It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No… it’s a scientific paper explaining Superman’s Super Powers! Okay not really. The paper by Ben Tippet makes a few blatant suppositions and then using them builds a rather a strong hypothesis. Now I don’t claim to understand all of it. However, this is the gist in the author’s own words:
It is our contention that all of Superman’s abilities can be explained by
supposing that Superman has the ability to alter His own inertia, and the inertia
of objects with which He is in contact.
Click here for the The Unified Theory of Superman’s Powers.
There are lots of super formulas to support the facts. I’ll leave those for you to decipher. Here’s what I’ve understood of Superman’s super strength. The author refers to a scene in the movie where Superman lifts up a multi-storied office building. Now according to the laws of physics, the building should-
- Collapse under tremendous pressure as should the pavement under Superman’s feet
- Topple over to the side as Superman has lifted it from the corner!
However, as you might recollect, none of that really happens. Superman has in effect managed to move the center of mass of the building by controlling the moment of inertia. He has also reduced the effective mass of the building, which is why the pavement doesn’t crack and neither does the building at the point where Superman is holding it up.
All this and more is covered in Ben Tippet’s theory. Share your comments here. How plausible do you think it is? Do you wish you were God? Do you eat Kryptonite for breakfast? Is your last name Kent?
Are you sure you dropped your keys here?