Professor to describe 'uncanny physics of comic book superheroes'

University of Minnesota ^ | 15-Feb-2004 | Press release

[AdmSmith]

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL--Can you teach a physics class with only comic books to illustrate the principles? University of Minnesota physics professor James Kakalios has been doing it since 1995, when he explained the principle of conservation of momentum by calculating the force of Spider-Man's web when it snagged the superhero's girlfriend as she plummeted from a great height.

Kakalios will describe a freshman seminar class he teaches, "Physics of Comic Books," at 11 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 15, during the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Seattle. His talk is part of the symposium "Pop Physics: The Interface Between Hard Science and Popular Culture," one of two symposia in the Science, Entertainment and the Media category.

"Comic books get their science right more often than one would expect," said the gregarious Kakalios. "I was able to find examples in superhero comic books of the correct descriptions of basic physical principles for a wide range of topics, including classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, and even quantum physics."

Take, for example, the strength of Superman. To leap a 30-story building in a single bound, Superman's leg muscles must produce nearly 6,000 pounds of force while jumping, Kakalios calculates. The Man of Steel was that strong because he was designed to resist Krypton's powerful gravity. But for a planet with an Earth-like surface to have so much stronger gravity, it would need neutron star material in its core--a highly unstable situation. No wonder the planet exploded. Other topics considered in Kakalios' class include:

Is it possible to read minds as Prof. X of the X-Men does?

If Spider-Man's webbing is as strong as real spider silk, could it support his weight as he swings between buildings?

Can the mutant master of magnetism Magneto levitate people using the iron in their blood?

If you could run as fast as the Flash, could you run up the side of a building or across the ocean, and how often would you need to eat?

"Once the physical concepts such as forces and motion, conservation of energy, electricity and magnetisms, and elementary quantum mechanics are introduced to answer these and other questions, their real-world applications to automobile airbags, cell phones, nanotechnology and black hole formation are explained," said Kakalios. "The students in this class ranged from engineering to history majors, and while not all were comic book fans, they all found it an engaging and entertaining way to learn critical thinking and basic physics concepts."

[Fedora]

> The character was Dr. Doom. I've mentioned on several threads, but Lucas stole just about this entire character in making Darth Vader.

Yep, I've suspected that, too :) Also I found it interesting Baron Karza of "The Micronauts" came out the same time as Vader but seemed to have developed independently. I think both Vader and Karza's costumes were influenced by Japanese samurai armor as well as by Doom. And Doom himself stands in the tradition of A.C. Doyle's Moriarty, Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, and Ian Fleming's Dr. No IMO. Will have to reread "Bring on the Bad Guys" to see how Stan Lee says he came up with Doom.

[Fedora]

> Current "Justice League" on Cartoon Network constantly has Flash eating sugar like in candy bars.

I like the way the cartoon does Flash. They make him a real wisecracker. Is he like that in the recent comics?--I don't recall him being like that, but I haven't read that strip in a while.

[Fedora]

> Even in the very old Superman serials, he couldn't fly...only "leap" in a single bound.

Anyone ever listen to the Superman radio serials? They put them out on tape/CD recently. Interesting to compare him then with how he is later. At that point his powers were still developing, and also kryptonite was still being defined. I guess they actually got kryptonite from the radio show and carried it over to the comic, if I remember right.

[Fedora]

> As for the physics... one BIG question I always had when I was a little kid was this: the original Flash (Barry Allen) was constantly running through walls. Haven't seen Wally West do that lately, but anyways. It was explained that what he did was vibrate his molecules so fast that he could basically pass through solid matter. I wanted to know if that was possible (of course assuming the capability of vibrating molecules that fast).
>
> The answer was a qualified yes. Theoretically, yes, you could vibrate your molecules fast enough that the bonds holding your molecules together would fall apart, and assuming they had enough forward inertia to keep them moving, your molecules would pass through the wall easily. The problem would be reassembling yourself on the other side ;)

That's the part I wonder about: how he'd manage to maintain the molecular bonds in the process of vibrating. I guess if I were the writer I might try to explain that by invoking a psychic pk field that allows his subconscious to mentally maintain the molecular bonds. Also maybe he only "unbonds" certain parts of his body at one time so he's not totally disintegrated at any given time, just part of his body is. Or he might pass through an alternate time-stream where the object he's passing through doesn't exist, which would amount to a type of interdimensional teleportation, so it only *appears* he's passing through the object in our time-stream.

[Fedora]

Interesting info on the glasses hypnosis thing--I hadn't heard that.

Just picked up "The Ultimate Guide to Superman" from the library. I'm going to review it and see if it adds anything on "Super-physics". Will post more on that later if I find anything interesting.

[Fedora]

> Needless to say, the movie also wouldn't have worked as well if they had had him shoot the webbing out of his butt, like a real spider. ;)

LOL! I just wish they would've kept his webshooters.

[cinFLA]

I got 3 10 cent and 1 25 cent comics each month (one each time my mother went grocery shopping). I saved each and every one in good condition. When I left for college almost 40 years ago, she trashed them all.

[TheBigB]

The original Flash was Jay Garrick.

[Fedora]

> I'm not sure what the current comic book version is, but in Smallville, it looks like they're going the genetic route. Those X-men were really ahead of the game. They were mutants in the early sixties.

I thought it was interesting the way the Hulk movie tried to integrate the gamma-ray explanation with a genetic explanation. I guess the X-Men mark the beginning of a transition between the time when Marvel explained everything in terms of radiation and the genetic paradigm. Spider-Man's c. 1975 cloning saga with the Jackal also was prophetic in this respect. And then there was the High Evolutionary--just remembered him, LOL!

[Fedora]

> I got 3 10 cent and 1 25 cent comics each month (one each time my mother went grocery shopping). I saved each and every one in good condition. When I left for college almost 40 years ago, she trashed them all.

Same thing happened with my uncle's WWII-era comics when he went off to Vietnam. Sigh. I've only met one person who actually managed to save his old comics. He owned every Batman back to the beginning.

[AdmSmith]

I had my pile of Marvel comics at my Granny's house and read them every summer when we visited her. One summer they were gone together with magazines with Modesty Blaise and Johnny Hazard.

[MikeD]

Yes, the force-field and heat vision are tied to the yellow sun. In fact, there was a story arc where the Sun was blocked for a long time, and Superman lost his powers. He then gained lightning-like powers and was dubbed by readers "The Electri-Kal." Hiss, boo, razz.

As of now, he's the standard flying, strong, heat-vision-shooting tower of power, although he no longer pushes planets around.

MD