Now — and I’m sure my brother Michael will correct me if I’m wrong, a 55-mph baseball pitch isn’t considered extremely fast.
Still, I imagine it would hurt a bit if it hit you.
Now, you may be familiar with what a proton is: a sub-atomic particle found in the nucleus of an atom. Needless to say, a proton is very, very, very, very small.
If we take an human who weighs about 150 pounds, their body would contain approximately 6,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 protons. That’s 6.5 * 10^27 or 6.5 octillion protons. under normal circumstances, an individual proton is so small and weighs so little, you could not even notice it.
However, while researching something, I came across information about something that has been dubbed the “Oh-My-God particle.” It was first detected in 1991 by a cosmic ray detector at the University of Utah. Similar particles have been detected since then, confirming the discovery.
The particle is actually a proton traveling at a very high velocity. How high? 99.99999999999999999999951% of the speed of light.
At that speed, that itsy-bitsy proton had as much energy as a baseball traveling at 55 miles per hour.
And no one knows what is shooting protons around at that speed.