Imagine if all the Earth's oxygen
disappeared?
Not forever,
just for, say,
an hour?
Take a nice deep breath.
Feel how satisfying that is?
”Nice.”
What you're breathing in is oxygen.
And it takes up roughly
21% of our atmosphere.
It's not the most abundant gas
in our atmosphere.
“Way to breath, No-Breath.”
But it is the most important.
Plants,
animals,
water
and us humans
wouldn't be where we are today
without oxygen.
But now you're saying goodbye
to that sweet, sweet,
breathable air
for an entire hour.
And spoiler,
it doesn’t look good for you.
*Arnie screaming noises*
The world record
for the longest-held breath
clocks in at 24 mins and 37 seconds.
Not bad.
But that doesn’t do you much good,
considering the average person
can hold their breath from
30 to 90 seconds tops.
Woah, brace yourself.
This is going to hurt.
If the world suddenly lost oxygen
for a whole hour,
the rapid decrease in pressure
would painfully blow out your inner ear.
How much pressure?
Well, think of standing on top
of Mount Everest,
only instantly.
This would leave you
stumbling for balance
as you suffocate.
Oh, did I not mention the suffocation?
Yeah, as you struggle
to catch your breath,
your heart would start
beating in overdrive.
This is a problem
seeing as how your heart and lungs
need oxygen to function.
When that's off the table,
you can expect excruciating chest pains.
After six minutes max,
your brain would be out of oxygen,
which means, well,
you'd be dead.
Sucks, right?
Well, it gets even worse.
You see, an average person
weighing 80 kg (176 lb)
consists of 52 kg (114 lb) of oxygen.
With oxygen gone for the entire hour,
65% of your body would just go
poof.
Yeah, I'm talking
Thanos snap-disintegration-poof.
So much for the human race.
But how would the rest of the planet fare?
Well, in just one hour,
the Earth would look completely different.
Without oxygen,
you can say goodbye to the Hoover Dam,
the Pantheon Dome
and anything else made of concrete.
These structures
would instantly collapse.
Oxygen acts as a special binding agent
to concrete.
Without it,
concrete is just dust.
Speaking of buildings,
any untreated metal
would be instantly fuzed.
There's a layer of oxidation on metals
that prevents them from welding together.
Without that layer,
metals would immediately
bind to each other.
And that's just at ground level.
It's getting a whole lot worse up top.
The ozone layer,
our protection against the Sun's UV rays,
is made up of oxygen atoms
that have bonded to create ozone.
Take away the oxygen,
and the Earth would get extremely hot.
There would be nothing to protect us
from the Sun's UV rays.
Having a good time yet?
Well, don't expect it to last too long.
Without oxygen,
there's no fire.
The combustion process
in vehicles wouldn't happen.
Any mode of transport that isn't electric
would automatically fail.
Planes would fall from the sky
and millions of cars
would be left eroded and abandoned.
The sky would be completely dark.
Light from the Sun bounces off
multiple particles in the air
before it hits the Earth.
Without oxygen in the atmosphere,
there are fewer things to bounce off,
and the sky would appear dark,
almost black.
Oh, yeah.
And while all this is happening,
the Earth's crust
would completely crumble.
That's because the Earth’s crust
is 45% oxygen.
The crust would crumble
and continue to crumble
until there's nothing left,
sending the planet into a freefall.
And that's our time.
The hour is over
and the oxygen is flowing freely again.
Too bad you won't get to breathe it in.
what with the planet being destroyed
and all human life disintegrated.
But would new life
emerge from the ashes?
Well, if it did,
I hope they have
stronger lungs than we did.
Luckily, you can take a deep breath
of 21% oxygen
knowing this will never happen.
Wow, I've never missed breathing so bad.
And, you know, I could use some more.
”Another!”
What if oxygen doubled
in Earth's atmosphere?
Well, that's a story for another WHAT IF.