The Physics of Superheroes: Spectacular Second Edition (5 page)

Declining sales from the loss of a major distribution network and the competition from television led to the near collapse of the comic-book industry, and from 1953 to 1956, only about a half-dozen superhero comics continued to be published, a dramatic reduction from the 130 different superhero titles available at newsstands at the peak of the Golden Age. Funny animal stories, Westerns, and young-romance comics were safer alternatives for the few companies that persevered in publishing comics during this period.

In 1956 National Comics decided to test the superhero waters with the reintroduction of the Flash in
Showcase # 4.
The sales figures for each issue of
Showcase
that featured the Flash indicated that the market for superheroes had returned, and over the next few years, National brought back new versions of the Green Lantern, the Atom, Hawkman, and others. The Silver Age of superhero comic books had begun, and superheroes have remained a mainstay of comic books ever since.

From the very beginning in
Showcase # 4,
examples of correctly applied physics principles appeared in these stories. With the launching of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in 1957 at the height of the Cold War, there was considerable anxiety over the quality of science education that American schoolchildren were receiving. The Comics Code Authority seal on their covers plus the inclusion of science concepts may have convinced wary parents that there was a net positive benefit to these four-colored adventures.

In addition to employing accurate science, comics from the Silver Age often had scholarly nuggets from other learned disciplines buried within their stories. For example, the plot of “The Adventure of the Cancelled Birthday” in
The Atom # 21
(written by Gardner Fox, who was both a lawyer and a writer for science-fiction pulp magazines) revolved around the obscure fact that in 1752, when Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar to replace the Julian calendar, eleven days were omitted during the transition. That is, September 2, 1752, was followed the next day by September 14, in order to regularize the British calendar with other parts of Europe. Two issues later, the letters column in
The Atom
printed a complaint from one such fan, arguing over the poor choice of historical characters, such as the obscure Justice Fielding. The editor of Atom comics, Julius “Julie” Schwartz, responsible for reintroducing the Flash in 1956, defended the story in the letters column, pointing out that it was high time that the reader become acquainted, as had the Atom, with Henry Fielding, the author of
Tom Jones.

Even if they were not woven into the plot, bits of historical or scientific trivia would occasionally pop up in comic-book adventures through the appearance of a caption box containing a fact that had no direct bearing on the story at hand. For example, in
The Brave and the Bold # 28
featuring the first appearance of the Justice League of America, an alliance of National Comics’ super heroes, Aquaman swims by a puffer fish and has a brief conversation with him using his “fish telepathy.” The puffer fish relates some crucial information gleaned while floating on the surface of the ocean. A caption in this panel informs us that “by swallowing air into a special sac beneath its throat, the puffer fish becomes inflated like a football—whereupon it rises to the surface and floats upside down.”

Why take the time to include these educational captions? They may have been a consequence of the habits of the former pulp-fiction writers penning these tales. Prior to editing comic books at National, Mort Weisinger and Julie Schwartz, lifelong fans of science fiction, had been literary agents for science-fiction and fantasy writers, including Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, and H. P. Lovecraft. Certain comic-book writers had previously made their living as pulp-science-fiction writers. As such, they were walking storehouses of obscure historical and natural knowledge. The Hugo Award winner Alfred Bester, author of science fiction classics
The Demolished Man
and
The Stars, My Destination
, also wrote comics during the 1940s and penned the original Green Lantern oath. In an autobiographical essay, Bester tells of spending hours browsing through reference books in the New York Public Library searching for odd historical tidbits around which he could construct a story. Knowing a lot of trivia could also help these pulp fiction writers’ financial bottom line, as these authors were paid by the word. Consequently they would frequently pad their work with all sorts of barely relevant tangents, as reflected in this joke:

While the Silver Age comic-book writers may have had an economic incentive to be verbose, it is also likely that they were motivated by considerations of self-preservation to inject educational elements into their stories. As mentioned above, the introduction of science facts and principles into these stories may have arisen from a genuine desire on the part of the writers and editors to educate, or perhaps simply to avoid any further congressional attention.

Reading classic and contemporary superhero comic books now, with the benefit of a Ph.D. in physics, I have found many examples of the correct description and application of physics concepts. Of course, nearly without exception, the use of superpowers themselves involves direct violations of the known laws of physics, requiring a deliberate and willful suspension of disbelief. However, many comics needed only a single “miracle exception”—one extraordinary thing you have to buy into—and the rest that follows as the hero and villain square off would be consistent with the principles of science. While the intent of these stories has always primarily been to entertain, if at the same time the reader was also educated, either deliberately or accidentally, this was a happy bonus.

It is these happy bonuses, such as the one illustrated in fig. 2, that I wish to consider here. In this book, I’ll present an overview of certain scientific principles, using examples of their correct application as found in comic books. I will describe characters and situations that illuminate various physics concepts, rather than systematically considering the physics underlying an array of superheroes. (Consequently, it is conceivable that your favorite superhero may not be discussed. I know that several of my own favorites didn’t make the cut.) By the end of this book you will have been exposed to the key concepts in an introductory physics class, with a little bit of upper-level quantum mechanics and solid-state physics thrown in for fun. By examining the physical principles underlying certain comic-book adventures, we will at the same time gain an understanding of the mechanisms behind many real-world applications, from television to telephones to stellar nucleosynthesis of the elements.

I will focus primarily, but not exclusively, on the Silver Age period in comic-book history (from the reintroduction of the Flash in
Showcase # 4
in 1956 to the death of Gwen Stacy in
The Amazing Spider-Man # 121
in 1973) because the writers of this period made more of an effort than those in the Golden Age to incorporate scientific principles into their stories. In addition, the Silver Age characters have demonstrated lasting popularity, and their iconic status will make it easier to refer to their exploits without forcing the reader to constantly consult the back issue bins of their local comic-book shop. It is all too easy to find flaws and errors in the science referenced in comic-book stories, and this is not the aim of this book. In addition to being unsporting and uncharitable (after all, these stories were never intended to function as science textbooks, despite the occasional student’s attempts at surreptitious substitution), it is more difficult to make a point when the only illustrative examples are negative ones. Nevertheless, sometimes we will find that some scenes in comic books are simply not physically plausible, even with the granting of a “miracle exception.”

Before I begin I would like to say a few words about a common misconception concerning physicists. Despite the impression gleaned from popular movies, being a physicist does not require an encyclopedic knowledge of equations and fundamental constants, coupled with the ability to perform complex arithmetic in one’s head with robotic speed and precision. Physics is not about having memorized all the answers, but rather about asking the right questions. For when the right question is posed of a phenomenon, either the answer becomes clear or at least a path to further and more fruitful questioning is revealed.

To illustrate that asking one right question can be more important than a bushel full of correct answers, consider the simple physics experiment of tossing a ball in an arc. There are many questions we may ask, such as: How high does the ball travel? How far to the right does it move? How long is it in the air? How fast is it going? What is the geometric shape of its path? However, I would argue that there is one simple question that implies all of the above questions and gets to the heart of the issues concerning the ball’s motion. That one single question is the following: Does the ball have any choice? If the ball does not have any choice in its motion, if it lacks free will, then its trajectory is completely determined by forces external to itself. Once we determine the nature of these forces and how they influence the ball’s motion, we may then calculate the path of the ball for a given initial velocity imparted by the thrower. This calculated trajectory would then contain any and all information we may desire regarding how high the ball rises, how far it moves, its time in flight, what its velocity is, and so on. If we then repeat the toss with exactly the same initial position and velocity as before, then the ball must exactly and faithfully trace out the calculated trajectory, for the ball does not have any choice in the matter.

This is the beauty and attraction of physics, at least for those of us lucky enough to make our living from its study. The promise and potential is that if we can determine the forces acting on an object and how these forces influence the object’s motion, we will then be able to predict the development of future events. By performing careful experiments, these predictions can be empirically tested and, if correct, confirm our understanding of how nature operates. On the other hand, if the experiment contradicts our model (a far more likely outcome, initially), we modify our equations and try again, using the failed test as an important clue as to what was missing from the initial calculation.
⁵
In this way, our understanding of nature progresses until we have a valid model, which is then termed a theory. To dismiss any idea that survives this exhaustive vetting as “just a theory” is equivalent to describing the Hope Diamond as “just a crystal.”

Scientific knowledge comes only at the price of increased doubt: The more we learn, the more clearly we see all that remains uncertain. Doubt is to be embraced in science, for the only answers we can trust are those that survive the crucible of questioning and experimental testing. I hope to share with you in this book the true pleasure that comes from seeing how the asking of a few key questions can lead to a wealth of answers about the world we live in.

I begin, as do all standard textbooks in freshman physics, with the fundamental laws of motion as first described by Isaac Newton. Fitting such an original and profound contribution to modern thought, our first comic-book example involves an equally seminal contribution to Western civilization. I refer, of course, to the first true comic-book superhero, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and, most relevant to our next discussion, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

SECTION 1

1

UP, UP, AND AWAY—
FORCES AND MOTION

AS DESCRIBED IN
Superman # 1,
Jor-El, a scientist on the distant planet Krypton, discovers that his world is about to explode and kill its entire population. Possessing only a small prototype rocket ship, he and his wife elect to save their infant son, Kal-El, sending him to Earth so that he will not share their fate.
⁶
After traveling great distances through the vastness of space, the rocket crash-lands on Earth with its sole passenger none the worse for wear. Discovered by the childless Kansas farmers the Kents, Kal-El is immediately given up to an orphanage. Following a change of heart, the Kents return to the orphanage (where the superbaby has been wreaking havoc) whereupon they adopt Kal-El, name him Clark, and raise him as their own human son. As Kal/Clark Kent grows into adulthood, he develops a series of extraordinary abilities with which he fights the never-ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

In his first Golden Age incarnation, Superman’s powers differed significantly from those we associate with him today. He could lift a car over his head, for example, but not a continent. He was fast, able to outrace a “streamlined train,” but not a light beam. And he could not fly, but simply leap great distances (one eighth of a mile was his originally stated range).

Jerry Siegel and Joseph Shuster’s original conception of Superman was that of a pulp action hero with a liberal dose of science fiction added to lend an air of plausibility for their hero’s great strength. The source of Superman’s powers on Earth was credited in the Golden Age to his Kryptonian heritage, specifically the fact that his home planet had a far stronger gravity than Earth’s. For example, the moon’s much smaller size compared with Earth results in a weaker gravitational field, so objects on the moon weigh less than they do on Earth. Consequently, an Earthman, whose muscles and bones are adapted to Earth’s gravity, is able to lift moon cars overhead and leap moon buildings in a single bound. Similarly Superman’s great strength (“more powerful than a locomotive”) and tougher skin (“nothing less than a bursting shell” could pierce it) resulted from his relocating to a planet with a far weaker gravity than Krypton’s. (Even though Superman was sent to Earth as an infant, presumably his Kryptonian DNA had been encoded for the development of muscles and bones that were suited to a stronger gravitational field.)