I just finished to read this book. And I can tell you, it is GREAT!
How I discovered this book? Well, one good day, I was thinking if someone has wrote something about “The physics of superheroes”, I google it, and found this book. I am not a comic reader, but after reading this book I am thinking to buy some Marvel and DC comics.
It was great to know, that Superman is that strong, because on Krypton the gravity is 15 times stronger that on Earth (according with some calculations) , so on Superman DNA is the information to develop stronger muscles and bones.
You can also find out the physics behind Magneto, Flash, Aquaman among others, and how is that Charles Xavier known as Professor X can read minds, and induce thoughts (this is explained by Electromagnetism). It also explains why Gwen Stacy died when Spider-Man was trying to save her.
The book is not intended to be a textbook (but It should, because is GREAT), and is written in friendly way to understand physics. According to the author, who is also a professor in physics at University of Minnesota, this book was inspired by a class given by him, titled “Everything I Know About Physics I Learned From Reading Comic Books”, that is an introductory course in Physics.
Well that’s it. I just wanted to share this great book.
“If the study of the natural world has demonstrated anything, it is that, unlike the Hulk, the smarter we get, the stronger we become” — James Kakalios.
How does the gecko climb walls and walk on the ceilings?
Robert Full and Keller Autum have discovered that gecko lizard’s ability to climb up smooth walls and ceilings can be traced to millions of microscopic hairs (as seen above) on the lizard’s toes called “setae”. But without miniature hooks in the walls or ceiling (like in Velcro), what holds the fibers and attached gecko in place? Something called: Static cling!
The fibers in a gecko’s feet are electrically neutral, but the lizard does not need to shuffle across a shag carpet (to get negative charge) to cling to a wall, because he makes use of fluctuations of charge in his setae. The electrons in the fibers in the gecko’s toes are constantly zipping around. Sometimes a few more electrons are on one side of the fiber, making that side slightly negatively charged, while other times a few less electrons are on that side making it slightly positively charged.
If the side of the fiber closer to the wall is, just for a moment, slightly negatively charged, then it will induce a slight positive charge in the wall (by repelling those electrons in the wall close to the surface, exposing the positive charge ions) and an attractive force between the fiber and the wall will result (like the magnets n the fridge). This force is known as the Van der Waals force, and indeed is very weak, and that is the reason why the gecko has millions of these fibers in each toe, so that the total attractive force can be large enough to support the gecko weight.
Scientists today have developed a material that mimic the gecko feet, and can have a number of applications, including feet for wall-climbing robots, and in outer space, where most adhesives don’t work because of the vacuum.
Truth be said, I enjoy a lot writing this post, it is really fascinating how it works.
Bibliography: Physics of superheroes by James kakalios
Using gravity to crack nuts.
This is a clever solution!
Why does the insects does not have an eye similar to us even tough we share nearly 60% of human genes with the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster)?
Well, let’s say that nature is very wise.
On average, white light —which consist of light of all wavelengths from red (650 nanometers) to violet (400 nanometers) added together in equal magnitudes — has a wavelength of 500 nanometers (1 nanometer is 0.000000001 meters). In order for light to be detected, it must hits the rods and cones on the back of your eye, and in order to get to these photoreceptors, it must first pass through your pupil. The pupil opens and closes depending of light, but is roughly 5 milimeters in diameter. So the opening in your pupil is ten thousand times larger than the wavelength of the visible light and it passes without problems.
Now imagine that now you shrink to the size of an insect, and you will be 300 hundred times smaller, also the pupil in your eye will be 300 hundred times smaller that is ~16000 nanometers that is only 30 times larger than the wavelength of the white light. So the light still fit in the pupil but just barely.
If you ever have used a manual camera controlling the aperture, you notice that the smaller the aperture the image gets blurring, even though you still have light.
So, in physical terms the waves of light still passes through your pupil, but some of them scatter on the edge of your pupil, and this setup an interference pattern inside the eye, this effect is called “diffraction” and is most noticeable when the dimensions of the object scattering a wave are comparable to the wavelength.
So what you see, when you are the size of an insect is that everything is blur and out of focus, and this is why insect’s eye, and in particular it’s lens, is radically different from the lens in humans. Insects use compound lenses that adjust to diffraction effects (What you see in the image above is that the eye is compound of many hexagon lenses). In fact insects are very good at detecting changes (hard to catch) in light, but poor at detecting the contrast between sharp edges.
Bibliography: “Physics of superheroes” James Kakalios
This is a gyroscope, and it has too many uses.
The main use is to provide orientation.
The crucial element of the gyroscope that makes it useful for determining orientation is that it is a spinning top isolated from the rest of the world. In this way its Angular Momentum does not change. The Angular momentum appears when something starts spinning around an axis, it is a force. An example of that, is when an ice skater is spinning, if the ice skater open their arms their rotation speeds decrease, and the opposite happens when the skater bring their arms close to their body and thus angular momentum increases.
This video explains better the gyroscope works, and after see that, you can get an idea about how it works. Then, you can see the Steve Jobs video introducing a 6-axis gyroscope for the iPhone 4.
55 Gallon steel barrel crush!!!
In order to do this experiment you have to do the next:
Boil about three quarts of water for then minutes or so in a 55 gallon steel drum by placing it over a flame, and then seal off the drum and remove the source of heat.
Then cool down the barrel with water or put in a bath with water ice.
What happens is: the steam that has displaced the air and filled the drum will now condense back liquid state, taking up much less volume and exerting a much smaller pressure on the interior of the drum.
With the can sealed from the outside world, no air can replace the condensing steam and the pressure differential between the inside and outside of the steel drum will grow. Then, in a few minutes, the barrel implodes as the atmospheric pressure is greater that the pressure inside the barrel to the outside.
Spiderman and Gwen Stacy
I am reading a book titled: “The physics of superheroes”.
IT’S AWESOME!
And I found out that Peter Parked killed Gwen Stacy, when He was trying to save her from falling.
Gwen Stacy was falling at a speed of 95mph, and Spiderman stopped her suddenly with the webbings exerting a force on Her of about 4222N around 9G Forces, and that killed her….
Man!, if Peter Parker had gone to physics classes, the story could be other….
This is the next book, I will read!
I really like the cover design. It reads: “Superheroes can handle crushing weights, punishing forces, and 10,000 volts of electricity, but can they stand up to PHYSICS?
Awesome, my brain can’t wait!
It says also: “LOOK INSIDE FEARLESS READER!!!”
This amazing video made by the EAMES OFFICE gives you an idea about the relative size of the things, indeed is really an AMAZING job if you take in account that this was done in 1977. Amaze you!
I want this book so bad!
