Scientist Reveals Goriest and Most Extreme Ways To Die

Killed by a Neutron Star

One of the truly bizarre questions Doherty and Cassidy faced came from a Reddit user who wanted to know how "spectacular" a human's death would be if they were a mile away from a neutron star. It seems unlikely, but you never know if you will be near one in the future.

They wrote:

"A neutron star has a couple of times the mass of the sun compressed into a sphere the size of a city.

"You'll probably be killed by the radiation produced as matter falls into the neutron star on the way in, and certainly at a close distance of 1 mile. But let's assume the neutron star is unnaturally quiet. You'll be in free fall. and as usual it's not the fall that kills you. However in this case that might not be true, gravity is stronger at close distances and weaker further away. This means if your head is pointed toward the neutron star it will be tugged toward the star much more strongly than your feet and this tidal force will rip you apart. Check out Larry Niven's short story 'Neutron Star' for details.

"There is another way to die however, some neutron stars are a hundred billion times stronger magnets than the strongest magnets on earth. At those levels of magnetism your atoms are distorted into thin cigars and all the bonds between atoms that make up the molecules in your body are broken so you become a human shaped plasma cloud that is tidally stretched and pulled into the star where you impact the surface and generate lethal gamma radiation."

Dying in a Falling Elevator

If you get stuck in a falling elevator, there is very little chance of leaving that little box alive. Jumping in an elevator might not help, but Doherty and Cassidy said you could lay flat on your back. This would spread the G-forces out evenly through your body. If you stand up, your organs will just keep falling through you, even if the rest of your body has stopped.

"Laying flat on your back is the best way to spread out the G forces evenly through your body. If you're standing up, your organs may keep falling even though your body has stopped.

You should also hope that your elevator fits snugly in its shaft, so the pillow of air below the car slows the fall and the broken elevator cable below can provide some cushioning. Crossing your fingers is also a good idea."

One person replied that they will start all their elevator rides by laying on their back from now on. "That will be convenient," another person wrote.

Death by Sound

It is actually possible for a sound to be so loud, it could keep you from standing and kill you. According to Doherty and Cassidy, 120 decibels is "painfully loud." If you listen to any sound on Venus it could kill you, since music would sound 10,00 times more intense than it does on Earth. Not even Spinal Tap would want you to listen to their music at that volume.

"Non-musical sound called a shock wave can be much more intense. A shock wave from a bomb blast or meteorite strike can produce a pressure wave which will blow out the alveoli in your lungs. And maybe the 190 dB sound wave would destroy alveoli as well. Any volunteers?

"If you want the full Death Metal sound experience however go to Venus with its dense atmosphere, musical sound there can be 10,000 times more intense than music on Earth. Go ahead and turn it up to 11."

Drowning in the Mariana Trench

The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the oceans, located east of the Mariana Islands and the Philippines. The crescent-shaped scar in the earth's surface reaches a maximum-known depth of 10,994 meters, or 36,070 feet.

If you tied a weight around yourself and was sent to the bottom of the trench, you would die long before your body reached the bottom. There's no air and the pressure would crush you, according to Doherty and Cassidy.

They wrote:

"So, if you sank to the bottom of the Mariana trench you would drown before you reached a crushing depth. If you're interested in a more interesting demise, you should swim out of James Cameron's submersible at the bottom. Fortunately you're mostly water, and water is incompressible. So you would retain your basic human shape. The air pockets inside you, namely in your nasal cavity, throat and chest, would be a problem. Those would collapse inward, which would fatal.

Because you wouldn't have any air, you wouldn't float to the surface and you would likely stay at the bottom to be consumed by the Bone-eating snot flower, which usually eats whale bones but would probably make an exception in this case."

Journey Through the Center of the Earth

Jules Verne just wanted to get to the center of the earth, never mind through it. Doherty and Cassidy wrote that falling through the earth would only take 45 minutes, but it's not likely you will live to tell the tale.

They wrote:

"Jumping into a hole in the earth is a classic physics homework problem. The answer is that it takes 45 minutes to get to the other side.

"However that simple answer misses most of the fun.

"From a point in north america the surface of the earth is moving to the east at a few hundred miles per hour. The center of the earth is not. So if you fall into an evacuated hole you have to slow down by 800 miles per hour by rubbing along the wall. Not good! To get around this problem dig the hole from pole to pole.

"The next problem is that it gets hot as you go down, the center of the earth is hotter than the surface of the sun, so you'd cook. You are going to need a refrigerated impossibly well insulated suit.

"And indeed you'll need to remove the air in the tube. The pressure and density of the air starts out doubling every 15,000 feet of depth (3 miles) so after 10 doublings at 150,000 feet and 30 miles the air is as dense as water and you sink no further."

Another Reddit user asked if gravity would make falling through the earth impossible. Surprisingly, the authors said that you would be traveling so fast, it would not.

"If you ignore air resistance (say you vacuumed sealed the tube) you would pass the middle of earth falling at 18,000 mph. Then your inertia would carry you to the other side, sort of like a swing at a playground."

Pressed to Death

Doherty was asked about an ancient form of torture and he brought up "pressing." There actually was a French form of torture called "Peine forte et dure," where weights were put on a person's chest until he or she confessed or gave up the information officials wanted.

"An ancient form of torture is called pressing, a person is strapped down and weights are piled on their chest," Doherty wrote. "People can survive for a couple of days with 400 pounds of rocks pressing them. Eventually they tire, stop breathing and suffocate."

Can You Survive Being Buried Alive?

This one was not included in Doherty and Cassidy's AMA, but it is a particularly gruesome way to die. During an early episode of Mythbusters, special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman tested the myth that you can stay alive in a coffin for at least a day.

Hyneman actually got inside a casket and believed that humans could survive at least three hours, as the CO2 started coming in. The casket also started buckling in as they dumped more dirt on it. Hyneman made it in for 30 minutes.

The Mythbusters team determined that it was not possible to survive long inside a casket, buried alive. It was a myth busted.