The Physics of Superheroes: Spectacular Second Edition (68 page)

This being the Wally West Flash, who based his operations out of Keystone, the Twin City to Central City, home of the Barry Allen Flash.

Suggesting that Barry Allen’s Flash costume was at the forefront of anti-cling dryer-sheet technology!

Provided you ignore random collisions between the water molecules in the pool and those at the top of the glass that will cause those molecules to switch locations.

Strictly speaking, the wire does not have to be connected to “ground,” but simply to another point at a lower potential than the starting point. But ultimately, the terminus of any current must be the ground. Following the water analogy, we can have a flow of water through a hose that is connected from one faucet at one end to another faucet at the other end. As long as there is a difference in water pressure between the two faucets, there will be a net flow of water, but for this to keep up indefinitely, the second, lower-pressure faucet must be able to eventually discharge its excess water down some drain (or “ground” back in the electrical situation).

Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division.

Or sometimes even less. One legend has it that Lee’s précis to Jack Kirby for the classic
Fantastic Four # 48
, where the FF encounter the cosmic being Galactus, read as follows: “The FF fight God.” Kirby, reasoning that such an entity would have a herald to prepare the unlucky planet for the devourer’s arrival, created the character the Silver Surfer. Lee first learned of the Surfer when Kirby’s artwork for
FF # 48
arrived at the Marvel office.

When that extradimensional imp Mopee bestowed superspeed and a protective aura to Barry Allen in
Flash # 167
, he knew what he was doing! Mopee disappeared at the end of the story before Barry Allen could ask him how Wally West (Kid Flash, at the time) acquired his aura. Nowadays, all of Flash’s auras derive from the Speed Force, which makes as much physics sense as a tenth-dimensional imp.

This point was illustrated in
Atom # 3,
in which the Tiny Titan travels back to the past using a Time Pool discovered by physics professor Alpheus V. Hyatt. By shining a light of “all colors—even the finest shadings” on a small region in space, Prof. Hyatt created a small portal into other times. The opening of this Time Pool is only about six inches in diameter, so the professor dangles a magnet on a fishing line and tries to retrieve magnetic objects from the past (he is apparently unconcerned about what “butterfly effect” any small change in history will have on the present). The Atom, able to shrink small enough to fit through the portal, would occasionally hitch along on the dangling magnet and have adventures in the past, as in the story involving the change from the Julian to Gregorian calendar mentioned in the Introduction. At the conclusion of the tale in
Atom # 3
, the Atom brings back a gold coin from Arabia circa 500 A.D. (the coin has an odd mix of Roman numerals and Arabic writing on it). The Atom holds on to the coin as the magnet is pulled back into the present day, noting, “The professor will be mystified at how this magnet held on to a gold coin!” And indeed, Prof. Hyatt was, and properly so.

In the motion picture
X-Men 2: X-Men United,
Magneto is able to overcome his guard and escape from his plastic cell only after his accomplice Mystique has injected a small quantity of magnetic metal into the guard’s bloodstream.

Try this experiment: Take two flexible credit card-size magnets and hold them so that their magnetic sides face each other. When they are oriented so that both long sides point in the same direction, you can slide them smoothly past each other. Now flip one magnet, so that its long side is at a right angle to the long side of the other credit-card magnet. You should notice a bumpy, stick-slip motion as you slide the magnets past each other. What you are feeling is the magnetic field of one card bumping over the walls between the stripes of magnetic domains on the other card.

Careful readers will note that even if a wire is stationary (with respect to some observers), the electrons are in constant motion, zipping randomly to and fro, since they have a kinetic energy characterized by their temperature. What is important for the discussion above is that in the absence of an external voltage or a changing magnetic field, there is no net motion of the electrons in the wire, so they can be considered, on average, to be stationary.

In 1985, the British Broadcasting Corporation actually demonstrated that they could monitor, from a significant distance, the images being watched on homeowners’ television screens. It has recently been shown that LCD television screens are also susceptible to this form of remote viewing.

All But Dissertation.

Seriously, you wouldn’t want to represent momentum by the letter “m,” for that would lead to confusion as to whether the “m” referred to momentum or mass. I’m not really sure why the letter “p” has been associated with momentum, but it seems to have stuck.

Therefore our earlier analogy with an automobile driving on a highway that can only have speeds in multiples of 10 mph would be valid only for a car doing laps on a closed track.

While Barry’s explanation isn’t actually all that exciting, it was the common practice in Silver Age comic books that every sentence that wasn’t a question be punctuated with an exclamation mark!

By this time DC had won its lengthy lawsuit against Fawcett, Captain Marvel’s publisher, for copyright infringement on their Superman character. Contesting the lawsuit had contributed toward Fawcett’s near bankruptcy, and DC was able to purchase the rights to the Captain Marvel character. Apparently, now that they owned the copyright to the character, DC was no longer concerned that publication of a Captain Marvel comic book would unfairly compete with and diminish the economic viability of Superman comics.

This time, the exclamation point is justified!

An excellent recapitulation of the above discussion of the Schrödinger Cat thought-experiment can be found in
Animal Man # 32.
Though, for best effect, start at the beginning of this story arc with issue # 27.

Except such imps as Mr. Mxyzptlk, Bat-Mite, Mopee, and possibly Dr. Strange, when he was warned to “Beware Triboro! The Tyrant of the Sixth Dimension” in
Strange Tales # 129.

Contrary to popular opinion, most of the Christians devoured in ancient Rome were killed in the Circus Maximus, not the Colosseum.

The cylindrical helmet of his original suit gave Iron Man the nickname “Shellhead,” which has clung to him for the past forty years, regardless of how streamlined and stylish later versions of his helmet became.

The lowest-energy levels are the first to be filled with electrons. Strictly speaking, every pair of electrons in an atom gets its own auditorium (they pair up due to their intrinsic magnetic fields, north pole to south pole). It is the last electrons to get placed in available levels that determine the chemical reactivity and electronic properties of the corresponding solid, and it is the auditorium containing these electrons that we consider here.

Yes, I know about how the Wasp distracted the Hulk in the Ultimate Marvel version of the Avengers (
Ultimates # 5
). And the issue that featured that particular “wardrobe malfunction” was not approved by the Comics Code Authority. And no, we won’t be discussing the structural stability of strapless superheroine bodices or Black Canary’s or Zantanna fishnet stockings.

A DC hero who had the same super-elasticity powers as Reed Richards—who in turn had the same powers as the Quality Comics hero of the 1940s—Plastic Man.

Actually, the costume becomes “invisible and intangible” at his normal size—but is visible at any other size. Apparently, there is much physicists still have to learn about the properties of white-dwarf matter.

It has been suggested that the nutrient-conducting cells in the yew tree have a spiral thickening that acts like tiny springs. Despite being the wood of choice for archery applications for more than a thousand years, the precise origin of the superior elastomechanical properties of yew wood remains poorly understood, and is the subject of current research.

And not just metals! Hold a standard 8½×11-inch sheet of paper at one of its narrower ends. The paper will sag under its own weight. Crumple the sheet into a tight ball, and then smooth the paper out. Holding the sheet at the same end, it will be much more rigid with all of its new wrinkles, and will be better able to resist deflecting due to gravity!

Reports of Cap’s death appear to be, fortunately, premature.

Apple trees employ this principle as part of their seed-dispersal mechanism. When the fruit has matured and reached a sufficient mass, its weight exceeds the tensile strength of the narrow stem by which it is attached to the tree. When the stem snaps, the fruit falls to the ground, and following consumption by fauna, its seeds are distributed to other locations.

And too few organizations nowadays, in my opinion, are proud enough of their “evil” status to boldly incorporate it into their title and stationery.

Technically, the Vision is a “synthezoid,” and no, I don’t know what the difference is.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, comics always included no fewer than two pages of prose in order to qualify for second-class-postage mailing rates reserved for “magazines,” which were defined as journals that contained a minimum of two pages of text.

This is a bit redundant, since every force field in comic books is invisible, save one. Given that Green Lantern’s ring is powerless against anything colored yellow, the villain the Shark in
Green Lantern # 24
had the ability to project “yellow invisible force fields”! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I love Silver Age comic books!

Bored with the peaceful idyll that society had finally achieved, Kadabra traveled back to our time in order to wreak mischief. The desire to escape the monotony of future utopia motivated the Marvel Comics time-traveling villain Kang to visit our time, intent on world conquest. It appears that human nature—at least for some humans—will always rebel against a well-ordered, perfect society.

Sometimes these changes take a while to come about. If ancient galley slaves could visit a modern-day health club and see the rowing machines that wealthy (compared with themselves) free men and women employ, their heads would no doubt explode in shock!