One of Godzilla's most
famous aspects is his atomic breath. This radioactive beam
is emitted from his mouth to attack foes and annoyances from a
distance. While he has been shown to be able to control the
intensity of his beam, here I will be focusing on an instance he
uses it for the finale of the movie Godzilla: Final Wars
(2004). This is the climactic battle against Keizer
Ghidorah, a giant (100,000 tons/90718474kg) space dragon being
used by aliens to conquer the earth. At the very end of the
brawl Godzilla tosses him into the air and blasts him into what
appears to be the border of space, commonly thought to be about
100 kilometers above the surface of the earth.
It took approximately 12 seconds for Keizer Ghidorah
to reach the upper atmosphere so his velocity is given by:
sf/t = si + v ~~100000m/12s=0+v=8333.3m/s
And his acceleration is given by:
vfx/t=vi+a~~8333.3m/s/12s=0+a=694.4m/s^2
The energy Keizer Ghidorah must have had at the
upper atmosphere must thus be given by:
Total E=PotentialE+KineticE=mgh+.5mv^2
=
9.1*10^7kg*9.81m/s^2*100000m+.5*9.1*10^7kg*8333.3^2
=
3.25*10^15 Joules
Converting to
power we would divide by the amount of time to get 2.71*10^14
watts or 8.942*10^8 kilowatt hours. For comparison, the
standard American nuclear power plant generates approximately 5000
kWh of energy for the same amount of time. For another
comparison, the atomic bomb Little Boy exploded with an energy of
15 kilotons of TNT. Some simple conversion factors show that
number of kilotons factor into a result of about 1.7*10^7 kWh of
energy released, or about 2% of the energy Godzilla unleashed with
his atomic ray.
As you may have been able to tell, there are a lot of silly
impossibilities in the Godzilla film series even beyond , though
it is rather amusing to try and give some hard numbers to some of
the sillier aspects. It must be recognized that many of
these calculations are severely inhibited by factors such as air
resistance due to the immense size of the creatures we're dealing
with, it is still fun to get a sense of the magnitude of the
forces we're dealing with.
One of Godzilla's most
famous aspects is his atomic breath. This radioactive beam
is emitted from his mouth to attack foes and annoyances from a
distance. While he has been shown to be able to control the
intensity of his beam, here I will be focusing on an instance he
uses it for the finale of the movie Godzilla: Final Wars
(2004). This is the climactic battle against Keizer
Ghidorah, a giant (100,000 tons/90718474kg) space dragon being
used by aliens to conquer the earth. At the very end of the
brawl Godzilla tosses him into the air and blasts him into what
appears to be the border of space, commonly thought to be about
100 kilometers above the surface of the earth.