What if the sun stopped shining?

[Giroud Francois]

hey, who said that 6.5 bilion of people are concerned.
as far as i know, probably only few rich or clever people would do that.
as i said already, if it must stay only a bunch of us, there is a lot of ressource on earth for a thousand of people.
if you except lawyers, politician, nerds, criminals, gays, muslim, photographers, jews, cops, poors, car seller, all non-white people etc...
remains... you ... and me ... and a bunch of swedish blondes ?
That is the plan. Big consortium (Balckstone ?) are flooding the world with hi-tech goods.
So if something happens and there will be only a few people left, imagine the number of car, flat screen, computer, whashing machine, sex toy left all around in the world. you would never bother for anything. you just need to take it. and the huge internet bandwith (no more spam !) would be enough to transmit 4k resolution picture anywhere in the world using the 500 first RED camera ever produced.

[Mike Horrigan]

So back on topic...

How long until the average person freezes in their home?

Thanks,

Mike

[John Miller]

I can't imagine it would be more than a week. Imagine the coldest winter that is always the dead of night and getting colder. Hypothermia would set in pretty quickly. Water would become unavailable - pipes would burst, wells and lakes would start to freeze.

Frozen water = no hydroelectric power, no watercooling for nuclear power, no transportation of oil (seas frozen over). Oil reserves would dwindle very fast. No-one able to travel to/from power plants. Only frozen food to eat.

Panic would ensue on the first day, ensuring rapid decline in social infrastructure.....

Yikes!

[Kevin Shaw]

In case someone didn't already say it, consider that stars don't typically just "shut down" -- they undergo cataclysmic failure which would probably result in some form of immediate destruction. But supposing the sun did just switch off, I suppose we could assume some period of time for the atmosphere to cool - a day or two to reach freezing temperatures at various latitudes and deteriorating rapidly from there. You could also postulate wildly unpredictable weather patterns including vicious winds, rain, hail, etc. And it would be really dark, especially since the moon wouldn't be visible...

The amount of solar energy striking the earth's surface at any given moment is roughly 50-100 times the total energy usage of all of modern civilization. Turn that off and something very bad would happen rather quickly.

[Mike Horrigan]

Great info guys! So why are so many sites that I'm reading predicting a longer range of a few weeks survival? I want to be scientifically accurate, but I also don't want everyone watching to say... "What the hell? They're still alive after 9 days?"

It seems that most people think that the general populous would be history after a week.

Mike

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Mike Horrigan

It seems that most people think that the general populous would be history after a week.

Human beings are pretty tenacious, but 1-2 weeks sounds like a plausible limit for most of the population. Consider that roughly half of humanity has few modern amenities and would freeze to death pretty quickly, while many of the rest would have their infrastructure collapse and/or fall prey to the social chaos which would probably occur. A handful might survive for a few weeks in underground bunkers or what-not, but that would be grim at best. Any equipment not protected from surface temperatures would freeze up and stop functioning, so there'd be little left to do but huddle together and eat cold food to survive.

[Giroud Francois]

For the scientific advice, since it considered that you cannot survive without water more than 3 days, imagine than nobody will survive more than 3 days after all the water of the world is frozen.

but if you are writing a story for a movie or a book, it has also worked like this.
big problem- almost everybody die except a small team of tenacious smart people. and the rest of the story just shows the quest for them to survive , die or find other survivors.
there are already several movies with such a big deep freeze.
if you do not do so, your story is just two sentences.
"The sun goes down. evereybody died".

and nobody would really care how long it takes.
So you need to take a balance between reality (a deep winter in NY will give you the taste, with all this poor old guys dying in the streets or their appartments) and fantasy (whatever happens, there is always some of us to survive)
if you are looking for the truth, it is impossible since
- nobody knows (it never happened before)
- i doubt that the Area51 of a video forum is the best place to get scientific opinion.
- the start of your story is pretty impossible , the sun would not switch off simply like this.

[Paul Jefferies]

In filmic terms, you shouldn't really need to worry about exactly how long someone takes to die in your scenario, as, firstly, you won't be shooting in real time, so unless one of your characters leaps up and says "We're going to die in exactly 7 days", then your audience will just accept the fact that the character is slowly dying, without needing to know a timeframe.

Secondly, you'll find it difficult to show the passage of time anyway, as there will be no day and night, only perpetual night, so unless you're always cutting away to a clock, or a subtitle "Day 2, 7 am" etc.

Also, if your character really is in an average suburban house, their only source of information would be TV or Radio, which would stop working quite soon anyway, and I doubt the TV reporters would be giving out accurate information anyway, because they would know as little about whats going on as anyone...

Just my 2 cents worth...

[Mike Horrigan]

Originally Posted by Paul Jefferies

Also, if your character really is in an average suburban house, their only source of information would be TV or Radio, which would stop working quite soon anyway, and I doubt the TV reporters would be giving out accurate information anyway, because they would know as little about whats going on as anyone...

Just my 2 cents worth...

This is very interesting. My film takes place just as you have guessed. A lonely man isolated in his home, getting his news from a radio broadcast.

This is why I need a bit of a time-line. The radio announcer lets the audience know how many days have passed without the Sun, the current temperature, and how many days that are estimated to be left before the cold reaches a point where life can no longer exist.

The broadcast will end before things get too bad.

Mike

[Mike Horrigan]

Originally Posted by Giroud Francois

if you are looking for the truth, it is impossible since
- nobody knows (it never happened before)
- i doubt that the Area51 of a video forum is the best place to get scientific opinion.
- the start of your story is pretty impossible , the sun would not switch off simply like this.

I'm looking for a rough guess from some pretty intelligent people who also like movies. :)

As for... "the sun would not switch off simply like this."
Well, I think I stated that I'm using a religious revelation as the reason for the Sun's failure. Think of it as... when religion and science collide.

JOEL 315

Mike

[John Miller]

Originally Posted by Mike Horrigan

Think of it as... when religion and science collide.

Ah! So *that's* why the sun suddenly stops - the mutual annihilation of religion and science, as when matter and anti-matter collide :-)

[Mark Bournes]

Interesting reason for the sun to stop shining. Most wouldn't think of using that for a movie, they would go the scientific route. Most would probably die off quickly. Off topic a bit, but we have hurricanes down here in S. Florida and no one prepares until the last possible second. Same could be said for the sun.

[Mike Horrigan]

Originally Posted by John F Miller

Ah! So *that's* why the sun suddenly stops - the mutual annihilation of religion and science, as when matter and anti-matter collide :-)

LOL! :)

Mike

[Mike Horrigan]

Originally Posted by Mark Bournes

Interesting reason for the sun to stop shining. Most wouldn't think of using that for a movie, they would go the scientific route. Most would probably die off quickly. Off topic a bit, but we have hurricanes down here in S. Florida and no one prepares until the last possible second. Same could be said for the sun.

I'm not saying that is the reason, just one suggested reason. ;)

[Mark Bournes]

Yeah but it's a good one. Should be at the top of your list for reasons. You don't want to go to "Day after tomorrow" Too Predictable. I've been waiting for someone to do a movie about this. I would like to see what you come up with.