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It's funny. Laugh. Science

Comic Book Physics 203

Posted by michael from the shazam! dept.
hij writes "NANDO net has an article about a physics professor at the University of Minnesota is offering a class in Comic Book Physics. He looks into such things as the amount of calories that the Flash burns and the tension in spider-mans web."
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Comic Book Physics More

Comic Book Physics

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  • Guns with infinite bullets. Oh, we are not talking about Hollywood movies, my bad.
    • nah, bullets aren't infinite, the clips have a drama detection unit, which allow bullets to pass into the chamber only in a fashion which will maximize the drama created by the insertion, or failure to insert a bullet.

      additionally, even top-notch shooters can't shoot worth a damn, the miss:hit ratio being even worse than the 10:1 real world ratio for urban combat.

  • chaffing? (Score:3, Funny)

    by edrugtrader ( 442064 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @08:18PM (#3500311) Homepage
    i was always curious about what those tights would do to your crotch after a good fight with a super villian.

    also, did they figure out what supermans cape does? does it provide lift somehow?

    • Superman's cape. (Score:5, Informative)

      by AJWM ( 19027 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @09:04PM (#3500450) Homepage
      According to the comic books I read, Superman's cape has a pouch/pocket in it where he stores his (highly compressed) Clark Kent clothes.

      That way they're always handy for him to change back into his secret identity (and I guess with super powers its easy to get the wrinkles out), and he doesn't have to worry about somebody ripping them off from the phone booth where he changed when he's off fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
      • I've always wondered why Superman's cape flows so nicely when he flies. I'd expect it to twist into a cord flying behind. I mean, does he fart a lot or something? That would explain how his flight works too. There is an official explanation for his flying ability, but it doesn't explain the cape thing.

        This is not intended as "fart humor." It's just the only plausible explanation that I can think of. Really.

      • Perhaps the inhabitants of Krypton enjoy similar laws of physics as those of Cybertron.

        According to the Transformers FAQ [corollaperformance.com] the commonly accepted answer to the question "Where does [Optimus] Prime's trailer go when he transforms?" [corollaperformance.com] is that each Transformer has access to a personal "subspace" in another dimension that they can use for storage and teleport objects from. The subspace is also used to store weapons and the changes in mass that occur when massive robots change size and weight, into tiny cassette tapes for instance.

        So, true believer, perhaps there is some universal consistency in Comic Book Physics - even across different comic book universes (DC vs. Marvel).

      • Re:Superman's cape. (Score:4, Funny)

        by Captain Large Face ( 559804 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @04:00AM (#3501467) Homepage

        Presumably there is also a small sewing kit to mend his shirts after ripping all those buttons off...

  • Defeats the purpose (Score:3, Insightful)

    by KeatonMill ( 566621 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @08:19PM (#3500318)
    I don't know if this occurs to anyone else, but it seems to me that the POINT of comic book characters was that they could do things that defied the laws of physics. I mean, if they couldn't, what would we be left with?

    CUBICLE MAN: Able to ignore work at lightspeed

    • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Quikah ( 14419 )
      The point is to get students interested in physics by using a novel approach.
    • Ah yes, cubicle man. Wasn't he the star of "Office Space"? :]
    • Cubicle Man, Cubicle Man,
      Does whatever a, well...
      Just sits on his can.
  • everyone knows that people learn better when they're actually interested in the material.
  • I have two responses to this. 1) good job trying to make education fun, and interesting. 2) I hope he branches out to less traditional comic characters too.

  • Saw this site last year (Score:2, Informative)

    by huckda ( 398277 )
    Actually invited a colleague's physics class
    into my lab for them to pick a hero and do a report on the different abilities. The kids(high-school) loved it!

    Now you know what your kids are being taught now days!
  • how fast does superman fly when he is having kryptonite thrown at him? :P
  • From the article:

    Computer science major Eric Caron, 19, also worked a Flash problem. In one comic book, the Flash vibrated his molecules to melt ice that encased him. Caron tried to figure out how fast the hero would have had to vibrate. "It was close to 6,000 mph hour," Caron says. "It's not the most realistic thing. But hey, if he can run at light speed ..."

    But if you assume he can actually run at the speed of light, you can derive almost everything, even nonphysical things. In the same way, if you start by assuming that 1==2 then you can basically prove anything (even wrong things) mathematically.

  • Like so: http://funnies.paco.to/cartoon.html

    and so: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/09/051722 8&mode=thread

    and so: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/12/21/092121 2&mode=thread

    Ok, not exactly, but it all feels the same, you know?

  • Only one more step... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dghcasp ( 459766 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @08:26PM (#3500334)
    Now all we have to do is find the school with the course on "Warner Brothers Animation Physics..."

    RoadRunner's 3rd Law: An object at rest will stay at rest, even if suspended in midair, as long as it doesn't look down.

    • Warner's First Rule:
      Guns, Explosives, and ACME Tornadoes never work right. They just don't/
    • We actually did this in High School physics. Our teacher always gave examples using Roadrunner, so our final project was to construct a sequence of events that might happen in a Roadrunner cartoon, along with a calculated breakdown with assumptions, etc, proving that it could happen. We had a list of twenty or so physical situations that we had studied, and had to use 15 of them in the project.

      stipe42

    • Already done (Score:4, Funny)

      by Fruny ( 194844 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @08:44PM (#3500390)
      Now all we have to do is find the school with the course on "Warner Brothers Animation Physics..."
      - Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation
      - Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly.
      - Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter.
      - All principles of gravity are negated by fear.
      - As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once.
      - Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
      - Everything falls faster than an anvil
      And more [funnies.paco.to]...
      • there is the hannah barbara physics addendum:

        (fred flintstone/ scoody doo)

        when beginning to run, there is a 2 second delay between rapid leg movement and actual forward momentum. this is accompanied by a goofy xylophone noise.

  • Flash (Score:4, Funny)

    by daeley ( 126313 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @08:26PM (#3500336) Homepage
    All I know is that *I* burn lots of calories yelling at my browser trying loading yet another Flash page.

    Flash: Giving Electronica Music a Bad Name Since 1996 [weblogs.com]. ;)
  • Sweetness...

    These remind me of the 'There can't possibly be a Santa Clause because' document. Boils down to the fact that Santa, if he really did visit all the little good, Christian boys and girls would go through reindeer at an alarming rate. He'd lose them to explosions caused by atmospheric friction energy greater than a reentry burn.
  • Well, I'm no scientist but it seems to me that if he went swinging around like that, it would litteraly rip his arm off. Does he have an exoskeleton I don't know about?

    The flash does burn alot of callories, but unfortunatly, he still eats way more than he needs. This is why he hasn't had a movie (at least not lately), he is now over 600 lbs and can only run at abou 100mph.

    Let's see, what other comic books are out there? Superman is just too easy to do (that or I can't think of any right now).

    The incredible hulk is actually a very buff man who simply put on some halloween makeup once that caused a skin rash. Unfortunatly, while the makeup washed off, his skin stayed green. I guess this doesn't have to do with physics, does it?

    Aquaman prevents his head from imploding when he dives deep because it is, in fact, filled with water and not a brain, as was previously thought. This allows him to equalize the pressure because he has holes in his ear drums. This explains why he spends his time with dolphins and tuna.

    Wolverine's system survived the adamantium bonding because he takes lots of Citrical (R), a vitamin that helps prevent ostioperosis and death while bonding rare metals to your skeleton. To do this though, he had to take 2 bottles per day. This added up to so much money that he was forced to join a traveling, crime-fighting circus. They later dropped the circus part and just became the X-Men.

    Of course, the last thing that I know is that the Silver Surfer is not actually silver but a rare form of mercury, which is why he is not only neutraly boyant in water, air, and anything else, but explains why anyone who touches him goes insane. I realize that this isn't in the comic books, but if they put that in, would you buy them?

    OK, so I got off topic. Yes I made it all up. Sure I've never read a comic book for any of the above heros. Yes, most of it doesn't have to do with physics. Sure you can mod me down. But I got a long post in as one of the first, doesn't that deserve me a +1 "Good Try" mod? Admit it, this was funny. It was also not meant to offend any 300 piple-faced fanboys who might come to my house and trivia me to death about the time when they drew Batman's head 0.01% too small for his body. Those are my nighmares you know. I did mean the first part seriously, but then I got off topic. Oh well.
    • if he went swinging around like that, it would litteraly rip his arm off.

      I tried to explain that to friend of mine who is really big on comic books. He was disappointed at how far away from the original comic books the new movie was. I tried to tell him that the centripetal acceleration on some of those swings would not only tear his arms off, but would send his one armed body into the ground fast enough to make a sizable crater. He didn't understand what I was getting at, and said it was quite obvious how it worked, at least in the comic books, because in the comic books he actually had to build the spider web machines himself, they didn't just "grow into his wrists." I don't see how that explains anything, but he was adamant on the subject, so I decided to leave well enough alone. These comic book fellows are not to be messed with.
      • These comic book fellows are not to be messed with.

        "But Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills! ...I've wasted my life."

        "CBG:Yes, finally. I would like to return your quote unquote, Ultimate Belt.

        Storekeeper: I see, do you have a receipt, quote unquote, sir?

        CBG: I do not have a receipt, I won it as a door prize at the Star Trek convention, although I find their choice of prize highly illogical as the average Trekker has no use for a medium-sized belt.

        Storekeeper: Whoa, whoa. A fat, sarcastic Star Trek fan. You must be a devil with the ladies.

        CBG: Hey, I... Huh... Tha... Oh...

        Storekeeper: Gee, I hate to let you down Casanova, but uh, no receipt, no return.

        Bart: I'll give you four bucks for it.

        CBG: Very well. I must hurry back to my comic book store, where I dispense the insults rather than absorb them."

        You mean that Comib Book Fellow?

  • Batman and the vat of acid (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jone_stone ( 124040 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @08:31PM (#3500348) Homepage
    I once had a chemistry test in high school based on a Batman comic. Batman and Robin were falling into a vat of acid. It looked like the end for the dynamic duo. But after they fell in Robin was astonished to find that they didn't get burned.


    "Of course," said Batman. "The acid-neutralizing pills in my utility belt rendered the acid harmless before it was able to burn us."


    I don't remember the specific numbers of the question, but it was basically: if there were n gallons of 5 molar HCl in the vat and the pills were NaOH, how much must the pills have weighed? How much energy was released in the reaction, and are Batman and Robin likely to have survived?


    Batman would have needed something like two tons of NaOH in his belt, and the resulting explosion would have evaporated all the water and fried the dynamic duo to a crisp.

    • Reminds me of a Batman problem I did in freshman calculus. Basically, they set up a situation where Batman is supposed to jump from one roof to another, given a certain physical configuration. You have to figure out whether he'll make it, and if you work out the numbers it looks like he won't. But the solution in the back of the book, while acknowledging that that's how the numbers work out, says "but he'll make it anyway, because he's Batman." Textbook authors can be really cool sometimes.
  • of the very relevant(->sarcasm) questions raised in Mallrats..

    Like when brodie meets stan lee(played by stan, kinda cool :) and asks:


    Do you think Mr. Fantastic can stretch his dinky also? And do you think The Thing is hard all over? I mean really all over.

    or even..

    T.S.: But they're engaged.
    Brodie: Doesn't matter, can't happen.
    T.S.: Why not? It's bound to come up.
    Brodie: It's impossible, Lois could never have Superman's baby. Do you think her fallopian tubes could handle the sperm? I gurantee you he blows a load like a shotgun right through her back. What about her womb? Do you think it's strong enough to carry her child?
    T.S.:Sure, why not?
    Brodie: He's an alien, for christ sake. His Kyrptonian biological makeup is enhanced by earth's yellow sun. If Lois gets a tan the kid could kick right through her stomach. Only someone like Wonder Woman has a strong enough uterus to carry his kid. The only way he could bang regular chicks is with a kryptonite condom. That would kill him!

    is brodie right or is he jumping to conclusions? I really NEED to take this class!
    • TOTAL GEEK MODE ON:

      It depends on how you want to interpret any of the gazillion "Origin of Superman" stories. In many of them he didn't start to manifest his powers to anywhere from a toddler to puberty.

      So, she could theoretically carry the child to term normally.

      Additionally, in many of the DC comics that have taken place in the future, such as the excellent Kingdom Come Lois dies a while back, and Supes ends up conceiving a child with Wonder Woman. The daughter is shown in the Dark Knight 2 that's out now, I believe.

    • While the sentiments were probably circulating in fandom circles for a long time, Brodie's question was preceded by Larry Niven's classic short story/essay, Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex [blueneptune.com] which appeared in his collection All The Myriad Ways over thirty years ago (1971). (That link points to what is probably a flagrant copyright violation.) Brodie's question is Niven's point four and six.

      Sigh, some people just lack an education in the classics ;-)
      • I don't think it would be a smart idea to get too deep into this on Slashdot, but the physics of "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" aren't DC-universe-correct in several places.

        For example, it's pretty well established in the DC unverse that humans can receive a blood transfusion from Superman [supermanhomepage.com], and they don't die of hemorrhage from super blood cells perforating their arteries and veins.

        So every Kryptonian cell is not "super"-harmful.

        Also, Superman is not a total idiot, so he'll undoubtedly be watching a pregnant wife very closely for possible complications from a super-fetus (X-ray vision's better than ultra-sound!). And take action at the first sign of a problem. It's not like they don't have an inkling that it's a high-risk pregnancy.

        Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

        • "Also, Superman is not a total idiot, so he'll undoubtedly be watching a pregnant wife very closely for possible complications from a super-fetus (X-ray vision's better than ultra-sound!). And take action at the first sign of a problem. It's not like they don't have an inkling that it's a high-risk pregnancy. "

          I have this vision of Supes shrinking himself to about half a centimeter in size, and... taking action. Does he tell Lois to lie back, then flies his mini-self into her uterus? Hand to hand with the fetus until it calms down? He's gonna be a busy hero for nine months.

          I gotta draw this...

        • of course, it assumes he has a penis, and that Superman isn't the baby carring gender, that there sperm is similiar to ours, and that Kryptonians find as much pleasure in sex as we do.
          and that superman isn't gay, and that he's not sterile, etc,etc,etc...

  • Missing the Point (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TomHandy ( 578620 )
    I do understand that they are doing this basically to make some of these problems more interesting (I could understand it more if this was an elementary or high school class though....why would people taking college level physics courses need comic book subject matter as a motivation?) but it really does kind of miss the point. I.e. with that whole Flash question, it implies that Flash uses his own energy. My understanding of the Flash is that he accesses some mystical Speed Force that actually powers him, and it has nothing to do with burning any energy directly.
    • Wrong.
      Johnny Quick (and later his daughter, Libby) get superspeed from accessing some sort of weird zen potential through a mathematical formula that works as a mantra.
      The Flash, on the other hand, got his powers through a freak accident involving getting hit by lightning while soaked in a mixture of chemicals (don't try THAT one at home). Than altered his metabolism and gave him strictly physiology-related powers.
      Can I have my geek card now? :S
  • That I'm going to go to college to learn about American History and learn a trade when I could learn about comic books!

    Where's my transfer forms?

  • Humor - Cartoon Physics (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Seth Finkelstein ( 90154 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @08:38PM (#3500371) Homepage Journal
    Take a look at Cartoon Physics [princeton.edu], e.g.:

    Cartoon Law I

    Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation.

    Example

    Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second squared takes over.

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

    • I checked out those rules and they appear incomplete. What about the fact that Gravity needs to be fueled by the falling object and if the falling object does not have the required level of fuel to continue to fall the decent will stop.

      This was clearly shown by Prof Bunny's experiment of the rapidly decending rocket ship.

  • as opposed, for instance, to Jon Katz who
    uses comics to push his "post 9/11" agenda
    and SW2 disappointment and discuss bullshit myths of nerds rejection (never saw that in Homer).

    I never see the Fab 4 discussed ; Mr Stretch or the Invisible look indeed far-fetched,
    but about the torch, one can indeed fly with jetpacks (as seen in Thunderball or Duke Nukem), and for the Thing, Mike Tyson pops to mind.

  • I always enjoy seeing creative teaching methods. This sounds like a fun class. And while I've never had a "comic book class", I've seen superhero-type questions ("If Superman has X-Ray vision, what's the smallest object he can see?"), and all physics students like to play with the crazy "what if?" questions ("If centripetal force is constant for constant acceleration, what limits how fast I can drive in a circle?").

    It doesn't mention in the article, but I presume they tackle realistic problems along with their superheroic counterparts. That's necessary for developing intuition, and can help evaluate the realism or plausibility of the "Flash" cases.

    I also think doing rigorous work on unusual cases helps develop abstract thinking and problem solving skills. And those are very important when later dealing with problems (like at work), where the answer isn't in the back of the book.
  • This reminds me of the two limited series that both Marvel and DC put out, called "Marvel Universe" & "Who's Who" respectively -- remember them? I used to love those -- they were alphabetically organized compendiums of every character, ship, and base in both of the comic book universes.

    The best part was when they used clever but blatant pseudo-science to try to explain away the smaller inconsistencies of the characters (i.e. Q: "How does Superman shave -- his beard must be super strong!" A: "He shaves using a small shard of super hard metal from the rocket he traveled on as an infant from Krypton"). You really got the sense that the writers were having a lot of fun with the characters. I'd love if these series were collected up in a bound/graphic novel format, as they contain a big chunk of my childhood.

    ~jeff
    • I forget which one, but they coined the term "Class 100 Strength" which means the character could life at least 100 tons. There were a lot of them who could.
      I loved those comics (especially the Marvel ones). The DC ones had like 8 Batmans in it and all but one died in their little "Sweeps" they were having to battle the Secret Wars sagas going on over at Marvel.
      Hey, I was about 11 at the time! Cut me some slack!
  • All I have to say to the nay-sayers who will say that it is ridiculous to teach a physics course based on comic books is that this is the coolest thing a physics department could do. I am a physics major at my school and am becoming increasingly disillusioned with how tedious and boring my physics classes are getting, and how little I learn about the real world from them. I am not saying that comics are the real world, but if the approach this course takes is to say "this is realistic, while this is not" then that does help people to understand the real world. I would take a course like this in a second. Done right, this could be one of the most fun courses one takes in college.

    There is however the probelm that you kind of ruin the coolness of comic book heroes who somewhat defy the laws of physics, by flying, shooting lasers from their eyes, moving things with their mind, etc. Although I know quite a bit of physics and know that many of these things are impossible, I still enjoy comics very much and am able to suspend my disbelief. I think that using a course like this to get people interested in physics is much better than the standard "Physics for Poets" my school offers which just go over the basics of many areas of physics in unsatisfactory depth and rigor, leaving the students frustrated and uninterested. I say that most anything that gets more people thinking from an analytical point of view is good.
  • what a waste of your tuition. really.
  • ...similarly related Star Wars physics and Dungeons & Dragons physics? My old character could do a 200ft standing jump. I'd like to know why :)
  • In my high school physics class, we once watched "Home Alone" to identify physical impossibilities.

    It would have taken less time to point out the things that were based on physics.

  • Is how the flash could run at Faster than Light Speeds...and how the force made by his feet hitting the Earth doesn't make huge earthquakes.

  • And don't forget (Score:4, Funny)

    by Salsaman ( 141471 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @08:56PM (#3500429) Homepage
    You only fall down when you look down.

    It's an obvious application of Quantum Gravity - when you go over a cliff, you have to look down to collapse the quantum gravity wavefunction, and thus you hit the bottom of the canyon.

  • the amount of calories

    Since "calories" is obviously a plural noun, the phrase should be "the number of calories". Even though we can have fractional calories, the grammatical implication is that it's a countable or integer quantity. For those we use "number of" and, in comparisons, "fewer than" (not "less than").

    When we're talking about a measured (vs counted) quantity, that's more like a "real" or "float", then you would use "amount of" -- unless of course you mention the units of measure, which sort of integerizes the whole thing (the opposite of C type promotion rules).

    Sorry, but type mismatch in English is something that's been bugging me lately.
  • How does Wonder Woman fit into that outfit?
  • What I always wondered is where all that webbing comes from in the first place. I mean, that web cartridge can only fit so much material inside. They do run out eventually, but it always seemed to me like he could get way too much out of each one. In the movie, he can just shoot webbing out of his hands. Where do the proteins come from? I'd think that after swinging through the city for a while, he'd starve to death.
  • Continuing with the whole Star Wars verses Spiderman/comics thread established by JonKatz a few articles ago [slashdot.org], it is interesting to note that Star Wars has also been studied scientifically.

    A astrophysics by the name of Jeanne Cavelos wrote book called The Science of Star Wars [amazon.com], where she talks about how Star Wars fuelled her interest in space exploration and discusses the whole science of Star Wars. You also have the online Star Wars Technical Commentaries [theforce.net] that discuss the scientific plausability of the movies. It's good to know that imagination of others be it Stan Lee or George Lucas can help people think scientifically about both the real world and the imagined.
    • do any of those documents explain why you can hear the whooshing of starships in a vacuum?

      course this is a movie we're talking about so anyway... umm.. nevermind I'll jsut get back to waiting for the flash at Marvel to download.

  • We have three cases here.

    • A study of real physics as if cartoon heros were real (such as 'how many calories would the Flash emit'),
    • A study of stage physics used in comedy cartoons (such as 'nothing falls slower than an anvil'),
    • A study of real physics using a cartoon medium to explain them.

    There is an excellent book by Larry Gonick and Art Huffman to cover this last area. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062731009 [amazon.com] It goes from understanding simple Newtonian and extended body stuff, magnetism and flux, electrical current, to quantum electro dynamics.

    It is from this book that I finally grokked *why* a gyroscope will precess or rotate its axis when the axis is not aligned against gravity.

  • Another fun excercise is looking at the physics behind Star Trek. Lawrence M. Krauss wrote a pretty good book on the subject [amazon.com].

  • Spider-Man catching falling Gwen Stacey (Score:3, Informative)

    by Seth Finkelstein ( 90154 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @09:36PM (#3500556) Homepage Journal
    Gwen is knocked from a bridge by the evil Green Goblin, but Spider-Man catches her with his webbing an instant before she hits the water. When Spider-Man pulls her up, he discovers to his horror that she is dead.

    While Spidey was shocked, Kakalios was not.

    The professor estimated Gwen's falling velocity, applied Newton's Second Law of Motion and calculated the G-forces exerted when she went from 95 mph to a standstill in an instant. "It's not surprising her neck broke," Kakalios says.

    This story-point has in been fact been subject to much, much debate [google.com] and discussion [google.com] by fans.

    The consensus seems to be that the sudden stop broke her neck, but that this was more a failed rescue attempt at someone who going to die anyway, than a problem totally unknown to Spidey. That is, he was shocked because he thought he'd been able to save her, and failed. Not that he didn't know that he could fail.

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

    • within the context of that comic, GG says something like "anyone wuold die from a fall of that height - before they struck the water."
      however, the one thing that implies that spider-man killed her is the effect of 'snap'.
      The authors did a great job of not really saying what had killed her. That alone probablt increased the sales of thei issue by 20%

  • The Mighty Thor (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CaptainCarrot ( 84625 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @09:44PM (#3500581)
    He was probably my favorite as a kid, and is one of the more interesting in terms of physics.

    Thor can "fly" ballistically by throwing his hammer and then catching the leather thong on the end a small fraction of a second later. Class discussion: would this really work? Why or why not? If it did work and Thor routinely accellerates several hundred miles per hour in a fraction of a second, we may acribe the fact that his arm is not ripped from its socket to his godly constitution, but how does his helmet stay on his head? (We've seen it knocked off in fights, so we know it has no natural cranially adhesive properties.)

    How much energy must his hammer expend in order to generate a lightning flash? What are the potential sources for this energy?

    When Thor (or anyone else who is "worthy") holds his hammer, its weight appears to be negligible. For anyone else, the weight is infinite. (We know the mass remains constant. It does not become infinite because of the lack of the normal space-bending effects associated with an infinite mass, and it does not fall to zero because Thor can impart a great deal of momentum with it.) Use Schroedinger's equation to determine a probablity function describing the hammer's weight when nobody is holding it.

    I could go on, but I don't want to be more geeky than absolutely necessary.

    • I am not that familiar with Thor, but I'll give a go at some of these questions.

      As far as throwing the hammer and catching it to propel himself, it seems possible. Simple experiment, when bowling, throw the ball forward but don't let go, the moemntum you impart to the ball is sufficient to pull you forward. The question then becomes why do this, as it would be less efficient than jumping or if his legs aren't that strong, jumping with his hands? My guess is that his strength in throwing the hammer is provided by some patented technique that Thor had to license from the inventor, and a term of the license was that he couldn't use this strength to jump (presumably the license to do that would be more expensive), so he cheats the system by using a legal application (throwing the hammer) to accomplish the desired effect without technically violating his license. A clearly awesome hack that allows him to get the most of his money, to be sure. I am certain that since Thor's fragrant misuse of the "throwing" license, the inventor has since revised future license agreement to prevent its misuse.

      As far as his helmet falling off, he just needs to keep his feed pointed roughly in the direction of motion, no biggie.

      As to lightning flashes, I lack sufficient knowledge to make any thoroughly accurate claim, but my guess would be that before he goes to use this power he rubs his feet on some carpet a *lot* before heading out, thereby giving himself a lot of static electricity. Who knows, in his abode he may have a super secret material that is so electropostivie (or negative) it makes him able to build up an abnormally large charge, or maybe it is just your run of the mill rabbit fur. This possible material would very likely be purchased from the same guy who holds the super-strength patent.

      As far as this whole relative-mass thing depedning on worthiness, lighten up, it's just a comic :)

      My physics teacher loved discussing physics in comics and movies. Why is that superman looks just as strained stopping a comet from hitting the earth as he looks stopping a bus on the stree? Why do cars going over cliffs seem to inexplicably jump up before falling (i.e. Thelma & Louise) even when no ramp seems to exist before the jump?
      • My guess is that his strength in throwing the hammer is provided by some patented technique that Thor had to license from the inventor

        It's been many years, but I seem to recall that Thor often twirled the hammer around before taking off. Doing this could conceivably store more energy in the hammer, after the nature of a flywheel, than he could impart with a simple jump.

        As far as this whole relative-mass thing depedning on worthiness, lighten up, it's just a comic

        Actually, the problem as stated is almost solvable, lacking only a potential function. You'd probably have to ask Odin about it.

      • The hammer must be self-propelled in some magical manner. That is, when Thor or someone else "worthy" picks it up, it provides part of the lift; for the "unworthy" it uses it's propulsion to stay right where it is. For flying, "throwing" it signals the speed and direction, then it takes off, dragging Thor after it...

  • Anything to get the students excited (Score:3, Insightful)

    by evilpenguin ( 18720 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @10:18PM (#3500719)
    One of the biggest issues I think our society faces is a lack of basic science. I don't mean a knowledge of facts. We've got plenty of that. Ignorance of the methods of science -- how to do science -- makes us uncritical acceptors of media manipulation.

    Anyone who can get someone to learn and do basic physics deserves respect and thanks. I had a teacher like this. He didn't use something so consistently systematic as comic book physics, but we did have a lot of fun doing calulations of pointlessly impossible experiments. I remember going over the calculations for the conversion of velocity to heat in a collision by calculating how fast you would have to throw a tomato at a brick wall to have it fully cooked on impact (never mind that you wouldn't be able to scrape enough of the result together to make a milliliter).

    I remember calculating if you spontaneously destructed the sun how much oatmeal you could cook (in cups).

    We also did some real physics, like designing a balsa wood bridge (everone got the same materials with no rules on how you could use the materials) to take the greatest load. We did our vector math, we did our elastic collisions, we did our statics. We also did a lot of "frictionless monkey" problems.

    I loved physics and even though I ended up a programmer with a history major, I took away a love for and a basic knowledge of science.

    Teachers like this are the greatest resource in the world.

    • Re:Anything to get the students excited (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Animats ( 122034 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @10:31PM (#3500772) Homepage
      We also did some real physics, like designing a balsa wood bridge (everone got the same materials with no rules on how you could use the materials) to take the greatest load.

      When I was in engineering school, the final exam in statics for mechanical engineers consisted of designing a flat link, out of a specified grade of aluminum plate, to connect two pins and go around some obstacles. Several hours at a drafting table were allowed. No computer access. No talking to anybody. A scaled drawing had to be turned in.

      Each student's link was then machined, by a machinist following the drawing, out of aluminum plate as specified. The link was then placed in a hydraulic testing machine and the specified load was applied.

      If the link broke, the student failed the course.

      If the link didn't break, the link was weighed, and the grade depended on the weight, lighter weights yielding higher grades.

      That's what engineering is about.

      • I agree. The class I'm talking about was more of a freshman physics survey class. We did these little engineering problems because the goal was to introduce physics and engineering. The only math prereq was pre-calculus. I was in no way operating at the level you're talking about.

        My point is that even people going for liberal arts degrees should be able to handle any basic application of F=ma. They should also understand the principles of experimental science (quantifiable, repeatable, controlled for variables, etc.). There is so much flim-flam out there and people buy it.

        Feynman's speech on "Cargo Cult Science" pegs the issues for me. We live in a scientific age in the sense that the science professionals have made staggering progress in understanding the universe, but the rest of us (and I guess I'm part of the rest of us) accept these discoveries as facts in exactly the same way we accepted the pronouncements of any other priesthood in history. When you are ignorant of the methods of science you can't do anything else. Since I am not so ignorant, I have some chance of judging claims of scientific fact. Not that I have a superconducting super-collider in my basement...
      • "That's what engineering is about."
        engineering is about making people afraid to take risks?

  • Cartoon Physics PhD (Score:3, Funny)

    by cymraeg ( 578870 ) <sean AT full DOT vu> on Friday May 10, 2002 @10:24PM (#3500740)
    I already got mine from ACME University.
  • The subject "comic book physics" reminded me of the books by Jean-Piere Petite. He wrote some really nice and interesting comic books, and i think he really managed to illustrate some (advanced) physics/mathematics concepts (relativity, black holes, magneto-hydrodynamics, topology, ...) in his books without confusing his audience with mathematical formulae.

    I read the books when i was about two years into studying physics (and they were still interesting), and i wished i'd have read them earlier (maybe about the age of 14 or so). The best thing about the books was, that they would teach you to be curious about nature/mathematics (provided some interest in the subject), and to play with your imagination and new concepts.

    There's this website [lanturluland.free.fr] about the book, but apparently it isn't very forthcoming (yet) if you aren't interested in french versions of Anselms adventures. I know there is a german translation of the (originally french) comics (which you can still order at amazon), but couldn't find an english one (maybe there is no one, or the main characters first name isn't "anselm").
  • When I was a freshman at the U of California we had a problem set assigned to our freshman physics class (classical mechanics) that was something along these lines:

    "Superman: Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Calculate reasonable estimates of the kinetic energy, power, and impulse, respectively, of these feats; show your work."

    As we got back our graded papers the professor remarked that we all pretty were much in the ballpark with our calculations, but one student's numbers were considerably greater. That's when the student said, "Well I used a greater mass than everybody else did since I remembered that Superman is the Man of Steel." He got full credit.

  • Lets talk ecnomics. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Faux_Pseudo ( 141152 ) <<Faux.Pseudo> <at> <gmail.com>> on Saturday May 11, 2002 @02:44AM (#3501341)
    Hmm. According to current theory there are 13 dimensions. We exist
    in 4 of them so that leaves 9 left over for all the rest. I think the
    Star Trek comics have easily surpassed 9 dimensions. Lets not even
    consider the number of dimensions an plains that The Sandman goes to.

    What I have always wondered about is the economics of comic books. Who
    read the death of Superman? Did you see all of the damage they caused
    in the final fight between the two of them in a downtown area? I have
    seen whole urban areas reduced to ruble but I never see any reference
    to insurances policies against mutants. I never here about how the
    stock market took a dive while waiting to find out if the world was
    going to be destroyed. Do sales of tabloids go up if some one claims
    to be caring $super_hero's baby? Where are all of these headlines?
    Where are do these Evil_Super_Weapons manufactures get their funding
    from? How does a contractor hide the one million dollars that it
    earned from doing a upgrade to the Bat Cave from the IRS without them
    asking questions? How does Bruce Wayne write off a million here or
    there for replacement BatMobils?
    Its things like this that caused me a long time ago to stop reading
    Super Hero comics. I much prefer the mental drama comics instead of
    the physical drama ones.

    I mentioned The Sandman above. This is a prime example of the way
    things should be done. When the moon is brought down to earth by one
    a which for a spell involving the moon goddess, Gaiman makes a
    point of mentioning that a hurricane altered its course as a result.
    When Dream goes traveling on earth he uses a old Babylonian god that
    is an expert at handling transportation issues like customs and knows
    how to work the system. When Dr. Dee makes the whole world go insane
    you see bits on TV letting you know that the whole world is indeed
    going insane and not just the people in the diner. These things
    aren't hidden in the background never to thought of like they are in
    most comics for fear that it will ruin suspension of disbelief.

    I love comics. I just wish that they didn't exist in a vacuum where
    not just the rules of physics don't apply but the rules of economics
    and media aren't even mentioned.
  • is that when he swings, the web he hangs
    by is so long that the pendulum frequency
    is ludicrously low. That is why the old
    live action Spider Man show only rarely
    showed him trying to propell himself that
    way: it was slower than molasses in January.
    • You are assuming that he starts with a velocity of zero on the horizontal.
      I always pictured him taking off with a huge horizontal kickoff, so that he starts with a very large speed on the x-axis. He only has to mantain it.
      If he just jumped off a building and depended on the pendulum to get his x-axis speed, I'd agree with you.

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