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Comic books fire up physics
KRIS KETONEN
11/16/2009

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The day Gwen Stacy died may have been a dark one for Spider-Man, but as they say, every cloud has a silver lining.

That silver lining in Spider-Man‘s case? Physics – that traumatic and tragic comic book event got them perfectly right.

That‘s according to life-long comic book reader and physicist James Kakalios, author of The Physics of Superheroes and physics professor at the University of Minnesota (who also happens to be giving a lecture on superhero physics at Lakehead University Tuesday night).

For those unfamiliar with Stacy‘s comic-book death, the Green Goblin tossed Stacy, then the girlfriend of Spider-Man‘s alter-ego Peter Parker, off a bridge in a 1973 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man.

Spider-Man attempted to stop Stacy‘s fall with a well-aimed web sling. He succeeded in doing that, of course, and here‘s where the physics come into play: The sudden stop after the long plunge snaps Stacy‘s neck, killing her.

So just how realistic was that?

“It‘s a physics question,” Kakalios said from his Minnesota home Sunday. “If she‘s falling, say, 100 metres, how fast is she going?”

Kakalios said Stacy would be falling at about 150 km/h.

“Then you could ask, ’how much force does it take to stop someone that‘s going that fast in, say, half a second?‘ The webbing looks like it stops her rather suddenly,” he said.

“It turns out to be about nine or 10 Gs, nine or 10 times the force of gravity. And so, that part doesn‘t require any suspension of disbelief. That part, you say, ’yeah, if someone were going (150 km/h), they stopped in half-a-second with a force of 10 Gs, yeah, their neck would break.

“That would be the more likely outcome.”

Kakalios has been using superheroes to teach physics since 2001, when he used the approach as a basis for a freshman seminar.

“It will probably come as a shock to you and your readers, but some of my students actually find physics dull,” he said. “Teaching an intro physics class, I would bring in examples just from TV shows or comic books, just to kind of break things up.

“And the university started a program called freshman seminars, where they encouraged faculty to create classes not tied to the curriculum, but just things that might be intellectually interesting. I wound up creating a class that was originally called Everything I Know About Physics I Learned From Reading Comic Books.”

The impetus for the class, Kakalios said, were those examples he was pulling in for his intro to physics class. He wondered if he could do an entire class using nothing but comic book examples.

“It worked out very well,” he said. “The class covers everything from Isaac Newton to the transistor, but there‘s not an inclined plane or pulley in sight. All the examples from superhero comic books, and as much as possible, those cases where the superheroes get their science right.”

Kakalios said that while some heroes do employ questionable physics, he‘s not there to call them out on it.

“Clearly, the superpowers are impossible, and I don‘t see my job as being Doctor No or Professor Grump and say, ’well, this could never happen, and this is impossible, and what‘s the deal with the Hulk‘s pants, anyway?‘”

In the book, each character is given a one-time “miracle exemption” from the laws of nature, Kakalios said. Thus, the actual existence of, say, the super-speed of The Flash isn‘t questioned.

Rather, Kakalios examines the uses of a character‘s powers, and asks whether or not those uses are realistic and consistent.

For example, could someone with The Flash‘s speed run across the surface of the ocean, or up the side of a building, or catch bullets in mid-air? What are the physics behind those things, and how do they tie into real-world physics principles and uses?

“If you had electric powers like Spider-Man villain Electro, could you generate magnetic fields and run up the side of a building the way he does? And yes, actually – that part is correct,” he said. “Although, sometimes you‘ll find, in the very same issue, an incorrect use of the powers.”

So yes, some things do bother Kakalios. Take, for instance, Superman‘s tendency to carry very large objects around.

“He‘s often shown, especially back in the ‘60s, picking up buildings,” Kakalios said. “Buildings weren‘t really meant to be picked up,” Kakalios said, laughing. “These things should just crumble under their own weight.”

In any case, Kakalios – who acted as a science adviser on the film adaptation of Watchmen –believes his approach is working.

“It‘s a way of presenting the material in what I hope to be a fun and accessible manner,” he said. “There are many people who are interested in science, but are a little bit nervous about their mathematical or scientific preparation.

“I‘ve just found that if you start talking about Spider-Man or Superman, they don‘t get as nervous. They don‘t get the same shields up.

“A lot of the students in my classes, a lot of the readers of my book, are never going to become scientists or engineers, but they‘re going to be citizens and voters for the rest of their lives. And we‘re called upon more and more to have informed opinions on things like climate change, alternative energy, nanotechnology, genetic engineering. And the more that you can back up some stuff with some basic science, the better decisions I hope people will make.”

Kakalios speaks Tuesday at Lakehead University‘s ATAC building at 7:30 p.m.

He said the talk will cover topics such as the geology of krypton, electricity and magnetism (through discussions of Electro and Magneto), as well as quantum mechanics and how Kitty Pryde of the X-Men can walk through walls.
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