Method Instant death from radiation

[SoDead]

I find it very attractive to be able to die so fast that my brain will have no chance of perceiving anything.

I heard that one of euthanasia methods for small laboratory animals is microwave radiation which can heat their brain to death in a fraction of a second.

Do you think something similar can be implemented for humans? Perhaps with the right type of radiation it can be achieved that whole human brain is heated to a temperature at which nervous cells can no longer function in a fraction of a second.

Not sure though what type it should be. Microwaves may be not appropriate if they are mostly absorbed on the surface and heat large object not evenly, causing severe burns in some areas before others are significantly affected. From wiki:

The depth of penetration depends on the frequency of the microwaves and the tissue type. The Active Denial System ("pain ray") is a less-lethal directed energy weapon that employs a microwave beam at 95 GHz; a two-second burst of the 95 GHz focused beam heats the skin to a temperature of 130 °F (54 °C) at a depth of 1/64th of an inch (0.4 mm) and is claimed to cause skin pain without lasting damage. Conversely, lower frequencies penetrate deeper; at 5.8 GHz (3.2 mm) the depth most of the energy is dissipated in the first millimeter of the skin; the 2.45 GHz frequency microwaves commonly used in microwave ovens can deliver energy deeper into the tissue; the generally accepted value is 17 mm for muscle tissue.

As lower frequencies penetrate deeper into the tissue, and as there are fewer nerve endings in deeper-located parts of the body, the effects of the radio frequency waves (and the damage caused) may not be immediately noticeable. The lower frequencies at high power densities present a significant risk.

 

[Noctis]

I'm not a physicist, so I don't know what I'm talking about. But it seems like the small brain of a rodent would be way easier to insta-cook than our much larger brains protected by a thick skull.

I mean, it's probably possible, but the amount of energy it takes to instantly kill a human would likely be several factors higher than what it takes to kill a rat or mouse.

 

[Depressed Cat]

I guess this is technically possible. At some point in the future, this or something similar could be used in warfare.

 

[cyanlove]

Theoretically this could happen but it would make much more sense to do so chemically with injections or gas.

 

[lostautist]

There is no way any device you could find or build could realistically cook your brain before you could realize it.

Death by bombardment of photons. No thanks. You're already being bombed by many millions of billions of photons every day. Ionizing radiation death is pretty painful too.

 

[SoDead]

Theoretically this could happen but it would make much more sense to do so chemically with injections or gas.

However injection or gas usually do not act instantly. You have time to feel something unpleasant, or fear and regret. It is not like "press the button and instantly cease to exist".

There is no way any device you could find or build could realistically cook your brain before you could realize it.

It is not clear to me why. Nervous cells work rather slow compared to artificial electric circuits, and also brain itself does not have pain receptors. Radiation with enough intensity should be able to heat nervous cells to death before they have a chance of processing any signals about it.

 

[lostautist]

It is not clear to me why. Nervous cells work rather slow compared to artificial electric circuits, and also brain itself does not have pain receptors. Radiation with enough intensity should be able to heat nervous cells to death before they have a chance of processing any signals about it.

You would likely realize your loss of mental acuity or judgement, suffer trauma or even hear it as it's happening. Unless you were to be immediately blasted by megawatts of focused energy instantaneously. That's sci-fi and not reality. Check out Havana Syndrome.

 

[Faraknur]

Why did the Guillotine Go Out of Fashion? Only one failure in a few thousand executions. And you cant get much more Instant than that. Maybe a 10 ton Brick straight in the head

 

[SoDead]

Unless you were to be immediately blasted by megawatts of focused energy instantaneously

Perhaps if brain is quickly heated to something like 50-60 degrees Celsius, it is enough. No need to turn it instantly into plasma.

For rough estimation it can be assumed the brain is like 2 kg water. If we want to heat 2 kg of water by 23 degrees Celsius within 0.1 second (normal temperature 37+23 = 60), given that heat capacity of water is 4184, it should require absorption of 4184 * 2 * 23 = 192464 J of energy within 0.1 second, so a short impulse of about 2 Megawatt (or am I doing computation wrong?). Perhaps this is not that big, it looks like charging something for an hour from house electrical outlet at 1 kilowatt and then releasing all the accumulated energy in less than a second in radiowaves of required frequency.

I have no idea how hard this is actually to implement, may be this is sci-fi right now:)

Why did the Guillotine Go Out of Fashion?

It looks scary. And probably not instant. Brain have a chance of feeling something really terrible before lack of blood turns it off forever.

Maybe a 10 ton Brick straight in the head

May work fine but seems hard to implement and will make people recovering what is left of your body really angry:)

 

[myopybyproxy]

Spend a lot of time near nuclear waste spill sites? Or somehow sneak into a nuclear power plant. Considering human sized microwaves don't exist at the moment, to my knowledge.

 

[lostautist]

I have no idea how hard this is actually to implement, may be this is sci-fi right now:)

Uh.... start with creating a 2Mw focused magnetron and then try to find a way to power it?

 

[sadboyhours:(]

plutonium-processing plant took the life of experienced chemical operator Cecil Kelley in 1958.

He had an excruciating death after being exposed to a lethal dose of neutrons and gamma rays from a mixing tank. When he switched on the stirrer, the liquid formed a vortex and the plutonium layer was released in a pulse that lasted only 200 microseconds.

- Found this about industrial radiation deaths, gamma is one of the least ionising types of radiation so it means that its possible but Alpha (increasingly ionising once inside the body) would be incredibly better but also a lot harder to source. You could technically do reactions to form it as a by-product but it'd be complex without lab conditions.

I'm terms of the comparisons between us and rats for that suicide method. We have vastly more water in our body and brains so would need a substantial amount more of energy to gain the same effect due to waters high specific heat capacity. Theoretically it would probably be possible though

 

[NearlyIrrelevantCake]

Unless you're in the vicinity of an atom bomb being dropped, it's not gonna happen instantly.

 

[GentleJerk]

No.

Look at what happened to Hisashi Ouchi.

 

[Euthanza]

It's microwave irradiation.

Microwave Irradiation
Euthanasia by microwave irradiation with focused beam instruments is used by neurobiologists to fix brain metabolites without losing the anatomic integrity of the brain. Unconsciousness and death occur in less than a second. Instruments are expensive, and only animals the size of mice or rats can be euthanatized with currently available equipment (AVMA, 1986). Standard kitchen microwave appliances are not appropriate, because their beams are diffuse and animals might experience severe pain or distress

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 1992. Recognition and Alleviation of Pain and Distress in Laboratory Animals. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/1542.

Focused beam microwave irradiation used for killing purposes is a relatively new method and is permitted for laboratory rodents only in the US.143​ It involves rapidly and remotely heating the brain by application of a high energy beam, halting brain enzyme activity and inducing loss of consciousness due to diathermal syncope.6,144,145​ The approach was first used in neurobiology studies for fixing the brain and its metabolites, whilst maintaining anatomic integrity of the tissue;146–148​ however, it has recently gained traction for the use in the commercial stunning of cattle.144​ Presently, one of the greatest limitations to its use is the high cost of the equipment. Although welfare has not been directly assessed when using this methodology, it has been suggested that the animal loses consciousness and is killed rapidly (approximately 600–900 ms for rats and 100–330 ms for mice.146​ However, the full welfare consequences of the technique are yet to be fully explored, including factors such as pre-handling and restraint. Further research should focus on determining the latency to loss of consciousness, along with other negative welfare consequences as well as operational risks (e.g. failure rate).

Microwave irradiation has several advantages over conventional heating and these include homogeneous and rapid heating (deep internal heating), spectacular accelerations in reactions as a result of the heating rate (which frequently cannot be reproduced by classical heating) and selective heating.

Copy paste from many sources.

 

[Mr_House]

I find it very attractive to be able to die so fast that my brain will have no chance of perceiving anything.

I heard that one of euthanasia methods for small laboratory animals is microwave radiation which can heat their brain to death in a fraction of a second.

Do you think something similar can be implemented for humans? Perhaps with the right type of radiation it can be achieved that whole human brain is heated to a temperature at which nervous cells can no longer function in a fraction of a second.

Not sure though what type it should be. Microwaves may be not appropriate if they are mostly absorbed on the surface and heat large object not evenly, causing severe burns in some areas before others are significantly affected. From wiki:

One of these Honey's ought to do the trick, You die in a video game, You Die in real life - It basically fries your brain with microwave radiation, just like you said

Pick one up today, these baby's are flying off the shelves!

-Mr_House

 

[[HNO]]

View attachment 97739
One of these Honey's ought to do the trick, You die in a video game, You Die in real life - It basically fries your brain with microwave radiation, just like you said

Pick one up today, these baby's are flying off the shelves!

-Mr_House

ywn grind xp in SAO and die after first goblin encounter

 

[obafgkm]

Unless you're in the vicinity of an atom bomb being dropped, it's not gonna happen instantly.

I think there are documentaries about workers exposed to radiation from nuclear plant accidents. It looks quite painful and a conscious dying process like bleeding all over the body. Even at that level of exposure it may take a few days.

The Russian type radioactive poison is also quite widely reported. Not a quick death.

With access to that kind of materials, it might be more practical to fill a top-open washing machine with liquid nitrogen, jump in and press spin. Everything then becomes dust.