Ever looked at the science of fiction?

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Sure some might say fiction is fiction end of topic but I remember seeing a documentary on if heroes were real and it got me to thanking behind the science of comic book superheroes. Here are some examples.

1) How much weight can Spider-man lift? (Obviously take the weight the strongest spider can lift so say example a Black widow can lift 100x it's body weight well than spider-man= 100x his weight) Get the idea?

2) Wolverine. We know the whole adamantium history but is that possible? fusing a metal onto your bones wouldn't the person weigh more not to mention the weight of metal bones on organs! (But hey we can REALLY put screws in your bones and rods so liquid metal fused to bones doesn't sound to farfetched IMO.)


3) Yes Gamma Rays don't equal ME SMASH ROAR!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! So how does the Hulk become the Hulk? We know it's anger and correct if I'm wrong anger= testosterone or some other body chemical obviously this is heightened in the Hulk could this be done in humans? (Minus the Green skin and bulk etc.)

4)Faster than a speeding Bullet (Going by Golden Age Superman not the new junk. so apply the speed of a bullet and Superman is faster than that but by how much?

5)Another Superman one Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound (Apply worlds tallest building and do the math.)

6) Back to Spider-man for a second. We know it's mixing Spider DNA and human has mixing animal DNA ever been done in a human (Sure we will not be able to climb walls etc.) but would there be any effect at all?



Sure fiction is fiction but has anyone ever thought of these ideas? (Yes I'm an Aspie WITH WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON HER HANDS!! !!) And I grew up loving detective books so WHAT IF??? has always been my motto.

Well regarding the spider DNA mixing with human DNA the result would be non-viable. However, it is quite likely that Gorilla or Chimpanzee DNA could be mixed with human DNA as they are are closest relatives and we already share something like 99% the same DNA with them.

Interestingly research has shown that human DNA contains segments of bacterial DNA, vestiges from our ancient evolutionary past that have just got copied down the generations.

I'm sure if you paid enough attention to Superman you could figure out exactly how fast he can travel...I've been listening to the radio serials lately, and there's quite a few parts where he'll call out how many feet (or meters/yards maybe?) he's got until he reaches his destination...I think sometimes the towns he flies/jumps/runs to are real locations, maybe you could try to estimate where in the US Metropolis would be and calculate from there.

OK, and here's one from another branch of fiction: If in Middle Earth, Elves are immortal and Men (as per Tolkien, meaning humans in general) are mortal, how can they interbreed? OK, it's rare but it does happen, and it does produce offspring. Yet you'd think, looking from our viewpoint, that being immortal would mean there was something drastically different about their DNA which would preclude interbreeding.

(Tolkien himself did actually ponder the question of how elf-human unions worked biologically in his notes, but one, the science wasn't the bit he was interested in, and two, he was writing well before what we now know about human ageing and telomeres was discovered. Still an intriguing question.)

It's a bit misleading when people say that spiders (and other small creatures) can lift many times their own body weight. Muscle power doesn't really scale with size - the muscles of spiders aren't 100x more powerful than ours! - so its effect is more dramatic on creatures that are tiny in the first place. So Spidey ought to be able to lift about the same as your average person, if all he's got are spider-muscles.



The problem would probably be that bones don't just play a structural role - they make blood inside them as well. And you'd need some way for muscles to attach onto the metal, too. They also repair themselves, which probably wouldn't happen if they had metal coating them, and were hit with something strong enough to bend or pierce the metal. Also, it wouldn't really help to have a metal-plated thigh bone if someone cut your femoral artery... Logan really needs his healing factor. It's a cool idea, but you'd be better off wearing a suit of plate armour (which doesn't actually weigh that much.)

Some interesting takes thanks!! !

I also recall from somewhere that wolverine's healing factor was a lot faster and more powerful before the adamantium was put in, the reason being that it's now always working to keep him alive/healthy with that much foreign material in his body, especially since adamantium's supposedly quite poisonous, thus it has less capacity/fewer resources to allocate to the repair of combat injuries.

actually I vaguely recall it being stated that because the adamantium takes so much healing factor to survive with, he actually does age very very slowly.

as for spiderman, the key thing with the strength to body weight/mass is that it's strength to body weight/mass it's to do with leverage, IIRC, bigger things are stronger than little things generally, but less strong in relation to their mass because more of that strength goes into moving/supporting their greater mass, it's a diminishing returns thing. At least, that's as far as I understand it, I don't claim to be any sort of expert on biomechanics

What about Batman? Bruce Wayne has had no genetic/DNA modifications and is a human working at an absolutely optimum level of fitness. He designs and uses technology far in advance of 99.9% of the human race. And, apparently, all this comes from his anger at the murder of his parents when he was a child.

Reminds me of a great analysis of 20,000 Leagues by Phillip Jose Farmer. He actually laid out the measurements of the Nautilus and explained the details of how it could have worked. Quite ingenious ! !

I always turn off my "scientific mind" when watching fantasy and stuff based on comic books. The writers of that material love the look of science but it's unlikely they ever had good scores in the subject while in school.

If you want good science in your fiction, look for "hard science fiction". I can recommend authors Vernor Vinge (ex computer science professor) and the late physicist Robert Forward. James P. Hogan is good, and right now I'm enjoying John Ringo, who brings a lot of military realism into his work. He's co-authored a new series with Travis Taylor called "Into the Looking Glass" which is a very fun romp that explores the edge of science with a military setting.

If it wasn't illegal I feel Batman could be real to an extent. People have created Grappling hook type items and there are smoke bombs etc. Sure it's odd Batman knows every fighting mechanic ever from China to America and anything inbetween. We also have hanggliders and batarang aren't out of the question my only IF is the Batmobile to get up to high speed but what's that a rocket engine on the back of a car surely doable. So Batman is Plausible IMO.

Incidentally, the Batmobile they used in the 60s TV series only went 35mph .

It was built by george barris, who used lead for all the body details. It was very heavy, and difficult to steer. Supposedly, when they showed it going around a corner it was always a long shot because it was a stunt driver behind the wheel.

Superman is a tough one. I don't think I've seen any real limit on his strength or speed. He can travel faster than the speed of light, allowing him to go backwards in time, and episodes of the tv series included his ability to vibrate at the right frequency to phase through metal bars.

So if he can do these things, is his ability to stop crimes only limited by his ability to think? If he can travel at lightspeed he could survey the entire earth in under a second.
So why is there any crime? Is he lazy, or does he think at the speed of a normal human, or is he susceptible to stress like normal people and needs breaks?

I've always found Superman the most difficult superhero to believe in. He needs to be up against people who have at least the same physical strength as him for the stories to be even remotely engaging. When he's up against an a***hole like Lex Luthor, the whole contest is a joke. I like the story in Superman II where he's up against Terence Stamp and three superhuman people from the planet Krypton.

This seemed apropos:

Science Fiction
http://www.stonemakerargument.com/5.html