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The Physics of Superman
eieken writes "The physics of Superman mostly belong in the realm of comic books, but some scientists decided to give their input on the matter. The article tells of 'a scientific experiment in which a researcher put several chickens in a centrifuge and raised them in twice-normal gravity for months at a time. When they emerged, the chickens were stronger and had larger bones and muscles, and greater endurance. In other words, they were superchickens.' Do they have human sized centrifuges?"
You could only get so much bigger (bones, muscle, etc) before it wasn't an advantage anymore, right? I mean, growing something in higher gravity so that it creates a stronger 'infrastructure' (for lack of a better term) would only be beneficial up to a certain point, at which point the weight of said 'infrastructure' would weight you down so as to defeat the purpose....
I assume by virtue of inclusion that the bit about growing chickens in higher gravity yields stronger muslces and bigger bones is of some surprise. Why would you not think biology has feedback? I know we humans like to pride outselves on things we invent but mother nature has been at it for many more years.
/. summary is about the chicken when the chicken part is only at the end of the article, but thought I'd point it out. It seemed rather shocking to eieken to warrant dominating the summary about the chicken.
Your respiratory rate is determined by the level of carbon dioxide present in your blood (not oxygen). Feedback.
Your heart rate has a normal rate but can be altered by hormones like adrenaline (fight-or-flight response). Feedback....in a more long-about sort of way.
Blood glucose levels plays a part in hunger which leads to eating which restores glucose. Feedback.
Immobility or lack of exercise can lead to atrophy of the muscles but can be restored by using them. Feedback.
Astronauts have to exercise in microgravity to also prevent atrophy. Feedback.
So if a chicken grows up in high gravity then why shouldn't it have higher muscle strength and bigger bones.
Nevermind the bulk of the
:wq
"If he was gone two hours (flying at the speed of light), by the time he returned the world would be over."
Wouldn't he return in 2 hours?
It seems to be a common misconception that superheroes are science fiction. Like Star Wars, they're Science Fiction Flavored, but they aren't really stories about science.
It can be a fun framework for discusion, but (stating the obvious here) realism is no more important to these stories than it is to Harry Potter or King Arthur.
Talking about realism is more relevant when the story is science fiction instead of fantasy dressed up like science fiction.
While I enjoy fantasy stories, it seems unfortunate they have eclipsed science fiction by appropriating the settings and conventions.
The obligatory reference to Larry Niven's classic "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" in which he describes some of the problems involved in a Kryptonian/Human relationship:
http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html (first Google link)
...but the chickens wouldn't know that. Besides, what you really want to do is spin them up, keep them at high speed until ready for the supermarket, then hit the brakes. The bones'll be large enough that you won't get fragments everywhere, it would be painless for the chicken, and I'm certain you could make a fortune selling the slow-motion video to students.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
They started training at 10 times earth gravity, and were well up over a hundred in just a couple villain intermissions worth of training.
So yeah, train hard, get strong. (as long as you don't break yourself in the process)
Maybe the interesting thing here is not that the chickens got stronger, but that 2g was within their biological limits.
Start Running Better Polls
However, if you escape from the assumption that he's some fancy biological being, then things change completely. In my mind, Superman is a being composed of energy. His appearance is just a convenient form, a shell. Kryptonian technology seems to be advanced enough for this to be plausible, and it also rids us of the unlikely coincidence that Kryptonians and humans happen to look exactly the same.
Composed of energy and manipulating forces, all of Superman's powers become plausible - as energy, flight makes sense, speed makes sense, and strength could be the transmutation of energy into forces. With Kryptonian technology, it might be possible to create force fields of two dimensions (planes, or surfaces) or three dimensions (volumes, or zones), which you could also view as curving space. Then things like lifting a car by its bumper would make sense, whereas with human phyics you'd just rip the bumper of. And as for lifting continents, if the force required to lift a continent was applied to an area the size of your hand it would pass through any known substance as easily as we pass through air. Strength-by-force-field is the only thing that makes any sense.
Kryptonite also makes more sense with Superman as an energy being. Maybe it gives off some weird particles that interfer with Superman's ability to transmute energy into gravitons or other force particles. Superman being solar-powered makes better sense this way too. And obviously heat vision, x-ray vision, and flying at cose to the speed of light make more sense for an energy being than for a material being.
Well, that's my uberdorkiness binge for the day.
A-Bomb
I've never heard of a literate carnie, much less one capable of getting on the Internet. I call bull$hit!!
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