A Scientific Paper Explaining Superman's Powers

Posted by John Farrier in Science & Tech on September 30, 2009 at 6:11 pm


Ryan North of the webcomic Dinosaur Comics asked his friend Ben Tippett to write a formal paper explaining the coherency of Superman’s amazing powers. It’s a very math and physics-heavy article, so I won’t try to understand, let alone summarize the whole thing. Here, however, is the conclusion:

We conjecture that all of Superman’s powers come from His ability to alter the inertial mass of objects in His immediate vicinity or with which He is in personal contact; although the mechanism is unknown.

Link via io9

Image: flickr user chanchan222, used under Creative Commons license.


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11 comments to "A Scientific Paper Explaining Superman's Powers"

  1. willie
    September 30th, 2009 at 6:31 pm

    My cousin co-wrote an article in 2006 for the Daily Texas at the University of Texas about physicists against Superman's powers.
    http://www.dailytexanonline.com/life-arts/mad-league-upset-with-hero-f or-defying-laws-of-physics-1.968046

  2. FishBottleT
    September 30th, 2009 at 6:55 pm

    ummm

  3. FishBottleT
    September 30th, 2009 at 9:25 pm

    Let me rephrase my earlier comment of, "Ummm". But how can a paper be scientific if there is no way to prove the information fact or fiction. The fact that this dude has taken the mental ability to try to come up with numbers and data about a character is cool but pointless since nothing will come from it other than fighting over differing beliefs about certain super heros.

  4. FishBottleIsDumb
    September 30th, 2009 at 11:22 pm

    Superman is REAL, gawd. How do you explain other superheros not destroying the world? Duh!

  5. Joseph Francis
    October 1st, 2009 at 4:11 am

    John Byrne put it best. The source of Superman's power of flight (and everything else) -

    Force of will.

  6. ted
    October 1st, 2009 at 7:57 am

    Dumb. Reminds me of the old Man of Steel vs Woman of Kleenex story written by Larry Niven in the 70's. In other words, done before.

  7. dinvaren
    October 1st, 2009 at 8:05 am

    well duh, superman is a plant!!!!!! see photosynthesis

  8. Staggerwing
    October 1st, 2009 at 8:29 am

    This has been done. Read Larry Niven's "Man of steel, woman of Kleenex."

  9. edc2
    October 2nd, 2009 at 12:49 am

    flight = telekineses.
    bulletproof = dense sub protonic structure which also makes him quite heavy.

  10. brett maxwell
    October 2nd, 2009 at 1:24 am

    it's funny how overthinking something isn't funny until you waaaaay overthink it!

  11. Bruce
    October 5th, 2009 at 12:03 pm

    Many years ago I came across a book called "A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown" which is full of this sort of thing. Just checked over at Amazon and it is back in print...


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