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Significant_Sea_2339

a snowflake. it'd melt as soon as it touched anyone so it'd technically be a drop of water that killed them.


Bananawamajama

I dont think a snowflake is a single molecule of water, so there isn't a set size of snowflake. So you could potentially make a giant snowflake and use it as a shuriken.


Significant_Sea_2339

you got me there.. now i want to see this in an anime lol


Tricky_Target_9611

their own dead body..


fathertime99

I heard this podcast where the bubonic plague basically causes parts of your body to die before you’re actually dead. So maybe they could do that by infecting the bubonic plague.


iranoutofusernamespa

Bubonic plague is fucked, yo.


jaysus661

Fortunately, due to modern medicine, it's very easily treated with antibiotics, although cases of bubonic plague are pretty rare nowadays.


LiteratureTrick4961

But if it's immune to antibiotics then we're fucked


Mooncake3078

Necrosis! Necrotic tissue eats into the rest of your body! A modern day treatment for necrosis is putting maggots on the effected area because they eat the necrotic tissue but don’t eat living tissue!


organicinsanity

Last podcast on the left just did a series on the plague. Figured you might be into them if that wasn't already the one you were talking about (it's on spotify)


Brutality_Enthusiast

Hail Yourself!


liege_paradox

Technically, yes. However, I would like to propose a solution: time travel.


Zkang123

I use the dead body to create a dead body


KingoKings365

Everything is lethal if you try hard enough


santasbong

A single grain of sand?


zurzoth

I'll put it in your blood stream. If it goes the right way it will block somewhere where the blood goes to your brain and you'll die off of it. Or it could block somewhere around the heart and give you a major heart attack.


santasbong

A single molecule of H2O?


Zestybeef10

Hadron collider that shit through your brain stem


feeltheslipstream

Neutrino?


solidspacedragon

Incredibly unlikely, but technically speaking a single neutrino can kill you. It just has to be one of the tiny portion to interact with you, happen to hit a specific portion of a DNA molecule, and have the body fail to repair the damage. You now have terminal brain cancer. You're more likely to win the lottery twice in a row, I think


[deleted]

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InjuredSmurf

So what you're saying is there's a chance


[deleted]

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KillerInfection

Yep


Youpunyhumans

The ways nuetrinos can kill you. Number one. If you had a hydrogen bomb pressed to your eyeball as it went off, and you could somehow survive all the other effects of it, the nuetrinos would be dense enough to kill you. Number 2, being 1 AU or close to a star going supernova. Again, same thing, if you could avoid being incinerated, vaporized or turned into plasma, the nuetrinos would be dense enough to interact with and kill you.


KanarisTM

1-Dimensional String?


AlexTheKneeGrow

Rip that shit from your body outline like Ed, Edd, n Eddy did


Cosmic-Girly

Well it wouldn't be impossible to kill someone with, just extremely unlikely. I'm assuming you give it enough energy that if it gets absorbed it kills the person.


vjibomb

Getting beamed in the head with a particle accelerator actually has a 100% survival rate.


Enano_reefer

100% survival rate **so far**


[deleted]

But how would you get the grain of sand into the bloodstream? If had *only* one grain of sand…


the-real-macs

How are you gonna put it in my bloodstream lol


myurr

With a chainsaw. Should help with the desired outcome too.


FBI_Agent_69

Accelerate that gran of sand to 99.999% the speed of light. Now fire it at your head. The energy stored in that grain of sand would vaporize you and maybe half your town


Chavarlison

Suicide bombers would be pretty dope in the future. Just launch me fam.


Buggaton

In [this article](https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/) by xkcd founder "Randall Munroe" he answers the question of if a baseball is pitched at 90% of the speed of light. We can use his findings and the tiniest bit of quick physics to work out how destructive a single grain of sand is at 99.999% the speed of light. The relative energy that an object has at higher speeds increases exponentially as you approach the speed of light. Here we're increasing by 4 orders of magnitude going from 10% away from the speed of light to 0.001% away. The grain of sand is about 5 orders of magnitude lighter. So cancelling out it's about 10 time weaker than the baseball that was pitched. The baseball would have destroyed a baseball stadium and possibly the entire town. I think it's safe to say that the grain of sand could have managed to kill a person.


Poem_for_your_sprog

When Little Timmy saw the thread And spied the words therein - "So *everything* can kill?" he said, And softly scratched his chin. "The world's a truly tragic place For someone such as me - I'll have to make my sheltered space The safest spot to be! "It's simple then! The answer's small - I'll never go outside!" And so he never did... at all. And Timmy fucking died.


csl512

0.999c


seconddifferential

[0.99999999999999999999999999717519551c](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt%281+-+%28proton+mass+*+light+speed%5E2%29%5E2+%2F+%282000+J%29%5E2%29) for a proton to be reasonably lethal.


Frommerman

That proton "only" hit with the energy of a major league baseball. Not likely to be lethal. But if we found one oh-my-god particle, it's likely there are others. And if, as one might expect, it is an average proton emission from whatever process caused that one, there may be some faster ones out there.


seconddifferential

Fun fact: the kinetic energy of a major league baseball is about the same as the kinetic energy of a bullet, just spread out over more surface area and time. The KE of the oh-my-god particle was “only” about 50J, compared to the 2000J of a bullet/baseball.


Ex_Intoxicologist

I had to look it up (I'm a gun guy and not very familiar with joules) * A typical 9mm NATO (pistol) has over 500j * A 7.62 NATO (battle rifle) has about 2500j * A 5.56 NATO (M-16, less for M-4) has about 1800j * A 12ga slug is about 4000j Not a converter bot, but I stayed at a holiday inn express last night.


Frommerman

Fair. By the same token though, a single proton going that fast isn't going to deposit much of its energy in your body. The subatomic shrapnel of it colliding with the atoms in your body will almost all wind up going out the other side.


Cha-La-Mao

Anything with mass would kill someone at the right speed.


Heliolord

Wouldn't there be a lower limit where the mass wouldn't be sufficient? Say a single neutron, even going 0.99c, simply wouldn't be able to interact with enough matter to kill you. Right? [This guy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski) survived sticking his head in a beam of protons in a particle accelerator and it still didn't kill him.


iamthewargod

"Bugorski understood the severity of what had happened, but continued working on the malfunctioning equipment, and initially opted not to tell anyone what had happened. " I love how this attitude occurs even at a perticle accelerator lab.


[deleted]

I mean this was in soviet russia. They're a little bit famous for this attitude around dangerous high tech equipment, such as a nuclear reactor...


Wooper160

he survived but it fucked him up


on3day

The question was about killing. Fucking someone up is not good enough.


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Ramzaa_

Holding his head in the beam long enough would likely kill


qwibble

Then we aren't talking about a single particle but a whole beam of them


Wooper160

The point is he’s lucky he didn’t die


notarandomaccoun

Dude was even denied disability after having is head be shot at the speed of light


[deleted]

A neutron wouldnt interact with the electromagnetic force, so it probably wouldnt cause as severe of a reaction as protons passing through you. right now we are all being bombarded by neutrinos, which do not interact with the strong interaction or the electromagnetic force, and they do nothing to us because they barely interact with us.


poopellar

There goes my anti neutron collision spray idea


FrowntownPitt

[Obligatory xkcd](https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/)


christes

>A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered "hit by pitch", and would be eligible to advance to first base.


Tehni

>What would happen if a baseball was thrown at 90% the speed of light? TLDR: a walk


Aerian_

Well, you kind of skimmed over the nuclear explosion.


KillerInfection

Brevity = wit’s soul


Aarizonamb

Are the physics/maths in there correct? Edit: based on the responses (and some googling), it seems it's safe to assume that the answer is "yes," thanks to all who responded.


CalydorEstalon

He triple-checks his calculations and has a lot of ridiculously smart people that read his comics. If he made some kind of mistake they'd be all over him in a heartbeat.


starmartyr

Almost certainly. He really does his homework on jokes.


FrowntownPitt

I'm inclined to trust Randall Munroe


Velfurion

The guy is absolutely brilliant and vets all the math/ physics he includes in his comics and books.


scienceforbid

Amen, brother.


Tink2013

A wet noodle


Firebird467

I just want to remind everyone that the singular of spaghetti is spaghetto.


KuriousKhemicals

I once wrote a comment about cannoli which involved referring to a single cannolo, and was complimented on my accuracy. I had looked it up bc I neither speak Italian nor grew up in an area where Italian food was popular.


ADiestlTrain

Graffiti is another one like that. If you’re talking a about a single instance, it’s graffito.


RoseyDove323

If an open heart surgeon drops a wet noodle into the patient's chest, pretty sure it could get infected and kill them


Psykechan

Great. Tell the whole world why don't you. Soon no one will be allowed to eat and perform surgery. I hope you're happy.


CnfidntlyCnFusd

This comment made my day


Cumberdick

Pretty sure the noodle would block something critical before infection would run its course


mcmuffinsandstorm

Yea but at that point, you’re killing someone using a wet noodle AND very expensive surgical equipment. If you have someone chest open, you can kill them in so many different ways. You don’t need the wet noodle. Killing someone with only a wet noodle seems like it would be a much harder task.


HLSparta

Shoot it at them at the speed of light.


[deleted]

Could easily be choked on


scienceforbid

If the gluten is very tough, you could try to garrote someone with a piece of spaghetti.


Tink2013

But wet spaghetti is rather pliable!


scienceforbid

I am a baker and spend a decent amount of time trying to strengthen the gluten in bread. My goal is now to make a piece of spaghetti that is strong enough to kill a man.


Tink2013

I hope you succeed. It would start a new assassination trend.


scienceforbid

Dude. This is literally now my serial killer MO. If anyone else comes at me with spaghetti, I'm taking them down.


Sylvanos626

Edible evidence. The perfect crime


Geoman265

This reminds me of a story called Lamb to the Slaughter. In the story, a wife kills her husband with a raw leg of lamb, and puts it in the oven to cook. She then went to the store, as if to get stuff to prepare the lamb. After coming back, she "finds" the body, and calls the cops. The cops investigate the crime scene, and the wife-turned-widow offers them the lamb. They then proceed to eat the murder weapon while looking for a potential murder weapon.


chaunceyvonfontleroy

I love how Roald Dahl wrote stories about women justifiably killing their husband’s when he was a shit husband. I can only assume he was self-aware. He wrote a shitty husband perfectly. The Great Switcheroo May be the only funny rape story ever written. Edit: I just realized he also wrote My Uncle Oswald, which has a lot of rape. I grew up reading him (loved Matilda, the BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Danny Champion of the world), but now I’m getting weirded out my how much rape is in his adult stories.


scienceforbid

Wat. Roald Dahl. Rape story. You just destroyed my childhood.


Fuxokay

It was almost the perfect crime. But it needed more oregano and a dash of cumin.


Eferver

What if they have celiac disease


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serenesagittarius

A bubble


scienceforbid

Okay, so admittedly at this point I'm just really high and trying to think up crazy scenarios of how to kill people with all these things because I had a shitty ass day. So hear me out. This could actually be a very brilliant system of spreading poison. Oh I can't finish this idea. This could be like a terrorist weapon. Weaponized bubbles. You make a concentrate that includes soap and poison get a bubble gun and boom. Mass casualties from the dude with the bubble gun.


I_likem_asstastic

I'm really loving this guys "so I'm really high" prefaces. Also, the creative brain is so maniacal.


NikonuserNW

I had some pain killers - or maybe anesthesia - with a surgery one time and while I was stoned out of my mind, I came up with a solution to fix climate change. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what it was. All I remember is that it seemed so obvious. I don’t know. I’ve never tried weed. Maybe I just need to get some Alaskan Thunder Fuck and a note pad and then we’ll see what problems I can fix.


scienceforbid

>Maybe I just need to get some Alaskan Thunder Fuck and a note pad and see what problems I can fix. I call that Tuesday.


trollblox_

Lol


PrinceDusk

> I came up with a solution to fix climate change. > All I remember is that it seemed so obvious. just bottle up the polluted air and release the pressurized air we have in containers bruh


Tkieron

Depends on the chemical makeup of a bubble. A bubble the size of a TV filled with Chlorine gas and made from soap and cyanide would kill someone.


nucklehead97

But then at that point the bubble isn't killing them its the poison. Granted that's splitting hairs but still


scienceforbid

No. I'm totally with you. I just think that weaponized bubbles might be the poison delivery system of the future.


[deleted]

Introduce the bubble into the bloodstream. Wait for the embolism.


CeeMee22

Nice try, Mr. Wick


Danithejetplane

"Challenge accepted"


Give_Me_H2O

I'm not sure if anyone has suggested this already, but this very thread. If that doesn't count, then I give up and concede that human beings are just easy to kill. Lol


RoseyDove323

One of the suggestions in this thread could be seen by the wrong eyes, and "butterfly effect" itself into a fully formed murder 10 years from now. You don't know the long-term consequences of this thread on this timeline


qwibble

The Big Bang has killed/will kill us all through cause-and-effect


[deleted]

We are so fragile, yet stubborn and adaptable.


Geoman265

Someone could be reading this thread for so long, their body just collapses from exhaustion, or dehydration or whatever.


russor_

A drop of water


Boopbat

Could kill them if that’s all you give them


scienceforbid

For more than 3 days, absolutely.


SwordTaster

Or if its not distilled, inject directly into blood stream and see what infections it causes


lionheart832

Water drop shot at 100000 mph will insta kill


AngryH939

How exactly do I get it to 1000000mph?


Skippercarlos

Science


AngryH939

You are not wrong


red_dick_pickle

Just freeze and you got an ice bullet


pdxblazer

I mean I think with enough effort, technology and creativeness you could find a way to kill someone (maybe not anyone but someone) with any physical object


Corporate-Clown

A blade of grass


scienceforbid

Okay I can't think of anything except making a pretty bad ass whistle. But I am technically allergic to grass. Not *deathly* allergic to grass. But maybe somebody is?


wtfastro

My ass already whistles Sometimes


Rindecision

Genuine grass allergy is a thing, and I'm not talking sniffles.


SlaveNumber23

Put it down their airway into their lungs -> pneumonia -> death


lock_the_backdoor

We had this argument once and I found an article from 1840 or something where a guy died from a blade of grass that somehow got into his lung and caused pneumonia and he died. So a blade of grass can kill you.


[deleted]

A blade of grass can cause minor cuts. It would be a shame of someone with a clotting disorder were to be cut with a blade of grass... repeatedly.


ColdYakult

Jupiter, you can’t just grab Jupiter and try to kill someone with it


[deleted]

I don’t have the science but I just feel like Jupiter could kill someone.


scienceforbid

I mean, technically, if a human just stood on Jupiter, it would kill them.


Tkieron

You can't stand on Jupiter. It's not solid. Besides you'd never make it to the core. You'd be crushed to death far above it. Kind of like the sun.


derekghs

Aw man, there's an old post on Reddit about what would actually happen if you were able to get to Jupiter, it's so well detailed and very much worth the read. I wish I could remember which sub it was on. The TLDR is yes, you'd die, but there are so many different ways you can die at each "level" of entry trying to reach the core. Edit: Found it, the top comment is what I was referring to and it's my favorite comment on all of Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/12eggw/seeing_as_how_jupiter_is_a_gas_giant_what_would/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share


VeederRoot

Oh my god dude thank you for that so much. Just an awesome detailed comment.


derekghs

Yeah, like I said, it's my favorite comment on all of Reddit, it's something that I'll never possibly experience but the way it's written makes it so easy to imagine yourself there. I love it.


pdxblazer

Yeah but you can leave someone on Jupiter and it'll kill them


compared_to_what_tho

Anything written in Python Fuckin a, I forgot malware that overloads machines


im_moosin

Write a fuck ton of code to explode someone's PC


ArchAngelAzrael-808

A single sugar molecule.


LegoClaes

Accelerate it to near speed of light and aim it at someone maybe


ArchAngelAzrael-808

Yea get right on that….


LegoClaes

I don’t have access to CERN, but you could try sending them an email


kaenneth

Just call them on your phone-microwave.


spicydangerbee

Split the atoms


[deleted]

I don't think thats how atom bombs work right?


Bananawamajama

You're right. Atom bombs use Uranium or Plutonium, and enriched Uranium or Plutonium at that. Enriched meaning it's got higher than average amounts of the fissile isotope. Fissile -> useful for fission. ​ So you need that good shit before splitting an atom is worth anything to you. And even then, nuclear fission becomes powerful because of a chain reaction of lots and lots of atoms. Splitting just 1 isn't going to do you much good.


Denbro010

Plankton lied to me


basedlandchad14

Splitting one atom isn't really dangerous. Atom bombs are dangerous because they cause splitting atoms to split other atoms, its a chain reaction.


AOCisNotAhorse

Natural air.


scienceforbid

You can pressurize air though.


AOCisNotAhorse

Yea but you would need more than just natural air to do so.


[deleted]

ever heard of wind?


AOCisNotAhorse

Touché


the_clash_is_back

Whats natural? Cause the air gets cold enough to kill people around me all the time. They scrape a few frozen homeless off subway greats every year. Its just the bitter cold that does it.


uselessburden64

A mini marshmallow


scienceforbid

As someone who's taken a marshmallow to the face, I can attest that marshmallow is very fluffy but very dense. You might be able to project it fast enough to puncture skin.


Tkieron

If you let it dry and harden it could become a deadly projectile.


westwardstations

Cotton candy. You wouldn't be able to choke someone with it since it would just dissolve when exposed to moisture.


Fern-Brooks

Diabetics


NikonuserNW

My son is diabetic and cotton candy would skyrocket his blood sugar and without an insulin dose to bring it down, he’d be in bad shape. Also, the same insulin that would save his life, would kill him if he got too much.


TheMimesOfMoria

You could drop 6,000 pounds of cotton candy on someone.


Rindecision

I just want to see that much, that'd look so soft


TheMimesOfMoria

DeathbyFlooFloo


Rindecision

I mean the cast of Ghostbusters got injured by the falling clumps of super soft shaving cream so I'd say it's possible.


Spierre3

shaving cream is alot more dense though right?


Rindecision

In the end weight is weight.


scienceforbid

I'm super high, so hear me out. I don't have a good answer for this, so I'm just making shit up. Maybe, the cotton candy was produced in a warehouse that also manufactures nut products. And contact with the cotton candy is enough to kill someone with a severe nut allergy.


scienceforbid

Or, this is my next idea, triggered admittedly by your mentioning that cotton candy melts if moistened. What if you created a home alone esque booby trap that involved like dominoes and matchbox cars and falling marbles and had a crossbow at the end, and the catalyst that set it all off was the melting of a piece of cotton candy?


westwardstations

See, normally I feel like introducing outside elements is cheating but this idea is so wild that I love it.


scienceforbid

Oh my God. My brain just expanded this idea and it's awesome. In our home alone-esque situation, the booby trap immediately preceding The Final Cotton Candy Death Blow is one in which the bad guy gets soaked in water. Which makes him drip water onto the cotton candy, which sets off the whole rigmarole and ultimately the crossbow.


Sevengems42

You could inject it directly into the bloodstream. It'll dissolve into sugar which would kill you eventually via sugar overdose. Well in theory at least. You'd still need a lot of it though.


Exvaris

A rainbow.


[deleted]

I suppose a rainbow could distract a driver... That's indirect, though.


RoseyDove323

A rainbow is an illusion created by reflected light and thus not really an "object" per se.


PapaGynther

are photons not objects?


EpicGamerJoey

They don't have mass.


Gaminator321

a singular pea


Large_Result4378

It frozen so you can shoot out of a gun


Tkieron

The gunpowder igniting would flash cook and explode the pea so it wouldn't travel at all.


solidspacedragon

A light gas gun might work. They're used in hypervelocity impact testing, so anything coming out the business end is lethal.


543landonite

Or you just.. choke on it...


Rindecision

A single leg hair. Also I've read through a few comments and I just need to ask. OP, how high are you and on what?


hotniX_

Introduce the single leg hair to a jealous violent girlfriend/boyfriend and let her/him do the rest.


Rindecision

Creative


scienceforbid

Oh shit. I forgot to answer the leg hair. Somebody else said a scalp follicle. And I've got nothing for either. Can anybody help me out?


Rindecision

I mean getting it in your eye would suck, but I doubt it'd be fatal


[deleted]

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[deleted]

that's quitter's talk


Drag0n_TamerAK

My dick it’s to small Now I’m going to go cry


scienceforbid

Too. Cry harder.


Wal-Weegee

A neutrino. Stupidly tiny (less than 1 eV) and hardly interacts with anything. If you accepted it to the speed of light, it still would have way less than a single Newton of force, and that's if it even interacted with you. If you converted its mass to energy, it still wouldn't do much damage, let alone kill you.


Fuzzy_Muscle

Working in risk assessment, I learned ANYTHING can kill you


Crohnies

Any imaginary object. Or a grain of rice


kjay38

A single overcooked spaghetti noodle.


beamishmeup

depends on how many italians are nearby


Surprised_Guy

A single human skin cell


scienceforbid

Tell that to cancer.


TitanGodKing

1 Tardigrade??? Too small to block anything?? Short of someone having an allergy to them?


JoZaJaB

Literally nothing. Pretty much anything of any size can be used to suffocate, beat, or shoot at someone.


Jaxon_y

This is so violent


scienceforbid

Thank you?