Thunder Clap Armageddon

In a superhero setting, a thunder clap is where someone claps with superhuman strength, causing damage such as broken windows and burst eardrums. What I want to know is, taken to the extreme of the extreme what is the maximum possible damage a thunder clap can do?

Read https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ for a good starting point but that's only 90% the speed of light. I'm allowing speeds much faster than that. Additionally, the collision of invincible fast objects should cause something at least slightly different.

I wonder if the waves could be strong enough to break the Earth into pieces which fly out near the speed of light smashing into stars and planets causing a chain reaction. Or maybe as time and space bends around the incoming hands (via special relativity?) the collision will punch a hole in the space-time continuum causing a sizable worm hole of disastrous effect.

The man doing the clap is strong, fast, and completely invincible. He is the size of an average adult male and is standing on Earth. His strength can be any finite number of newtons, his speed can be anything less than the speed of light, he is completely and utterly invincible even if the universe gets destroyed. Feel free to use speeds such as c - 10^(-(graham's number)) or even faster. He does not need to be standing at sea level but he does have to be standing and not in flight.

I'd like to see qualitative answers (such as the XKCD example) that I can understand. I am more interested in interesting answers than ones that strictly follow my rules.

posted almost 9 years ago

SkySpiral7‭

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