November 15, 2005
From the desk of Jane Galt:Superhero physics
I'm reading a fantastic book right now called The Physics of Superheroes, which I highly recommend for that special geek in your life . . . or for anyone you know like me, who managed to duck high school physics entirely.* It teaches real physics, using various superheroes to illustrate principles like acceleration, thermodynamics, and electromagnetism. The prose is clear enough that a math dunce like me can grasp it, and the superhero examples are enough, I think, to interest even someone who already knows physics. Plus, the gentle fun he drily pokes at the comics he collects makes me laugh out loud.
Max Dillon was a highly skilled but self-centered electrical utility worker. When a coworker was trapped atop a high-tension line, Max was cavalier about his fate until his foreman offered Dillon a $100 reward (in 1963 dollars, worth about $600 today) for rescuing him. Freeing the unconscious colleague and lowering him to the ground with a cable, Dillon then receives an unanticipated bonus when he is struck by lightening while grasping the high-tension lines. Just as in the case of Barry Allen (the Flash), not only did Dillon not die or suffer any burns or neurological damage from this traumatic event, but he in fact gained the ability to store electrical energy that he could discharge at will in the form of lightning bolts. (Young readers during [the 1950's and 1960's] could be forgiven if they reached the conclusion that being struck by lightening, preferably in conjunction with some other hazardous activity, was one of the best things that could happen to them, second only to being exposed to massive doses of radiation.) Dillon's accident, presented in Amazing Spider Man #9 may have changed his body but it left his antisocial attitudes intact. Realizing that he now possessed fearsome electrical powers, he designed a garish green-and-yellow disguise, with a bright yellow lightning-bolt-themed mask and embarked on a life of crime as Electro . . . Personally, if I gained mastery over such a powerful force of nature, I don't think this would necessarily be the costume that I'd choose to wear in public. Perhaps if Max Dillon had not been such a rat, his friends might have gently provided some better fashion advice. But it is exactly such a pattern of bad choices that frequently leads these superpowered miscreants to a life of crime.
*Yes, that's right, I have never taken physics. "How did you manage that?" My aghast critics demand. "You went to an excellent school?" The answer is that I was in honors science, which instead of teaching "physical science" in 9th grade, then moving onto biology and chemistry, taught biology first, and then chemistry, with the expectation that you would then move onto advanced physics in 11th grade, while you were getting the math to grasp it. But advanced physics was an elective, and I didn't elect. I took Japanese literature instead.
Sounds like a good book. "....math dunce like me"? Kinda confirms my impression of "The Economist" from time-time.
"Yes, that's right, I have never taken physics."
How can you live in the universe without having read the instruction manual?
Here's the easy solution to your problem: The Cartoon Guide to Physics, by Larry Gonick
Gonick's books are excellent. I learned a lot from this one: he finally explained to me how an electric field really works. (I didn't understand virtual photons.)
jane,
a question from someone unfamiliar with your curriculum... did you at least some decent calculus and matrix algebra? physics ain't hard if you know some basic calculus and the concept of a vector. course i'm in SDB's crowd, having done wayyy too much physics, calculus, matrix and vector algebra, along with other, nastier stuff.
How can you live in the universe without having read the instruction manual?
Quite well, I would imagine.
Or you just narrow your universe. I know absolutely NOTHING about Japanese literature, but because my universe doesn't include it, it doesn't matter. One of my regrets is that my universe doesn't include art.
It's kind of hard to narrow your universe enough so that physics isn't a factor in it, I would think...
Oh, physics is a factor, but a completely un-noticed one for many people. From my physics background, I have a healthy appreciation of the dangers in the physical universe, but clueless people seem to do just fine, too.
My biggest problem was watching SciFi movies, or even non-SciFi movies with impossible action sequences. I finally developed the technique of assuming that the movie was set in a close but parallel universe where the physical laws were different. Maybe that's why The Last Action Hero is one of my favorite movies--it makes no bones about the unreality of action movies.
Japanese literature, interesting. Did you just read or were you expected to participate in some sort of Noh Theatre? I'm sure it would be amusing to see you in one of those freaky masks.
In my daughter's English school, from age 13 to age 16 the girls were obliged to do:- English language, English literature, French, a second modern language, maths, physics, chemistry, biology; they could add 2, 3 or 4 optional subjects. The "second language" choices included Spanish, German, Italian and Russian, plus, if there was demand, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic. The "options" included Latin, Greek, Religion, History, Geography, Drama, Music, Art, Textiles, Computer Science, Design/Technology, Dance..... After they were 16 they cut back to, typically, four subjects, entirely of their own choosing, and the list then had added to it Economics, Psychology and other subjects. You can offer these choices even in a small school if (i) you have a bunch of bright youngsters to teach, so that class sizes are economic even for demanding subjects, (ii) you're in a University town with lots of teaching talent available, full-time or part-time, many of these people being native speakers of foreign tongues, and (iii) you are not owned by an arm of government.
I have both Physics and Japanese.. can I have a cookie? LOL.
On a whim, I took a Japanese language class this semester. Most fun I've had in a while.
Physics + comics, this is a book fit for supergeeks! I'll go buy it....
My biggest problem was watching SciFi movies, or even non-SciFi movies with impossible action sequences.
Worst one for me was a TV episode of either the male or female bionic action hero, in which the augmented strength was used to break out of a wooden cabin held shut by a steel chain by pushing on the door till the chain "broke". I was at the time an OSHA qualified chain inspector. I'd seen lots of broken chain and even broken some deliberately in a hydraulic pulltester. Never saw a link of chain open up like that.
Less seriously, Jane, do I understand you to have never been physicked?
You have an MBA and you're a math dunce? Congratulations on your will power!
Understanding physics can ruin a lot of movies, but understanding biology is even worse. Then again, we may be conflating (1) the ability to give a thorough explanation of why something is impossible with (2) simply knowing it's impossible, which often most people (presumably) can determine without having specific training. But that training does seem to make impossible occurrences or plot complications more annoying.
There are levels, too. Giant insects are impossible, but that's ok, right? We accept that. But when, for instance, Ripley and an "Alien" mix their DNA, I want to kill someone. Wow, this is off point. What was Jane talking about again?
I took Japanese and physics, too...in college (physics was a major, and took 3 years of Japanese language classes.) I didn't get as far as Japanese literature, though. I got to read about 2 sci-fi short stories, but it takes a while to read kanji when you don't have much regular practice.
As for unrealistic physics in movies... eh. I don't really care if you can hear space battles, for instance. It doesn't bug me as much as magical mathematicians and computer hackers. I can't watch any "math" movie without wanting to go hide, so I just avoid them all. I'm wondering if I should break down and see "Proof", but perhaps I should hold to my aesthetic principles:
1. No mathematicians
2. No blowing up of the Chrysler Building
I've been tricked once on #2. Never again.
Meep,
Then don't ever watch the TV show "Numbers." My wife likes it but I can't stand it. Does MS follow these rules too?
How much of a math dunce can you be when you studied that much economics?
Jane,
So I'm guessing that your economics classes you took for your MBA were not general graduate economics classes, but economics classes tailored for MBA students? This would make sense, as no one will ever be required to differentiate an equation in a board room.
I prefer no theater to Noh theater. Ok, I stole that from MST3K.
No, we differentiated plenty of equations, but the math didn't get much more difficult than that.
So can Mr. Fantastic stretch every part of his body -- I mean EVERY part? What does the book have to say about superhero's sex organs?
You don't really need higher mathematics for some of the problems with superhero feats. One of my favorites is Superman (or any flying hero) going up to catch a person falling out of a plane or whatever fool thing Lois is up to that day. The person has already reached terminal velocity (wind friction slows them down as much as gravity accelerates them so that their speed no longer increases) and their main problem is the sudden deceleration they are going to experience when they hit the ground. So Superman saves them not by getting up to them, matching speeds, grabbing them, and then flying back to the earth with a gentler deceleration but by hitting them in midair and not only stopping their fall but raising them higher into the air. That is a bigger deceleration than they would have had if he just let them go splat and the impact is only on the parts of the body he touches as opposed to spread out over the whole body.
It is only worse if they hype the closeness of the catch by having the hero fly really fast. Best example being Neo catching Trinity as she was falling. That collision was much harder on her than the ground would have been.
Then don't ever watch the TV show "Numbers." My wife likes it but I can't stand it.
Saw one episode; wasn't bad, but the characters seemed pretty one-dimensional. Firefly and Serenity cured my dislike for violations of the physical world: the characters are highly multi-dimensional, so you can be distracted by them instead of the physics riff-raff.
I think most of what grates about entertainment forms that completely break the real world is that they tend to break the humans, too, so nothing seems like it could be real.
One reason I like Heinlein better than any other scifi author, possibly with the exception of Orson Scott Card (whose work I value much more for everything he has to say about character - I want to have dinner with him and see if he's as flat-out good a person as his character development makes him seem)... Heinlein doesn't go in for banking turns in space, holidays from momentum, equivalence of mass and weight, large aliens who skitter around on little pin-point feet, etc., etc. Of course, he does do the faster-than-light thing, but he pretty well acknowledges it as a plot device to serve his Future History universe - and then, last few books, got into the "alternate universe" thing, about which I don't think there can be an argument. I mean, it's like ID: you can believe it or not believe it, but it doesn't affect tangible reality one way or the other.
But read Card, for heaven's sake. He does NOT do the faster-than-light thing. What he does do is create honest-to-goodness heroes. And Ender's Game is the only book I've ever read in my entire life that, when I finished the last sentence of the last page, I closed and then immediately reopened to the first page to reread.
"Heinlein doesn't go in for banking turns in space, holidays from momentum, equivalence of mass and weight, large aliens who skitter around on little pin-point feet, etc., etc."
Funny you should say that. In Methuselah's Children Andy Libby invents a gizmo that has the precise job of giving a spaceship and everything inside it a holiday from momentum, with the result that light pressure from the sun sends the thing flying away from the sun at near lightspeed.
The best explanation of banking turns in space came from Timothy Zahn in his Star Wars trilogy where he referred to deploying the, IIRC, gravity brake.
Ken, Libby's gizmo is outisde what we know of as normal physics; it's not inside mormal physics and still violative of it. There's a difference.
Charles, did you ever read Larry Niven's short piece on Superman and the normal result of his superpowers? Example: If everything is super, then why aren't there many many small holes in the roof of his house from his teenage years? I thinke the piece was entitled Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.
Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex is actually online.
URL: http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html
A good read.
The producers of Superman II paid Niven off for that article, IIRC. It explained why Clark Kent couldn't consummate his marriage to Lois until he lost his powers.
Oops, Ken, you got me. It's been a loooooong time since I reread "Methuselah's Children"! Libby and his/her ilk were the deus ex machina in quite a few stories - Heinlein said that if you want something done, just tell an engineer it's impossible. (He had a pretty high opinion of himself - er, engineers, I gather.)
I recall reading his juvies as a juvie myself with something near awe for his rigorousness. At that age I dabbled in a few sci-fi writers of the "sword and sorcery" type, and they just seemed so soft compared to the Dean. I must admit, though, that his rigorousness varied first with the vagaries of his health (I Will Fear No Evil probably never should have seen the light of day, though it's got interesting social commentary) and then once he introduced the whole alternate-universe thing and suddenly they find themselves in Oz and Lilliput and all. Fun stories but no longer textbooks.
You really have to see Electro to realize how bad his fashion choice was. (Even though it was the early Sixties.)
Here is how it translates into real life.
I linked to the author's page about the book, with excerpts, along with a comics-related-sorta story, a few weeks ago here, by the way.
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