r/ScienceHumour

A hilarious but informative exchange between Rush Limbaugh and a caller (5-13-14) -

CALLER: It's an honor to speak with you. Hey, I've been a private math teacher for 14 years now. One of my favorite algebra questions to give kids is, "Let's say we made a global effort to melt the polar ice caps," and I ask them to calculate the amount of heat required.

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait just a minute. I love this. This is my point. I made this point. If Richard Nixon was sick and tired of looking at how big Antarctica is on the map and told his secretary of defense melt it, go down there and melt it...? That's what you've done.

CALLER: Yes. You first calculate the volume of it to find the weight, and it turns out that there's 26.5-thousand-billion cubic meters of ice down there, and the specific heat required to raise the temperature of all that ice one degree would take 51 trillion-trillion joules of energy just to raise the temperature of all of it one degree Celsius. Not even to melt it, just to raise the temperature one degree.

So I tell 'em, "Let's go big or go home. Let's nuke it. What's the largest nuclear weapon that man has ever created? The Tsar Bomb that Russia created throws out 50 megatons of energy." Basically, in short, it would take detonating 243,000 of those simultaneously to raise the temperature of all the ice on Antarctica one degree Celsius. It cannot be done. It's impossible to melt the polar ice caps.

RUSH: I want to go back through this. You'd need 243,000 50-megaton nukes at the same time to raise the temperature of the ice in Antarctica one degree Celsius?

CALLER: Exactly.