Forcibly Delete the Universe

This is the stuff nightmares are made of. When I was teaching a high school programming course, it took me awhile to gather up the courage to even type the following on a chalkboard:

rm -rf /

For non-command line cowboys in the audience, this is essentially a self-directed Avada Kedavra that tries to forcibly remove everything—all files, directories, and subdirectories—on a Linux or Mac machine starting at root.

I’ve never actually done so, and I pray to St. Isidore of Seville that I never do. Luckily, Quora user Eric Bowersox stepped in to bravely sacrifice an OS install for science:

Read Quote of Eric Bowersox’s answer to What will happen if I go the root directory in Linux/Mac and type the command rm -rf (forcibly remove all directories and subdirectories)? on Quora