In the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Vogons demolished Earth. They said it would take approximately 2 minutes, so how much energy would they have needed to obliterate our planet? Would kicking the planet out of its orbit have been more energy efficient than simple destruction?
• In a word, yes. If the Vogons wanted total obliteration within 2 minutes, the “beams” they use would have to work very fast, at least at about 50 kilometres per second. This should disperse everything, but would require a massive energy input delivered at several times the speed of sound…
