One of the projects that asked by our physics teacher was physics behind there superpower that the hero has. The outcomes were the essay and the creatives posters where we shared it in class. However, I was busy on the trip, I decided to write the information in a different form.
The new superhero that been created in October 2014 captures people’s hearts because of his handsome face and the super speed; People knew him as “The Fastest Man alive”. The Flash. But, Is it possible in the real life that The Flash can run without damaging himself? Let’s go into detail.
The Suit
Based on the Newton 3 law’s of motion, when we put a force into an object, the object actually putting the same amount of force back. In real life, the flash will be crushed by the small particles in the air with the same amount of force he puts on to run.
Into another story, if you drive in the Lamborghini Aventador with a maximum speed, you actually don’t get crush because of the car design with an enclosed place that protects you from the small particles outside the car. And that’s why The Flash needs his suit so that he doesn’t break his body.
But How does it work?
If you look at the natural disasters, many houses, trees, and buildings are all torn out. But thanks to the Ancient Rome that found out about the concrete, which is actually a source to block from the disasters. But did The Flash suit made out of the concrete when it looks sticky to The Flash body? No! but there are might be some kind of material with a high density. However, a high-density object can be super heavy, so The Flash must be so strong to carry the suit that actually slowing down his speed.
Did he actually run that fast?
Well, he actually did (in the movie for sure). But the real answer is no. Let’s look at some physics that prove his superpower is not realistic.
Albert Einstein said “Energy is equal to mc^2”
Let starts with the equation E = mc^2, m = extra mass, c = speed of light, and E = energy.
The mass of The Flash in real life is 7.65kg and the speed of light is 299 792 458 m / s. When we plug it into the formula that given, we can see that his energy is 6.87547712e^17. Wow, a lot. But that mass is not actually his real mass that we calculate by taking the weight and divided by the gravitational acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2. The mass that we use to calculate is called an extra mass.
We can calculate easily by adding the Kinetic energy, Potential energy, and Thermal energy together. If we look into the new equation, m = E/c^2, we can see that the greater the energy, the bigger the extra mass is. However, extra mass can also identify by looking at the molecules, for example, the Hydrogen. The molecules itself tries to combine with others, so it has some amount of energy. The combination of the energy from 4 individual Hydrogen is actually bigger than the Helium (after 4 Hydrogens bound together). So we take the energy of four individual minus the energy of Helium, then divided the c^2 and we get the extra mass before the molecular form into Helium. The extra mass is for the equation, m = E/c^2.
But because of the speed of light is very fast including the square, the extra mass of The Flash is very very very small. So he actually can’t run with 200 mph and say hi to his girlfriend that drives in Lamborghini Aventador. However, there is one theory in the movie that The Flash actually produces his own Speed Force. The Speed Force is the extra-dimensional energy that The Flash carries. Don’t ask me to prove because there is actually no proof in Physics (yet?). This theory is actually throw away the fact that the E = mc^2 because the mass of The Flash is only 7.56kg and the energy he produces. With that amount of extra mass in his real mass are not enough for a human to move at a speed of 200 mph. It is kind of fail to reject the fiction superhero even though it is not true.
However, this impossibleness power(maybe the physicist can prove it in the future) can’t stop the author because without it, the movie would have not been this good and I like it this way too.
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