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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?"
But can the superchickens fly now?
Funnypics
Is it time to welcome our new super-chicken overlords?
Support a true independent artist - Leila Lopez
Looks like they should have put their web server in the centrifuge as well...
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the chickens will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new centrifuge generated superchicken overlords.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
The Sayan of Planet Vegeta know it for a long time...
see the book "The Physics of Superheroes". It's about exactly what you would expect.
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....
My grandma used to kill chickens by twirling them over her head to break the necks, then throwing them down. Like to see her try that with a "superchicken"!
Can't you just see it? Hank comes outside to find his wife, and there the is, cornered in the hen house. "Look out Hank! That one by the door knows judo or something!"
=======================
Psyclo, the dark night.
Mike, the computer geek.
That chicken thing is just weird. That must have been a while ago, I don't see how anyone could get the ethical approval to do something like that. Just how would you keep the chickens in for months at a time anyway? How would you feed them and such? Do you stop the thing for a moment, do what you need, then start it back up?
That said, the article comments on Superman flying. I read somewhere recently (some list of facts about Superman) some interesting stuff. One of the things was that "Faster than a speeding bullet... more powerful than a locomotive..." stuff was not part of the original Superman comics, it was apparently made up for a radio show. But more interesting to me, apparently Superman COULDN'T fly. He was able to jump REALLY HIGH. You know, "able leap tall buildings in a single bound." At some point that somehow turned into flying (this was a bulleted list of facts type thing, so it didn't expand on these).
There was a special on TLC, Discovery, Science Channel, or some such recently about the physics of Superman. I didn't see it (I'm sure it will be re-run), but I remember from a commercial that they said it would actually be MORE PAINFUL for Lois to be caught by Superman than to simply fall to her death. I don't know why, you'd have to watch to find out I guess.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Super Grover unavailable for comment.
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Apparently they tasted just like Christopher Reeve.
... it turns out super takes like chicken.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
That's Tom Strong.
So, did the superchickens have more dark meat on them, or light? Parts that get exercised (thighs) are darker than parts that don't (breast on a non-flying chicken). I can see this at Wegman's now, "boneless thighs from free-range, hormone-free, pre-centrifuged, SuperChickens".
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
When you find yourself in danger,
When you're threatened by a stranger,
When it looks like you will take a lickin',
There is someone waiting,
Who will hurry up and rescue you,
just Call for Super Chicken!
Fred, if you're afraid you'll have to overlook it,
Besides you knew the job was dangerous when you took it
He will drink his super sauce
And throw the bad guys for a loss
And he will bring them in alive and kickin'
There is one thing you should learn
When there is no one else to turn to
Call for Super Chicken!
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
*mumbles something about welcoming centrifuge raised chicken overlords*
I hate printers.
Everytime you mod me down, a scientist centrifuges a chicken.
Please, think of chickens.
I don't feel like dredging my memory for the proper physics formulas, so maybe some bored physics student can help me out. Let's say I wanted to live in 2x gravity on Earth for a few months (or years), for the healthful aspects.
So I build a huge centrifuge shaped like a bowl, with a track at a certain angle. You'd like to spin the track at a speed and angle such that I get a simulated 2x gravity, while having the angle such that my weight would be perpendicular to the apparent floor. You'd build walls perpendicular to the track (and a parallel ceiling) as well so that things would seem normal.
So how wide would the track need to be, and what angle would you need, so as to have an approximately normal environment? Obviously if the ring is too small, you'll get different forces on each part of your body and you'll notice it. There's probably no good psychological data on what size you "need", so let's see some numbers at different sizes, and see what would seem reasonable.
Also, is there any problem with this scenerio? I've never heard of it being done, which means maybe there's something I'm missing as far as practicality.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
What about if he used a kryptonite condom?
(cue scene from Mallrats.)
Ask and ye shall receive.
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
I think a rotisserie is like a really morbid ferris wheel for chickens. It's a strange piece of machinery... "We will take the chicken, kill it, impale it, and then rotate it. And I'll be damned if I'm not hungry! Because spinning chicken carcasses make my mouth water! I like dizzy chicken. With a side of potatoes of some sort."
Post-rock/Ambient/Drone and other noise.
For anyone interested in the development of Supermans powers as the series progressed, check out this website:
http://www.johnath.com/~david/etc/superman.html
As other posters have mentioned, yes, it is true that he started without flying ability -he could leap only one eighth of a mile. The development of his powers is actually quite staggering, going from what nowadays would be a lesser superhero, to being one of the most powerful superheroes in the combined comic book multiverse.
I picked up the book "The Science of Superman" some time ago. Not a bad read, and it goes into the details of how Superman's powers might stem from the differential in intensity of the earth/krypton sun, gravity, etc.
I've heard rumors to the effect that if you attack them with a sword repeatedly, it will send a call out to dozens of other superchickens which will all attack you until you flee indoors or scroll to the next area.
God spoke to me.
"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?
Well, Superman Returns proves Larry Niven is wrong.
His entire argument hinges on the assumption that the Kryptonian nervous system behaves just like the human immune system. Since Superman can see things and react in bullet-time or faster and he can sort out millions of audio signals independently, neither of which a human can do, Niven makes an irrecoverable mistake in his essay. In fact the speed of reaction Superman exhibits is faster than our neurotransmitters can even signal, so Kryptonian neurophysiology has to be completely different, perhaps optical or even quantum in nature. Given that he's powered by the Sun, I'd lean more towards an optical nervous system.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
In Melbourne (Australia), we have an amusement park named "Luna Park" that had a really cool ride called the Gravitron, that looked like this. It was essentially a human sized centrifuge, where you walked in, and lay down against a padded mat that was lying on the wall. Then the ride would start, the thing would speed up and the the g's would start building up and press you against the wall.
:)
Which enabled you to do stupid things like go upside down and have your face stretched. It was cool and my favourite ride at that age. Perhaps it contributed to my huge bone density and muscle strength of later years
Not sure if it is still there... anyone know? Anyone remember this?
The attempt has been made to put humans in this kind of plus G environment. People loose so much bone mass during space flight the idea was to build as much bone as possible before leaving earth and then let people fall back to normal.
Unfortunately our sense of balance is directly tied into G, specifically the acceleration of liquids in one G. When you're in a high G environment your inner ear believes that a small turn of the head is an increadibly rapid and vicious turn. What results is increadible nausea and an inability to function, and since it takes months at high G to build bone this idea is limited in its applications. While people are able to adapt relatively quickly to freefall this is not so easy with Hyper-G.
-Ian
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.
If you want to read more details, use the "Inside Book" search on Amazon within the Great Mambo Chicken.
From the search results link above, visit pages 54 and 55 - the sidebars navigate to the next and previous pages.
No I have no affilate link in there (that I am aware of) - call me crazy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No discussion of the Physics of Superman is complete without this analysis of why Superman can't have sex.
Remain calm! All is well!
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)
You mean ultra-mega-hyper chicken? Shh! He is legend!
Unlike porn, which yada yada rimshot hey-ooh!
When I was an undergrad taking lower division Newtonian Physics my prof assigned a problem set along the lines of:
"Superman: the man of steel. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound:
1) Calculate Superman's kinetic energy to go faster than the bullet
2) Determine the amount of work Superman would do pushing against the locomotive to make it go backwards 1 km on a level track
3) Compute the impulse generated by Superman to leap a tall building
Most of the class did OK, I got all the answers in the ballpark, but one student had answers that were an order of magnitude greater than anybody elses'. When the prof asked the student why his answers were so high, he replied "Well, it seems as if I used a higher mass than anybody else - you DID say that Superman was the man of steel, didn't you?"
He got full credit.
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
Can a chicken really do anything "in style"?
I give bread to the poor, they call me a saint.
I ask why the poor have no bread, they call me a communist.
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
Goku and Vegeta already did this a long time ago in DragonBall Z or GT... at 500G.
Does Superman have superhumor? Or, if he became a dad, would he then become Superdad?
"If you loved me, you`d all kill yourselves today"
Spider Jerusalem
Do they have human sized centrifuges?
Yes.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The man has a serious GAS problem, you can always see him lean his but out just a little before he takes off. Same thing goes when he levitate, it's just one constant steady flow of but wind. If a person were on krypton then they would be able to smell the difference, but on earth superman's gas emits no odor. The same theory can be applied to his super speed, i'm still working on the other abilities.
Since nobody seems to have answered the original question of "Why aren't we trying this with humans?" -- The answer is that "We are. And it doesn't work that well."
If you search for "NASA Hypergravity" on Google, you will find all kinds of data about the experiments, all kinds of crackpots talking about becoming super-strong or the like and this interesting Wired article written by one of the participants. If you don't want to dig too deep, check out the article. It's a pretty good summary from the inside out.
15 years from now at your local KFC... Hi, yes I would like to order 1 bucket of Extra crispy Super Chicken
Well Im gona go do something... and by something I mean nothing but doing nothing away from my computer counts as someth
A: Yes, there's a ride a Magic Mountain in southern California, but I don't know that they'd keep it running for you months at a time, and it would cost you a bloody fortune in ride tickets and daily admission. :-)