The Physics of Superman 421
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?"
Question... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Question... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Question... (Score:2, Funny)
Scientist, "Um, Frank? Are they all supposed to be walking to the left all the time with thier heads upside down?"
Hate to see such a chicken lay an egg......
Quoth Mitch Hedberg: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Quoth Mitch Hedberg: (Score:5, Funny)
I believe the technical term around here is "hot grits".
Re:Quoth Mitch Hedberg: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Quoth Mitch Hedberg: (Score:3, Interesting)
Mitch [wikipedia.org] was a really funny guy.
Re:Question... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.omlet.co.uk/guide/guide.php?view=Chick
Re:Question... (Score:3, Informative)
The can "fly" just enough to get up into the relatively low branches of trees, over tall fences, gliding down from heights and of course as a method of faster escape at ground level.
Re:Question... (Score:5, Funny)
When I was at school one of the Biology teachers (let's call him Mr Mudie) was covering the topic of "Birds 'n Flight 'n Stuff" and he borrowed a quail from the city university. Quail tend to be more on the 'flutter' rather than 'soar' end of the flight scale. So, Mr Mudie has this quail in his hands and says (I paraphrase) "..and of course quail don't fly so well" and launches the bird high into the air...
It went up.....
Of course, he proved his point - they don't fly so well
Re:Question... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Question... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Chickens can fly
Not really. Chickens can fly for very short distances and limited heights. They can get over fences and travel maybe 40 feet at a time. After one such "long" flight, they can barely get off the ground and prefer to run.
they just have their wings clipped to prevent this.
Chickens that are kept outdoors in pens without high walls have their wings clipped. I don't know what the minimum "safe" wall height is, but most unroofed outdoor pens I've seen use wire mesh about seven feet high. Smaller pens can use shorter walls because the chickens need quite a bit of horizontal room to reach their maximum height above ground. Wing clipping doesn't actually reduce their wings' lift much, mainly it just removes the ends of the primary feathers which are necessary for controlled flight. Chicken flight is pretty erratic and wild at best, and without those feather tips they just can't control it at all.
Re:Question... (Score:5, Funny)
Not really. Chickens can fly...
'Nuff said.
Re:Question... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Question... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Question... (Score:5, Funny)
Me too. It's called falling.
Re:Question... (Score:3, Funny)
Then he chops of one of the frog's legs, and yells "Jump froggie, jump!" The frog jumps just about ten feet, and the experimenter writes in his notebook: "Frog with three legs, jumps three meters."
He repeats this process twice more, with the frog jumping six, then just
Re:Question... (Score:5, Funny)
Not only can they fly, but they think nothing of beating up Klingon chickens. These chickens are so bad, they'll rip off their drumsticks and smack you upside the head with them. These chickens are so strong, you have to fry them in 40 weight motor oil. These are SERIOUS chickens.
Re:Question... (Score:5, Funny)
Possibly, but in any case, here are some facts:
Super-chickens can kill anyone they want! Super-chickens cut off heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These chickens are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this super-chicken who was eating at a diner. And when some dude bit into a drumstick the super-chicken killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a super-chicken totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.
Re:Question... (Score:3, Funny)
Chris Mattern
No, but they do *FRY* pretty well (Score:3, Funny)
-Eric
its that time again... (Score:5, Funny)
Human centrifuge - the Gravitron (Score:4, Interesting)
Which enabled you to do stupid things like go upside down [ride-extravaganza.com] 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?
Re:Human centrifuge - the Gravitron (Score:5, Interesting)
The amusement park was right beside a beach so I'd get chicks coming in with their two piece bikini's. At a certain speed of rotation, the panel you lean against would slide up. At this speed and force, a lot of the women couldn't lift their arms and hands away from beside them - they were as good as pinned down. It took me a few weeks, but I pefected tweaking the speed just right to have those panels slide up and down repeatedly. And in doing so, I managed to "jiggle" many a breast out from under a bikini top!
Yeah, I'll go to hell, but damn, it made the job worthwhile
Re:Human centrifuge - the Gravitron (Score:3, Funny)
That's hilarious! You lucky bastard, that must have been awesome. Maybe that explains your fetish for abnormally flat breasts...
Re:Human centrifuge - the Gravitron (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:its that time again... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aslashdot.or
Re:its that time again... (Score:3, Informative)
A wider search of overlords gives the same post
This one http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7988&c id=736976 [slashdot.org] from Monday October 02, 2000 (I think) is linked from wikipedia
Re:its that time again... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:its that time again... (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, good old Super Chicken (Score:2)
http://www.digital-sledgehammer.com/superchicken/
Yet another great reason to live in Pittsburgh.....
Web server (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:2)
No news... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No news... (Score:2)
Re:No news... (Score:4, Informative)
The ultimate high-g planet is the super-jovian Mesklin, in Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity. At the poles it was about 600g. The natives were centipede-like, obviously very strong and fast, but they had no clear idea of "falling". If you dropped something, it disappeared and reappeared on the ground, smashed or squashed flat. More extreme, the astronomer Frank Drake imagined life on a neutron star, based on nuclear reactions rather than chemical, microscopic and extremely fast. Robert Forward did a couple of novels using that idea.
Re:No news... (Score:4, Interesting)
Larry Niven is wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
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 neurophysi
Re:Larry Niven is wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Given that he's powered by the Sun, I'd lean more towards an optical nervous system.
I'd lean more towards getting out more.
Re:No news... (Score:2)
For more along the lines of the summary... (Score:5, Informative)
In addition (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In addition (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know that book, but I know my superheroes.
Did the book mention that originally, Supes was from the planet Krypton, where the gravity is 10 times that of earth, and therefore he was super strong and could jump really high, and super tough?
As the years went by, he had more and more powers added to hi
I wonder where you approach the limit..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wonder where you approach the limit..... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder where you approach the limit..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I wonder where you approach the limit..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I wonder where you approach the limit..... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I wonder where you approach the limit..... (Score:3, Informative)
I recently read Human Acclimatization and Adaptation to Stresses [sdsu.edu]. The article explains, unsurprisingly in retrospect, that altitude training has different effects on different people. Some are helped, some remain the same or worsen. But the majority of athletic improvement should be attributed to the other big condition of a high altitude camp: the absence of stresses of normal life. The article also suggested that an athlete often ends up unintentionally training less intensley due do the difficulties of l
Yes... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I wonder where you approach the limit..... (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, since this study indicates our bodies strengthen and weaken based on the average load, I'll go ahead and guess that the size and strength we develop to is "about right" for our particular usage pattern. In other words, going about your day to day activities your body will adjust to "about right" muscle and bone strength, so as to handle most tasks easily and not waste too much effort building infrastructure that won't be needed often if ever.
Of course, many of us seem to disagree with the natural results. Though in reality I sit at a computer most of the day and have little need for muscular development, I exercise a couple times a week to fool my body into thinking I need a little extra bone and muscle tissue.
Cheers.
No wringing their necks! (Score:4, Funny)
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!"
Re:No wringing their necks! (Score:2)
About Flying (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:About Flying (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd imagine that he flies upwards really fast, while she falls down at her terminal velocity. Then he catches her - with double or more the impact of her hitting the (stationary) ground - since the relative velocity would be so much larger.
Like hitting an oncoming car as opposed to a parked one.
Re:About Flying (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:About Flying (Score:2)
Ever watch Happy Tree Friends [happytreefriends.com]? Apparently, they have more respect for the laws of physics than Superman
Re:About Flying (Score:2)
Re:About Flying (Score:2, Funny)
Re:About Flying (Score:3, Informative)
Re:About Flying (Score:2)
Superman as an Energy Being (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Superman as an Energy Being (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Humping Lois (Score:3, Funny)
(cue scene from Mallrats.)
Super Chicken? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Super Chicken? (Score:2)
Another weird thing about those superchickens (Score:5, Funny)
But.... (Score:2)
Yes, but... (Score:4, Funny)
That's not Superman... (Score:2, Interesting)
I just want to know... (Score:2)
Dark meat vs. Light (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh man, I am so old! (Score:5, Funny)
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!
Yea yea... (Score:2, Funny)
Please, think of chickens (Score:5, Funny)
Please, think of chickens.
Re: (Score:2)
Flying physics (Score:2)
That's how I do it, anyway. Up, up and away!
Re:Flying physics (Score:2)
Earth is the 'centrifuge' (Score:2)
If, having grown up here on Earth, you travel to a place with lower gravity (like Moon), you will be a superman.
Other example exist too — some athletes excercise at high altitudes to adjust their bodies to lower oxygen levels. When they then compete at (just above) sea level, they have an advantage.
Re:Earth is the 'centrifuge' (Score:2)
Just out of curiosity... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Just out of curiosity... (Score:3, Interesting)
accleration gradient - you don't want very much of one or your balance will be all screwy.
coriolis "force" - a result of the transformation to a rotating reference frame. You want to minimize this as well, for balance reasons.
Fortunately the solution to both is to increase R. Unfortunately, this limits where you can place your rotating habitat and increase the cost to power it.
So some practical numbers: (i'm not sure how to do the coriolis part, but the rest is pretty easy)
Suppose we to
Feedback anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]). 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 [wikipedia.org] 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
Development of Supermans Powers Over Time (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.johnath.com/~david/etc/superman.html [johnath.com]
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.
Whatever you do, don't swing a sword at them (Score:5, Funny)
time travel (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't he return in 2 hours?
Re:time travel (Score:3, Informative)
They're alluding to the time dilation effect in general and/or special relativity.
Basically if you are travelling close to the speed of light relative to some other point ( say earth), then time slows down for you relative to the time flow at the other point. The effect is:
sqrt( 1- ((v**2) / (c**2)))
Where v is your velocity and c is the speed of light. So if you get really close to the speed of light time slows down for you a lot.
I'm assuming that when they say comes back in two hours they mean
Why we don't do this with people ... (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Superheroes aren't science fiction (Score:3, Insightful)
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 excerpt from the Great Mambo Chicken book (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Man of Steel, Larry Niven's take (Score:3, Informative)
ObNiven (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html [rawbw.com] (first Google link)
I Had a Problem Set Like This Once... (Score:5, Funny)
"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.
DragonBall Z, Goku and Vegeta (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
NASA Hypergravity Experiment (Score:3)
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 [wired.com] 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.
Re:Larry Niven (Score:5, Informative)
This experiment depended on experiments in STS-107 (Score:2)
By spinning astronauts and then testing them in the "balance booth," Paloski hopes to learn how to facilitate the transition from one state to another. His subjects will be crewmembers of shuttle mission STS-107, which is slated for launch in January 2003. "We plan to test these astronauts both before and after the mission," he says.
Damn.