Armageddon-How To Save The World

I chose to read the “Physics of Superheroes”. The chapter I decided to summarize is Chapter 1: Forces and Motion. In this chapter, the superhero of focus is one of my favorites; superman. At the beginning, the author talks about the concept pertaining to Superman’s creation, and the “explanations” behind his powers. The original Superman had only a few powers and the  justification of them was his Kryptonian heritage. Since his home planet had a stronger gravitational pull than Earth, his DNA was supposed to have encoded the development of impenetrable skin and stronger muscles.

                   

The ability to fly was introduced in later versions of Superman. Along with this came other various abilities such as, heat vision, x-ray vision, super hearing, and super breath. By this time the laws of physics did not apply to Superman and the creators needed a new explanation. This time, the reasoning behind his abilities was the fact that Earth orbited a yellow sun and Superman’s home planet, Krypton, orbited a red sun. These spectral differences however, were solely due to the distance the sunlight had to travel to reach their planets, and which hues were absorbed by the spectrum. Therefore, there is no way for these differences of sunlight wavelengths to give Superman the ability to fly, pick up cars, and see through walls. Because of this invalid justification, the creators of Superman decided to change his title of a science fiction superhero to a fantasy superhero.

Because Superman went through many significant changes throughout his existence, his enemies had to do the same. Originally he was fighting criminals such as, corrupt slumlords, coal miners, and lobbyists. However, to keep things interesting for readers, the creators began making more powerful villains. This is when criminal masterminds and powerful creatures became Superman’s biggest foes. While this was appropriate, Superman kept getting more powerful in each of his successions, making it almost impossible for writers to create threats that truly challenge his “god-like” abilities.

The rest of the chapter goes over a momentum problem involving Newton's second law. Referencing back to the flightless Superman, the comics claimed he could jump one eighth of a mile, or 660 ft. Vertically this would be a thirty to forty story building. His acceleration is then calculated at 250 meters per second squared, and his mass is assumed to be 100 kg. Given this info, it is put into an equation to find the force needed to allow him to vertically leap 660 feet: F=ma (100 kilograms) (250 meters per second squared) 25,000 kilograms meters per second squared, or about 5,600 pounds.