End of the Earth II - Blaze of Glory

In honor of earth day today, many bloggers are posting things about how to save the earth, or retrospectives on earth days past. We here at The Virtuosi decided, what better way to celebrate the earth than to figure out how to destroy it? So that is exactly what we intend to do. This post will focus on the destruction of the earth by a laser beam. This is a familiar concept. Whether it is Marvin the Martian or the Death Star, destroying planets with lasers (or threatening to) is a common theme.



We will be considering two questions today.  The first is fairly obvious:  how much power would the death star need to destroy the earth?  The second relates to a topic of continuing interest of mine: how much would the death star recoil upon firing?