Comments on: Comics Versus Physics

by: DZ

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:11:05 +0000

One of my friends actually just gave this book to me for Christmas which you may find interesting. I don't know nearly enough physics to be able to tell how accurate it is, but it sounds reasonable makes for okay light weight reading.

by: Jonadab

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:42:43 +0000

I don't know about the volleyball thing (a rock is, as you note, not very elastic), but an athlete uses (probably without thinking consciously about it in may cases) assorted tricks to throw things faster than any individual part of his body can move. Think in terms of snapping the wrist on the end of the swinging arm while also rotating at the hips, and that sort of thing -- adding momenta together, in other words. Nonetheless, a hero without any extra speed wouldn't be able to throw an object significantly faster than a normal athlete can do, although with super strength he'd presumably be able to do it with a somewhat heavier object. Superman, of course, was supposed to have both super strength and super speed, so he'd be able to throw things with an enormous initial velocity, though inside an atmosphere the velocity would still be expected to decline with distance, if normal physics applies.

by: addaon

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:33:30 +0000

Absolutely, as described. But to generalize, it only needs to be elastic enough to have some energy gain with impact with an arbitrarily strong palm. The next maneuver is to bobble the object back and forth back between two hands, gathering momentum, until firing it off. Voila -- high speed projectiles with nothing but arbitrary strength!

by: theSeekerr

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 12:41:09 +0000

An arrow from the best compound bows will reach 360 feet per second, and they're pretty damn effective. I'd imagine that something heavier would be even more so.

That aside, though, the double bounce idea seems flawed - unless the object you're "throwing" is perfectly elastic, most of the energy from the "bounce" would go into deformation.

by: TwoHedWlf

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 07:18:06 +0000

I suppose your double bounce idea could work. But, I think the fastest any human has ever thrown anything is roughly 100mph. So lets say you can get it up to 200 mph. That's still only roughly 300 feet per second, a high powered bullet would be more in the region of 2500 feet per second.

A rock through at 300 fps would be pretty effective short range though.

by: Red October

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:58:25 +0000

Re: lifting heavy objects whilst stepping on the ground: I've always assumed that Superman, or Rogue, or whomever who fills the "Flying brick" square, however realistically (with Superman sitting at the absurd end of the spectrum and Rogue at the other) would just apply a little bit of their "flight" power to keep themselves from sinking like a King Tiger that's left the pavement. Remember that a power is always as strong as the plot says it must be. The rest, well, I guess they just hope we didn't think to hard on those moments.

by: addaon

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:39:11 +0000

Shouldn't a sufficiency strong/tough superhero be able to "throw" an item twice as fast as they can move their hand? Rather than just using a simple toss, think of a volleyball serve. With the left hand (which is still infinitely strong, of course), do a max-speed underhand toss of the object backwards... then, with the right hand, provide a max-speed surface for the object to bounce off of.

by: Bastard Child

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:55:04 +0000

'Super' man, 'super' skin - does he need Head & Shoulders?

by: ChrisBurton

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:44:10 +0000

Dan,
Just been following the links from the Answer, and got to this page about hitting a Star Destroyer with a can of ravioli.

Towards the end:
"Thermonuclear interactions, such as hydrogen fusion, may take place in the tomato sauce."

My uncontrollable laughter has redecorated my office wall with a fetching cereal-and-milk motif.

by: Daniel Rutter

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:49:21 +0000

You've basically just got to treasure the moments when they get physics and/or the behaviour of the characters right. Image Comics, for instance, had the new and inexperienced Mighty Man making a right hash of things like picking up a car (and just ripping the bumper off). And early in the Supreme story, before he became a metaphor for man's inhumanity to Cerebus the Aardvark or something, he was the first plausible kind of Flying Brick: He believed himself to be, and demanded to be treated as, a god. A generally benevolent god, but if you take hostages and make demands, he will deal with the problem by annihilating the whole city block. Samaritan is at the other end of the Flying Brick attitude spectrum. He doesn't have a moment to himself, because any time he slacks off, his laziness will surely result in at least one disaster that he could have prevented.