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Comic Book Physics
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."
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.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
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.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
"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.
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...
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.
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.
-- Alastair
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.