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The Physics of Superheroes
peterwayner writes "There are few corners of the world that are more closely associated with the word "nerd" than comic books and physics. Despite the large overlap in the fan base, the two disciplines seem doomed to live forever in different corners of our minds. Superheroes don't have to obey the laws of physics and that's probably what makes them so attractive to the poor physicists who labor long and hard in the hope of making those laws work correctly. James Kakalios, a physics professor at the University of Minnesota, has produced a book, "The Physics of Superheroes" (now in paperback). The surprise is that the two don't behave like matter and anti-matter. They don't explode on contact." Read the rest of Peter's review.
The Physics of Superheroes
author
James Kakilios
pages
340
publisher
Gotham Books
rating
9
reviewer
Peter Wayner
ISBN
1-59240242-9
summary
Why superman isn't as far fetched as it may seem.
There's no reason to spoil the book. You'll have to read it if you want to know why Superman can't change history, how Magneto becomes Electro when he runs, and whether Spiderman could really do those amazing things with spider silk. Some of the chapters are devoted to celebrating the accuracy of the comic strips by working through the physical equations. Much of what the comic book writers imagined is actually pretty reasonable. These sections bring new discipline to those old debates over who's stronger, bigger or most capable.
Other sections spell out just how wrong some of the assumptions are. Even when he's deflating the hopes of those kids who wish they could fly like Superman, he uses the disconnection with reality as a chance to riff on some what-if questions. What if Superman came from a planet that had a gravitational field 15 times stronger than earth? Would he be able to leap tall buildings? And then what would happen to a planet that was 15 times denser than earth? Would it fly apart as it rotated? Could you build one by just making a bigger version of Earth? What if you put some superdense material in the center of your new Earth? These are the questions that Kakalios works through.
The core theorem or narrative device of the book (choose your point of view) is that comic book authors can't bend too many rules. In fact, they usually can't get away with breaking more one or two. Then the hero must live a conventional life in our world and that's what makes it interesting. Spiderman may have a superstrong webbing, but he's still as vulnerable to depression as the next man. Batman may have unlimited wealth, but that won't bring back his parents. To paraphrase Robert Frost, comic book authors aren't playing tennis without a net.
In this world, science and comic narrative aren't bizarro versions of each other. Stories are sort of like free-form experiments where the scientist tries to change just one thing and measure the results. From this viewpoint, there's little difference between the two disciplines. A comic book is just a shorthand version of a scientific experiment.
This link implies an interesting and perhaps dangerous notion: science is just a longhand version of comic books. Sure, the folks at the cell phone companies have been striving mightily to make real that button on James T. Kirk's chest. That's the good news. But what about the darker notions? Anyone who's dealt with the side-effects of supposedly safe drugs like Vioxx knows that the bench scientists are as constrained as the comic book authors. They've got to come up with research that satisfies their customers and provide a simple resolution before that customer loses interest. (And won't those scientists come up with an ending for the debate about the link between cell phone-brain cancer before a jury does?)
But such speculation may kill the fun in the book. It's really just an excuse to toss around some equations and ask "what if" with a bit more rigor. This book may not be a grand, unifying theorem for the big plots of comic books and the big theories of science, but it's a neat first cut. It's as fascinating as much for its nuts and bolts description of physics as its offhand way of mixing together mathematical frameworks with narrative understanding.
Bio: Peter Wayner is the author of 13 books like Translucent Databases and Disappearing Cryptography .
You can purchase The Physics of Superheroes from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
There's no reason to spoil the book. You'll have to read it if you want to know why Superman can't change history, how Magneto becomes Electro when he runs, and whether Spiderman could really do those amazing things with spider silk. Some of the chapters are devoted to celebrating the accuracy of the comic strips by working through the physical equations. Much of what the comic book writers imagined is actually pretty reasonable. These sections bring new discipline to those old debates over who's stronger, bigger or most capable.
Other sections spell out just how wrong some of the assumptions are. Even when he's deflating the hopes of those kids who wish they could fly like Superman, he uses the disconnection with reality as a chance to riff on some what-if questions. What if Superman came from a planet that had a gravitational field 15 times stronger than earth? Would he be able to leap tall buildings? And then what would happen to a planet that was 15 times denser than earth? Would it fly apart as it rotated? Could you build one by just making a bigger version of Earth? What if you put some superdense material in the center of your new Earth? These are the questions that Kakalios works through.
The core theorem or narrative device of the book (choose your point of view) is that comic book authors can't bend too many rules. In fact, they usually can't get away with breaking more one or two. Then the hero must live a conventional life in our world and that's what makes it interesting. Spiderman may have a superstrong webbing, but he's still as vulnerable to depression as the next man. Batman may have unlimited wealth, but that won't bring back his parents. To paraphrase Robert Frost, comic book authors aren't playing tennis without a net.
In this world, science and comic narrative aren't bizarro versions of each other. Stories are sort of like free-form experiments where the scientist tries to change just one thing and measure the results. From this viewpoint, there's little difference between the two disciplines. A comic book is just a shorthand version of a scientific experiment.
This link implies an interesting and perhaps dangerous notion: science is just a longhand version of comic books. Sure, the folks at the cell phone companies have been striving mightily to make real that button on James T. Kirk's chest. That's the good news. But what about the darker notions? Anyone who's dealt with the side-effects of supposedly safe drugs like Vioxx knows that the bench scientists are as constrained as the comic book authors. They've got to come up with research that satisfies their customers and provide a simple resolution before that customer loses interest. (And won't those scientists come up with an ending for the debate about the link between cell phone-brain cancer before a jury does?)
But such speculation may kill the fun in the book. It's really just an excuse to toss around some equations and ask "what if" with a bit more rigor. This book may not be a grand, unifying theorem for the big plots of comic books and the big theories of science, but it's a neat first cut. It's as fascinating as much for its nuts and bolts description of physics as its offhand way of mixing together mathematical frameworks with narrative understanding.
Bio: Peter Wayner is the author of 13 books like Translucent Databases and Disappearing Cryptography .
You can purchase The Physics of Superheroes from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I'd like to see what one of these explanations are, so I can actually evaluate his reasoning. The lack of a sample leaves this review with a big gaping hole of no examples to support its conclusions.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
Always got a chuckle out of "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" by Niven. http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html
I'm hoping it finally explains just how Batman came to be...obviously this would have more to do with genetics, but I'd really love to see them explain a half-bat/half-man running around a poorly disguised version of 1970s NYC. ...it's a costume you say? -looks crestfallen-
IIRC, Kirk didn't have a communicator on his chest, that was Picard.
The author was interviewed on NPR's Science Friday last year. They talk about some specific examples from the book, and it's an entertaining interview. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4851397
You passed.
This isn't a what if... A very good friend of mine went to the University of Minnesota and took a course with this professor with this book as the text for the class. He told me that they figure out some neat things.
They calculate the outrageous amount of food that Superman needs to eat on a daily basis. They use different examples to figure out what Spider-Man's web can and can't do and go so far as to calculate the tensile strength of a fresh web.
He told me lots of other neat examples that I can't even recall right now. I've been told that it's a great book and a great course.
Am I the only one who instinctively read this summary with a voice in my head that sounded like the Simpsons Comic Book Guy???
I would be interested to see an actual physical simulation of Spider-Man style webslinging, to see if you could actually get around New York (or anywhere) by swinging from building to building. My theory? He should crash into walls all the time.
qntm.org
The old badass Darth Vader or Vader Lite aka Hayden Christensen?
Why stop there?
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
Wait... so you are saying I spent all of this time next to this core of pure uranium for nothing? Damn.
Some people encrypt by using rot-13 twice. I prefer the more secure method of using rot-1 a total of twenty six times.
Combine them all and behold, we have the uber-nerd! He who is beaten up by regular nerds, and can walk through the women's locker room unseen, since he is utterly invisible to the female gender.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
just like it has no place in movies that aren't documentaries about physics. This book is just as bad sounding as the website Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics . Maybe i am the minority here, but i think entertainment shouldn't be subjected to scrutinty like this. Who cares if spidermans web is not able to do what it does in the comic. Whoever referenced the superman vs darth vader is right, those are the important questions (Like who would win in a fight Neo or Gandalf) not, what are the physics of superman's flying. Its called supsension of disbelief, its what allows us to go to the movies and see Logan/wolverine and not hugh jackman just wearing gardening tools on his hands.
sorry, couldn't resist
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
How the hell is spam modded up like this? Bullshit organ-damaging inducing diet, and that neural drive crap, if it works, sounds like a good way to get tendonitis. Yay lifelong crippling injuries!
Boy, you don't know nothing!
Mighty Mouse is a cartoon.
Superman is a real guy. No way a cartoon could beat up a real guy.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
I've got it and have started reading it. A friend bought it for me last Christmas. As an avid fan of both comic books and Physics, it warms my heart to read how the author approaches each situation. That's with a very science first outlook. Essentially he's using comic books and super hero's to replace the common examples of "Man throws a 12kg ball over a cliff at 12,000meters, how much force will the ball have with the ground if F=ma". Just change ball to superman, and cliff to building, and man throwing to superman leaping.
As for an example, the first one in the book's about how to determine the velocity superman needs at ground zero to be able to jump a 30 or 40 story building given the outside forces acting upon him.
The author deals mostly with silver and golden age heros (Sorry Spawn lovers).
Any geek who has read comics for any length of time knows that the superheroes of today are *much* less powerful than they were 40 - 50 years ago. I doubt if the laws of physics have changed. Perhaps the shift has been with writers finally understanding that they can only push the boundaries of reality so far.
A Superman who can push the Earth out of its orbit isn't fun for a writer to work with, any more than it is for reader above the age of 5 to enjoy.
A specific incident that comes to mind, probably from the late '80's. I believe it was "Legion of Superheroes" #38, where the writer (Paul Levitz?) had Mon-El deliver a white dwarf star to Earth, as part of a complex plot, to act as a power source for one of Brainiac 5's experiments. The resulting letters page a few issues later completely humbled the writer, with the readers taking him to task for violating the many laws of physics that would have resulted in the Earth's complete destruction. Some readers went into great detail about where the author went wrong, and Levitz actually apologized.
Writers have to be more careful because their readers routinely take them to task when they go too far.
Superman can just turn back time, then use his super-speed to fly to the galaxy that is "far far away" and confront Vader. In fact, he could confront Vader when he was just whiney Anaken, smash the crap out of his pod racer, and leave his dessicated corpse on the sands of Tatooine.
It is rather suspicious that Krypton exploded in much the same manner as Alderaan. My only guess would be that the Vader saw this move coming while Kal-El was still a baby.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Now, I don't know how many of you dogs of the scurviest sea read comics, but I do a big pile of comics. One thing that blows my mind is how completely insane the powers in the DC universe are. Look at Superman. This guy has more powers than French restaurants have ways to say "your taste in wine is atrocious". He has powers to do with every part of his body and then some. He forgets powers sometimes. He can shoot heat rays out of his eyes, frost breath from his mouth and red son radiation from his ass. He's that sort of crazy dude. All because he absorbs solar radiation.
Look at Batman. His power? The anti-power. Sure, he should be some tame, kung fun master of not much, but instead he's the hottest shit to ever shit on a plate. You got a power? He'll find your weakness and give you seizures or heart attacks. He'll light you on fire when you're sleeping or make you recharge your green lantern ring in the power outlet. Ten thousand volts of fuck you batman. That's Batman.
But the fucking Flash, my god, my FUCKING GOD, this man has the greatest powers of all. If Superman's powers are being sucked off by twin super models and batman coming home to discover your wife is not only bisexual but has two friends she wants you to 'get in on' then the Flash is an orgy with a thousand women who also want to pay your World of Warcraft billing. And click the mouse for you. This man is just that fucking hot. They have to power him down in the comics half the time just to keep him from doing everyone else's job.
Ok first off, he can travel at lightspeed. Mother fuck! Not only does he travel at lightspeed, but time slows down for him. So he feels like he's having a casual jog or reading the paper, meanwhile, his feet are moving so fast you can hear him coming from Montana while he's already gotten to Arizona. That's fucking fast. But wait! The ability to move at Lightspeed just isn't fucking enough!
I know! Christ this guy can punch you so many times in a second you've been hit five times in the cock and two times everywhere else. You think you're about to fight the Flash and then it hits you, for the last split second he's beaned your beanbags with more blows than you had sperm. But no, there's more!
The Flash can also vibrate through walls. Now last I heard, you can not move so fast you can vibrate through walls, so what actually happens is the Flash is so fast he can pick and choose the movement of his individual molecules and move them through other solid objects, phasing through solid matter like it ain't no thing. I mean you think a guy who runs at lightspeed would run into shit but no, the Flash just goes right through them. To top that with a cherry and some whipped cream (which the Flash made in like a millisecond, fucker) he can selectively choose to cause objects to be "okay" afterwards or FUCKING EXPLODE. That's right. He can run through you and make you blow up by transfering kinetic energy into you. Like Jesus. IT's bad enough you can't hit this guy, but he doesn't even have to punch you. Now your testicles have exploded and you're thinking you're about to hit him. Jesus? Just give it up. He's the fucking Flash.
Now imagine that somehow there's someone who can get around the Flash blowing your balls up secret ninja technique. Ok. He can also control the flow of energy between objects. This power makes no sense but basically he can throw a rock at you, and you think it's going slow and then he's like WHOOHOOO WIZARDLY FLASH POWERS and bam it's going at lightspeed. So he can throw seven million rocks at you in a second then make them all goes different speeds thus striking your nads with seven million rocks one after the other.
But wait! There's more! He can also take energy from the very power of speed and make clothes out of it. Yes. Flash makes his pants out of GOES FAST. The man is so fast he can make Flash pants that GOES FAST go right into. I don't even start to understand the physics of that but basically SPEED == REALLY TIGHT UNDERWEAR AND COOL LIGHTNING THINGIES OVER T