The Science of Iron Man

holy_calamity writes "New Scientist takes a look at the evidence-base behind the science and technology in the new blockbuster Iron Man, and finds it is pretty solid. From exoskeletons to real-time translation there are at the very least proof-of-concept demonstrations of pretty much all the glitzy tech the hero Tony Stark uses."

Comments

Flying suits of armor? I don't think so.

[smooth wombat]

It's nice that Stuart Ross thinks he can develop rocketbelts to enable people to fly. However, until someone comes up with a way to store the, apparently, unlimited fuel necessary to power a suit such as Iron Mans, and have it weigh, again, apparently, next to nothing, we will never see flying suits of armor.

Forget for a moment that a large percentage of people can't safely drive a vehicle on the ground at 65 mph. We now want to develop suits of metal capable of flying hundreds of miles per hour (Iron Man can out run jets and other craft)?

Then there is all his armament that he carries within the suit. How many rounds of ammunition, not to mention various missiles and such, is he carrying? Yeah, I thought so.

Yeah, yeah, I realize this is all fantasy and it makes for good enjoyment. But let's not get ahead of ourselves and try to claim that everything developed in a fantasy environment is directly translatable to real life.

Super-duper computers capable of interacting with humans? Sure. It will take some time but it is feasible and most likely probable. New uber-compounds which can retain their shape or make repairs to themselves? Already happening. Suits of armor capable of flying hundreds of miles per hour? Not gonna happen.

On a side note, is it just me or do Downey's whoops and hollers sound flat? I realize he wasn't actually flying but his yelling just doesn't seem, to me, to be indicative of someone who's flying in a suit of armor.

Re:Flying suits of armor? I don't think so.

[Chris Burke]

But let's not get ahead of ourselves and try to claim that everything developed in a fantasy environment is directly translatable to real life.

Nobody is claiming that.

The "unlimited energy" thing is an extremely obvious impossibility, as are others. This article focuses on those "super power" aspects which do have a plausible amount of reality behind them.

Re:This is one of the reason I want to see this mo

[geekoid]

"The whole world is only what we imagine it to be"

No.

"So, I think both spider-man and iron-man are equally possible."
neither are possible.

Both can be fun.

Re:This is one of the reason I want to see this mo

[Ephemeriis]

A real life mach 2 engine is much larger than a man. That is certainly true... But it is also irrelevant.

If you go back a couple dozen years it was outright impossible to build an engine capable of mach 2. We didn't have the science or technology to make it happen. It was maybe a glimmer in some technician's imagination, but that's it.

And before that we didn't even have the ability to fly at all.

Today we have cell phones with more processing power than an entire building full of computers a few years back.

We've got tiny motors in toys and gizmos that were also flat-out impossible a few years back.

Sure, by today's standards Iron Man is completely impossible, but that really doesn't mean much. I'm not claiming that such a thing will ever actually be possible... But claiming that our current understanding of science and technology is as good as it is ever going to get is awfully arrogant.