Posted on 02/16/2004 9:07:30 AM PST by 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."
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
This is easily demonstrated. Consider the construction ''Physics is the study of ...'' (finish the sentence any way you like). If one would argue that the subject is plural, thus, ''Physics are the study of ...'', then one commits the egregious error of number by not having the verb agree with the predicate nominative. If, to correct the error, one subsequently modifies the sentence to ''Physics are the studies of ...'', one has created a statement which is false-to-fact. The discipline of physics (or mathematics, or ethics, or epistemics, etc.) is a single body of knowledge, not an agglomeration of studies.
Hence, physics is STILL fun, regardless of English lit majors.
Interestingly, when a singular noun ending in 's' has a second denotation, e.g. ''ethics'', which term may refer either to the philosophical body of study or to one's personal moral principles, said noun may take either a singular or a plural verb, according to context. Cf. ''Ethics is a fascinating study.'' vs. ''His ethics are those of a snake.''
(s) The Mad Grammarian (and many fond memories of Professor Sidney Lamb, the ARCH-stickler of grammar in bygone days)
Q. What is origin of the perfectly formed half-circle mouseholes common in cartoons?-- Branden Chopelas, Indian Trail, NC
Oh come on, Branden. Everyone knows that's one of the laws of cartoons:
• Cartoon houses always have perfectly formed, good-sized mouseholes in the baseboards.
These laws, often labeled the Cartoon Laws of Physics, are posted at the Web sites of many university physics departments. They appear to have sprung from a 1980 article in Esquire, and have been added to over the years by different contributors.
These laws will seem more familiar than real scientific laws, if, like me, you grew up with Warner Brothers cartoons. (I have a tattoo of Daffy Duck on my right shoulder.)
Here are some of our favorite cartoon laws:
• Explosive weapons don't cause serious injuries. They just turn characters momentarily black and smoky.
• A character suspended in space (say, after running off a cliff) will remain so suspended until made aware of his situation.
• A character passing through matter (say, a wall) will leave a perfect outline of his body.
• If a character sticks his finger in the barrel of a gun, it will fire backwards.
• If you are an alligator and you are punched, you will fly into the air and return as two suitcases and a purse.
• The more frightened you are, the longer it takes to rev up your feet.
• When a character is hit on the head, a long, narrow bump immediately grows.
• Any character dressed as a woman is irresistible to any other character.
• Whenever you walk on tippy-toes you are automatically accompanied by piccato violin.
• Any country seen from orbit will have its name written on it.
• Male cartoon animals wear boxer shorts under their fur.
"Is your seatbeat buckled? - I wanna try something. I'm pretty sure I can do it."
"I saw it in a cartoon once."
But he would have suffocated on Earth without a pressure suit...
Found it! Very funny stuff. Recommended: Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex. Sample:
But with kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El's semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet. (*One can imagine that the Kent home in Smallville was riddled with holes during Superboy's puberty. And why did Lana Lang never notice that?*)
BTW, I agree that physics is/are fun. It was my favorite science subject.
Another one: data v. datum. Strictly speaking, it should be "data are."
"I could teach some folks about calculating the period of a pendulum."
Better watch out for changings in your metabolism eating a high carb diet like that...
Simple gravitational pull is not enough to explain all of Superman's powers (heat vision for example).
"Hold muh beer and watch this..."
By contrast, in British English (similarly, sic), ''The data is ... (anything).'' is simply unacceptable, although, to be sure, one sees this construction from time to time. The British construction almost always places number before other considerations, cf. ''Manchester United are enjoying a three-nil advantage.'' The other way to say this is that, in literate British dialect, if the subject of a sentence can **even possibly** in context be plural, then the attendant verb will be plural. There are a few exceptions, ''Parliament'' occasionally being seen with a singular verb, for example.
Etymologically, ''physics'', ''mathematics'', and other similar English nouns share the same odd history: from an ancient Greek plural, to a Latin (sometimes) plural, through French (where G-d alone knows what may have occurred), in the apparent singluar, to medieval English -- which had grotequely ill-defined usage for number and even less for coherent spelling. At some point, and your guess is as good as mine as to when, the evolution of these words simply halted in its tracks. As a result, we now have a class of nouns whose members **look** as if they should be plural, but are from grammatical considerations singular.
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