely ejecting at least a few berries into orbit. … It is not inconceivable that the planet may heat up further due to a water vapour greenhouse effect, turning into a very odd Venusian world.”
3. “Meanwhile the jam ocean is very deep, and the pressure at depth will be enough to cause the formation of high pressure ice even if it is warm.”
4. “So, to sum up, to a person standing on the surface of the Earth when it turns into blueberries, the first effect would be a drastic reduction of gravity. Standing on the blueberries might be possible in theory, except that almost immediately they begin to compress rapidly and air starts erupting everywhere. The effect is basically the worst earthquake ever, and it keeps on going until everything has fallen 715 km. While this is going on everything heats up drastically until the entire environment is boiling jam and steam. The end result is a world that has a steam atmosphere covering an ocean of jam on top of warm blueberry granita.”
5. “One might wonder if this kind of exploration is worthwhile. I believe it is: this is both a pedagogical and amusing way of applying standard planetary science modelling to a system. Given how exotic exoplanets have turned out, the physics of blueberry earth is actually fairly normal compared to much that is out there.”
