Now that we all have that nonsense,

egghead, string theory nerd business out of the way,

you know my favorite thing to do after I do a long series, like I did on string theory, is to blow

something up.

I mean, it just releases all that energy we spend talking about arcane mathematics.

Now we could just, now we can just blow something up.

And my most favorite thing to blow up, of course, is stars.

Let's blow up some stars. And let's, because it's special, let's try to find a way to blow up, of course, is stars. Let's blow up some stars. And let's, because

it's special, let's try to find a way to blow up a star in the most magnificent way possible.

I'm talking bigger than a Nova, bigger than a kilonova, which is another episode, if you,

if you want to ask. Bigger than a supernova. I'm talking about a hypernova.

Yes, a hypernova.

We sorted out the definitions of Nova and Supernova about 100 years ago, but of course, Mother

Nature outwitted us because we thought we had taken the most extreme, the most powerful

explosions in the known universe, called those supernova, and we were done with it, wiped our hands

and moved on. But of course, Mother Nature outwitted us. And all it took was enough observations

to reveal how much more powerful these explosions can be.

How big is a hypernova?

Up to 100 times more powerful than a supernova,

which, if you'll recall, are already brighter than 100 billion individual stars.

So a single hypernova can outshine a hundred galaxies. That's a lot of energy.

Okay? It's 10 to the 46 joules. And if that number means nothing to you, which why should it?

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