Could you create a device that would compress some substance to the extent it would reach this weight or is that impossible?
this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025
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I believe that would be some form of fusion
So yes, for a moment
But also no
A very large no.
Such devices exist, namely stars. Neutron stars are theorized to have neutronium at their core, essentially a soup of neutrons so densely packed that nothing else fits between them - in order words, the densest theoretical material (osmium is the densest material found on Earth).
I guess I forgot to say it needs to fit in the package lol. I know it’s possible in extreme environments but can you create such an environment in this package is the question.
Just toss a few teaspoons of black hole in there.
no, i mean theoretically who knows, but practically no. compressing something to be more dense than a solid is energy intense. you are surpassing the bond energy of moleculesto do it. second, compressing enough osmium is going to take less, but still bigajoules, of energy. the compressive stress is immense. anything that could hold thht stress is much too big to fit in the package.
I wouldn't be too surprised if you could achieve that kind of density for a few fractions of a second with explosive powered compression. I'm thinking something like the electromagnetic flux compression technique used by Nakamura et al to make the 1200T magnetic field back in 2018. The package absolutely wouldn't exist for long though lol
Good news, it's 20-30 years away!
What about a piece of neutron star in those dimensions? Would it still be lighter than 70 lbs?
The common popsci factoid tells us that a teaspoon of a neutron star weights as much as Mount Everest, so maybe.
1 tsp neutron star < your mom
Correct. That's why I can't ship her using USPS.
Good news, after obtaining a piece of neutron star in those dimensions, you wouldn't need to worry about it anymore.
I'd like an Ai to draw a 4 panel comic of this.
Imagine shipping this tiny little box and it weighs 60 pounds. Poor mailman.
Last package of the da... Yo wtf?!?
"I have to clean here!" - lifts fat barbell, that some steroid man just lifted with both hands, with one hand and moves it elsewhere.
Not to be a killjoy but your basic mailman has a pretty low weight limit on the parcels they take.
you can balloon the box out a ways to get more volume
The surface area of the box is about 135 inches. If this surface area were spread over a sphere, it would have a diameter of about 6.5 inches and a volume of nearly 150 cubic inches (nearly twice the volume of the box!). 150 cubic inches of osmium weighs about 120lbs.
So, indeed you could exceed the weight limit of the box by ballooning it out.
Hmm, that might make it feasible to do with something that you can actually buy in large quantities, like tungsten! Would still probably cost four or five figures though.
Wait until I fill that box with quark-gluon plasma.
I'll go one better.
A (non-spinning uncharged) black hole with diameter 1+5/8th inches (so it fits in the box) has a mass of about 2.3 earths.
(Near as I can tell QGP filling the whole box is around a ten billionth of that.)
Of course the box would Very quickly no longer be outside the black hole. QGP would also cause the box to no longer be a container in short order. To put it mildly.
It would also reach its destination very quickly. Or rather the other way around. Free delivery.
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It’s because all the packages have the same domestic weight limit.
Seems silly, but makes sense in the context.
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Apparently neither of you are aware of how dense I am. ;)
But do you fit into that box? 🤔
Nothing one of those fancy new blenders couldn't handle.
I have mixed feelings about this.
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What about a ' shrodingers 71 pounds ' cat.'
8 5/8" x 5 3/8" x 1 5/8"
Don't write yourself off yet, learn metric.
It's only in your head you feel left out or looked down on...
For most of the rest of the world, that's about 219 mm × 137 mm × 41,3 mm
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at least 2 sci-fi franchised used "neutronium as a ex machina armor: sg1 and ST(exclusive to select advanced race who can use and make the "armor"
USPS GOAT. Fuck privatización.
But sometimes I have mildly inconveniencing experiences with the postal service in my extremely rural town that require me to navigate my extremely rural town's nearly non-existent public services so we should absolutely surrender complete control to Amazon
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He said "physically" which is wrong because Neutronium. What he possibly meant was "practically" in which Osmium would be the only element you can practically fit in the box since it isn't possible to synthesize neutroniun at that amount or handle that much safely.
I guarantee that it is physically impossible to fill a cardboard box with pure neutronium. Is it physically possible to get over 70 lbs of the stuff in there in a stable, shippable manner? I don't know, and neither do you. It's certainly far, FAR beyond the capability of any technology on Earth, but I guess it might maybe possibly not break the laws of physics. I can't prove that though, and neither can you, so neither of us can actually prove the statement wrong.
I always fill them up with that stuff black holes are made of, it's pretty dense.
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