The world needs to end...

Read a short story called "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur Clarke.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

The idea that the LHC could destroy the world has been thoroughly debunked by science. There's nothing that it can do that hasn't been done naturally billions of times over.

I suggest an asteroid collision, or perhaps a small black hole. We could hit one without any chance of detecting it, if it were a small one. The world wouldn't be sucked into it, but the tidal forces of the collision would tear the earth apart.

Or maybe a particularly large solar flare.

Someone trips and accidentally hits the "self-destruct" button.

Two branes collide!

Might try A User's Guide to the Universe. The writer is a physicist who tries to break down some of very complex aspects of science into descriptions the laymen can understand.

I read recently that our galaxy is colliding with another one. If both galaxies have super black holes at their centers (ours does), the colliding galaxy's black hole could move through our arm of our galaxy and eat all the stars and planets, including us.

Your story would need to take place in the distant future, or an alternate Earth, since we'd know about the impending destruction long before it happens.

Somebody somewhere is testing a new weapon. Its more powerful than anyone thought. Whoever designed it need not even be on Earth (think Marvin the Martian and his "Ka-boom"--or Vogons making room for a new Hyperspace bypass).

Then again some time traveller might accidentally prevent the planet from forming.

God wakes up, ending this particular dream.

In theory (as I understand it) somewhere in the cosmos is a naked singularity, out of which might pop anything at all. And I mean anything. Like--Cthululhu. Or a giant mutant Star Goat. Or Galactus.

Gotta admit I'm awfully curious what kind of story needs this detail...

who says you can't stop a black hole? Its an object with mass, it is affected by gravity. if one is zooming through the galaxy, you could nudge it off its path using gravity.

Black holes are so super-massive even light is sucked back in. No way you could "nudge" it off course, any more than an ant can "nudge" a freight train.

You could try Geocide or Exit Mundi for ideas.

What do you actually mean by "world needs to end"?
- Earth--the whole planet--gets demolished?
- All life on Earth gets killed?
- All living creatures larger than microbes get killed?
- All human life gets killed?
- Modern civilization gets destroyed?

Kathie Freeman said:

Black holes are so super-massive even light is sucked back in. No way you could "nudge" it off course, any more than an ant can "nudge" a freight train.

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They're not necessarily super-massive; just super-dense. Naturally-occurring black holes can be as light as a couple dozen times the mass of the Sun. Eventually we'll have the technology to move, say, a whole cluster of fairly large stars to provide a "nudge". (We're talking timescales in the millennia.)

But of course that doesn't fulfill the requirements of the OP.

My first thought was a gamma ray burst. But (fortunately) there aren't any good candidates for one close enough to fry the Earth.

Actually, I've got the same question as FennelGiraffe; so until we know what specific result is needed, it's probably not worthwhile speculating.

Vogons.

Seriously though the original question is too light on detail which makes it sound silly. A planet doesn't just explode or implode 'without making a big fuss about it'

jclarkdawe said:

Read a short story called "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur Clarke.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

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An excellent suggestion and more likely for stopping everything all at once.

maggi90w1 said:

What I meant with "without making a big fuss" is, that the people are not supposed to know what's going to hit them. Everything seems normal the one moment and the next moment everybody is dead.

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You are looking for an impossibility. If something is coming along that will end all life on Earth, then someone will notice it beforehand, unless it is as subtle as the Nine Billion Names of God.

kuwisdelu said:

Someone trips and accidentally hits the "self-destruct" button.

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OR someone forgets to push the button. Excuse my Lost reference.

maggi90w1 said:

I see. Too bad. I guess the idea will go into my clutter-box then.
Thank you for your help anyway, guys.

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This is getting WAY beyond my ability to explain, but IIRC in A Brief History of Time the Big Bang might have happened many times, only to have the universe contract back in on itself to Big Bang out again at some "time" later. In a sci-fi world, could it be possible for "mini-Big Bangs" to occur in localized areas only to contract back onto themselves and vanish, taking planets, stars, etc. with it? This might be all levels of wrong in a Stephen Hawking sense, but possible for the sake of the story?

maggi90w1 said:

I see. Too bad. I guess the idea will go into my clutter-box then.
Thank you for your help anyway, guys.

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Itt's still a good mind exercise. You might be able to think of something that would come close. If a new universe started just outside the orbit of Uranus, what would that do to Earth?

Just make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights.
It worked the first time.

maggi90w1 said:

What I meant with "without making a big fuss" is, that the people are not supposed to know what's going to hit them. Everything seems normal the one moment and the next moment everybody is dead.

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One question - where's the story in that?

Sudden extinction of all life doesn't make for a great story unless there's a survivor:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089869/

It's an oldy but a goody.