AsapSCIENCE - What If The World Lost Oxygen For 5 Seconds?

Short Summary

Main recommendation: The video's central answer is that losing atmospheric oxygen for 5 seconds would mainly disrupt machines and transport, while people would likely survive by holding their breath, whereas losing oxygen as an element from all compounds would be catastrophic, turning most materials and the planet itself into dust and gas. The video frames the first scenario as a survivable inconvenience and the second as near-total destruction of the material world.

Key Points

• Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe, and losing atmospheric oxygen for 5 seconds would stop internal combustion engines, which the video says are found in 215 million US vehicles.
• Cars would likely stop running immediately, and an estimated 100 airplanes taking off or landing every minute could make some crash landings likely, although planes already airborne could probably glide safely until oxygen returned.
• Cells have alternative pathways when oxygen is temporarily absent: during intense exercise, muscle cells switch to lactic acid fermentation, which uses glucose to produce energy.
• If oxygen were removed from all compounds, nearly all materials like concrete, wood, glass, stone, brick, and cotton would be left in simpler elemental form, and the ground would cease to exist since oxygen makes up 46% of the Earth's crust.

Details Worth Noting

• Concrete instructions: No preparation steps, doses, or procedures are given. The video states that if you can hold your breath for 5 seconds, you'll most likely survive the atmospheric oxygen apocalypse, and jokingly notes you may not want to be traveling during such an event.
• The ocean, covering about 70% of the Earth, would evaporate into hydrogen gas, and when oxygen returned, the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen would release large amounts of heat as water formed again.
• Living cells contain water, so the video says they would evaporate as hydrogen gas, leaving only carbon, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and trace elements, with about 75% of the elemental makeup lost.
• Cells lacking oxygen have been shown to reprogram themselves to prioritize making the most necessary proteins first.

Bottom Line

Holding your breath for 5 seconds would likely be survivable, but a world without oxygen as an element would be catastrophic, dissolving most materials and the planet's oceans and crust.