Superman - Is He Physically Possible?

Welcome back to the channel, guys. I hope you're having a good evening. So, a fun video today. Superman, is he physically possible? Uh, no, I'm not losing my mind. Uh, I haven't, uh, went too far in the Superman mythos, not yet. Uh, this is actually being examined by Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm a big fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson and his show StarTalk, which has some very interesting subject matter to it. So his panel here, they're discussing as scientists if Superman is possible, and I'm going to try to weigh in on my little expertise about Superman. to see if I can, uh, add anything to the conversation. But let's get into it a little bit. Let's see, uh, what they're saying.

She's hurtling.

That's her. And so then he comes in, he swoops in, and he grabs her.

But from a physics perspective, Charles, what would really happen? Well, the problem is, of course, if Superman is a Man of Steel is coming down, right? And you're coming up with the steel, it's like hitting the concrete ground, right? So the poor damsel in distress would be quite—

okay, so I'm gonna weigh in on it a little bit. Um, actually, as well, there is a university out in California— is it, uh, is it Berkeley, or I'm not sure which one it is— but they actually have a course that talks about the physics of Superman. The physics of Superman. So that's quite interesting. Um, so this scientist who's, uh, I've seen him on StarTalk quite a bit, a colleague of Neil deGrasse Tyson, he's talking about the dense molecular structure of Superman. So Superman would be as hard as steel, if not harder, right? So you can't penetrate his core. Now, the physics of him, these two objects, which would be his, which you generally would think of as a heavy object unless his body's more composed like Kevlar or something like that. But in any event, he, you know, this, this, this structure would be moving at pretty high speed and the gravitational, gravitational pull of Lois Lane coming down, right? So she'll get a lot heavier. So they'll collide when he catches her. Like, it won't be like she's landing in a seat cushion, right? That's what he's talking about, right? It'll almost be like smacking up against concrete. And so, uh, from what I know about Superman, uh, physiology I will briefly weigh in on that. So a few things that didn't get addressed and the possibility— or maybe they're going to get to it— they didn't talk about how Superman even got to Lois Lane from the ground, if that was physically possible. Of course, we're talking about Superman being able to fly, right? So by him being able to fly, uh, he, uh, he's able to make it up to her before she hits the ground, obviously. Now, it's important to note that in the early stories of Superman, right, the physics of Superman, he wasn't flying at all. He was just leaping, which I like better. I like the— when we're talking about realistically the physics of Superman, I like the idea of a person's legs being so strong they can leap vast distances, and it kind of looks like they're flying, right? But he would smack into Lois Lane, right? That is true. But part of the issue is that, uh, Superman from the planet of Krypton, right? Uh, a lot of people who study Superman, they vaguely touch on their psychic abilities, the telekinetic abilities, right? That Kryptonians have psychic abilities like mind reading. Some of them exhibit telekinesis, being able to move objects without touching them and such. And so in that sense, they also can exhibit what would be like psionics or a bubble around them that could kind of act as a cushion, right? So like an inertia dampener, right? So it would absorb the force almost like a cushion without you smacking into Superman. It's almost like chi, like an energy force that will push out, right? And it will protect you against impact. But this psionic ability, it's like a field. It can also hold objects together so they don't collapse under their own weight. So scientist does it again. And I don't know how much they know about Superman, right? They, they know about the physics of the Earth, but I don't know how much they know about that to, you know, to speak in relation to Superman. But let's continue a little bit.

Rescued but also quite squished.

So quite dead, basically. Yeah, he kills her.

Yeah, this is— he's a bug on the windshield.

Well, the problem is, of course, that kind of off topic, but also what's kind of interesting about the conversation is, um, uh, Spider-Man had a, uh, similar issue where, uh, a person falling, he would hook them with his web slinger and, you know, he would grab them with the web so they keep him from hitting the ground from high distances, high speeds, right? But the, um, the inertia, right, that when he did that, uh, you know, there's a case in the— I believe in one story where somebody's neck snaps, right? Break somebody's neck from— because the physics of catching a human body falling like that with a, you know, with essentially a rope or a web, they would just kind of, you know what I mean, they, they wouldn't be able to handle the G-forces of that. And so, uh, whereas it always worked in the comic books and the movies and shows, uh, in physics it wouldn't work, right?

Moment of impact, right? And so it has been hypothesized that Superman actually has a way to absorb motion. In other words, the momentum— and the—

well, I'm wrong because obviously the scientist, he does know something about Superman because he's kind of describing what would be that field, uh, that psionic field, right? That kind of energy field that he's projecting out from him some sort of way.

Energy, he actually not only can get there and stop the person from hitting the ground, but also can absorb the impact so that he himself, who is invulnerable, is unharmed. But the person who is falling is also unharmed, is because it's as if they had fallen and just stopped in midair.

So it's like airbags?

Like airbags.

Okay, so yeah, sort of like an energy airbag, I guess you could say. Uh, and yeah, that was a good example. Also, yeah, he does kind of, uh, on the flying as well, because this same energy field, maybe it's propelling him as well, right? Push off like gravitons or something like that, some type of force. And we kind of get that in, uh, I'll try to show a clip if we can, but, uh, you kind of get that in Man of Steel. Like, if you notice in Man of Steel, like, anytime he got ready to fly, right, you'll see like particles around him, uh, rocks, the soil moving and levitating along with him, like this field that's around him is what's pushing him off the ground. He's not just leaping into the air, so to speak.

But that's Superman flying up. He wouldn't have to do that. He could just wait until they fall. But typically you see Superman flying horizontally, so that's quite a calculation to fly horizontally and perfectly intersect.

Yes.

When the person is where you are.

Yes. Superman's brain has to be at least as good as your average computer.

Right, right.

Well, that's another interesting way to, uh, to, uh, describe how he would do it, because Superman could then just kind of, uh, you know, uh, move at the same speed as them. You know, inertia— an object in motion stays in motion, right? That's why you can move around in a car even though a car is doing 100 miles an hour. You're inside the bubble of the car and you're moving regular, but everything around you, you know, you're moving with that object. And so Superman could horizontally just match the speed. So what he would do is he would just calculate their speed, he'd come up at an angle, then he would do this horizontal, uh, speedy fly where he just kind of, you know, moves at the same exact speed. And, uh, to be able to calculate that, uh, you know, as the scientists are saying, he would have— his brain would almost have to be like a computer where it can calculate the speed and his speed and his motion, etc. But the thing about it is, um, somebody like Superman, who's Kryptonian, who's probably a lot smarter than a human, you know, we could make assumptions that he would be able to figure it out.

Superman, I— he's— everything about him is super. Yes. Right. And well, I wondered We actually got a question. We brought a branch of our podcast that goes online, our questions open to the public, our fan base. And one of them just simply asked, would Superman's physiology be the same as humans even if he's sort of steel on the outside? And it got me thinking, if he's got super everything, but he does eat food, we've seen him eat, right? So the food would be digested in some super way. Perhaps. Okay, so what would that mean? And then I thought, so everything that's going on in you would happen in a super way in Superman. So it would digest faster, the— it goes into your intestines, and a lot of the action is in your lower intestines where the, the microbial action happens anaerobically. Uh-oh, here we go. And anaerobic gases, methane, sulfur compounds. Yes, so yeah, so Super Taco Tuesday.

Yeah, so I kind of know where this is going. This seems like this is gonna be some type of, uh, uh, uh, you know, uh, combustible fuel gas propulsion system.

And sulfide, that's the smell of rotten eggs. You have methane, which I didn't know this when I was in camp when I was 10, but my fellow campers were right when they said, have you ever ignited that thing which is called a heat? Come on, I mean, I know we're in the Hamptons, but everybody knows what a fart is. Come on, come on. No, but so, okay, so fine. So, so, so. You could ask, what is the gaseous composition of that? Okay. And in Superman, it would be super, right? And methane, of course, is highly flammable.

Yes.

That's kind of hilarious a little bit. So Superman's organs, you know, would be, you know, obviously different. And, you know, the process of, you know, flatuation You know, it would be— it could almost be like a combustion chamber, right? Like, you know, an engine or something.

And in cities, it's the gas of choice for your stove if you still have a gas stove. Suburbs tend to have propane. These are varieties of flammable gases that you get from crude oil. So methane is flammable. So it occurred to me that this is another tool Superman would have in crime fighting. Because, because he, he would just sort of load it up, okay? Yeah, I'm pointing down his pants and just let one out, and he's got the vision— laser vision, laser vision, x-ray vision. Then he— well, no, we can get to x-rays yet. All right, he's got— he got laser vision. Laser vision. He could just ignite it And so it would be a new kind of flamethrower. Oh, what a—

so like a flame— Neil deGrasse Tyson is so crazy, man. So, uh, after all the various ways he, uh, a super being like Superman could use to fight crime, he's gonna use flammable farts.

Terrible death for those villains. No, no, that would be a— it's, it's physiological. Yeah, it's— it works. Yeah, I think it would work. Yeah.

You could never sneak up on Superman with kryptonite.

Why?

Because there'd be a rear guard defense.

Oh yes, yes, you couldn't get close. I've been taken from behind.

It literally would be a firewall. Yes, the only problem with this very reasonable reasoning is that when Superman came to the world from Krypton, he did not have gut bacteria yet. He was still like pre-colonoscopy. Okay, so any gut bacteria he has achieved from eating here on Earth has come from Earth. So this is a fascinating question which I would love for your opinions. Okay, does Superman have super gut bacteria or just ordinary gut bacteria? In which case, right, if he has super digestion, which you said earlier, which would be great. It might be so good as to eliminate all gaseous emission, in which case Superman never passes gas.

Oh, this is how easy it is to buy shares.

Excuse me. Okay, so he's saying that because Superman would develop on Earth, his— maybe his digestion system would be so efficient so good that he wouldn't have to even fart at all, as he was suggesting. I've never thought about that, but it's interesting. Obviously, I've never thought about Superman farting before.

All right. There's a scene in one of the movies where Lois Lane walks behind a lead planter because he asked, well, if you have X-ray vision, in her first interview, then what color panties am I wearing? And he said, I don't know. And he said, well, why? Well, because you're standing behind a lead planter. Because everyone knows lead absorbs X-rays. And then she steps out and he says pink or red or something. But X-rays should not be able to tell color of clothing.

That's right.

Ah, it's true.

Who would you—

that's interesting. I never thought about that either. Uh, you always depict Superman being able to see through objects, right? They say it's like X-ray vision, right? Like an X-ray machine. And I remember from the movie Superman, yes, he did. He was able to see the color of Lois Lane's undergarments. But if you watch like shows like Smallville, Smallville actually, kudos to them, they seem to do it right. When they would do X-ray vision, he would actually see all the way through the person, much like an X-ray machine would see. I mean, to see down to the skeletal structure. And he wouldn't see distinct colors, right? And so maybe the people who did the show Smallville, or somebody on the staff, or maybe expert opinions explained to them that that's not how x-rays work.

Let's go through the clothing.

That's right.

All right.

Yeah, yeah. But you're not accepting poetic license, are you?

Not at all. No, no.

Right. Okay.

If you're going to use x-rays, then stay in the x-ray world. Otherwise, invent N-rays or something. Invent some other rays that he had. You're going to say X-rays, you better stick with what we know.

So what you want is an upgrade for Superman, just X-ray vision and then a whole load of different, right, dial-up vision.

That would be interesting. See, see, they didn't think of that.

Well, if you think about the whole alphabet, that's right. Yeah, Y-rays, Z-rays, Z-rays. Yeah, Omega rays. Yes. Well, X-rays, as many of you know, uh, they go right through our bodies, right? And they go through different materials wind up with different colors. For example, our bones look different from our soft tissues and things like that. X-ray telescopes that we're familiar with, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, XMM-Newton, things like that, they can look at the X-rays, but X-rays are also different colors. Some of them are what we call hard X-rays, some of them called soft X-rays. And in the same way that we can take pictures in red, green, and blue and then mix them together to form a color photo, Superman could be able to detect or even emit X-rays and come back and forth in these different bands and thus create a 3-color image.

This is an undeveloped feature he could have expressed.

That's right. This is an evolutionary superiority that he has. But instead of us having rod and cone cells, he has some sort of X-ray rod and cone cells.

We are limited to just the visible spectrum— red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.

Yes.

He's got X-rays as a whole accessible part of the Electroman that expect—

Well, I could accept that, that Superman's eyes themselves are much more complicated than human eyes, and it can allow him to see in a telescopic vision, microscopic vision, and certain, uh, certain color spectrums and such. So, uh, yeah, I, I wouldn't have a problem with that.

That's right.

And all he does is just see through walls with it. Yes, but it's way more useful.

Highly underdeveloped.

He's modest, man, you know what I mean? He probably could do all that, but he just doesn't want to let you know unless you're asking him about your panties. Now, this thing about his, his gut.

Yes.

Um, we know Superman came here as an infant.

Yes.

So I once got a phone call from DC Comics. Oh, in my office.

You're in trouble.

Oh, I, I work at the Hayden Planetarium, in case anybody was dragged here by the person next to you and doesn't know anything else about me. That's where I work. And I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, I got a phone call. "Hello, is this Dr. Hyson?" I said, "Yes." "This is DC Comics. Can we ask you some questions?" I said, "Sure." "We have a new comic book we're illustrating, and we want to know if we can illustrate Superman visiting the Hayden Planetarium. Will you give permission for this?" Yeah, I mean, who's gonna say no to that, right?

So I said, sounds pretty cool, Neil deGrasse Tyson, uh, uh, being, uh, in DC Comics.

What's up? They said, oh, Superman in this, in this story that they're telling is going to come to the planetarium to use our special tools of visualization and telescopes and things to see The destruction of Krypton, which is finally reaching Earth. And I said, oh, that's good, that's good. But I had to, I had to, I had to dig in. And I said, all right, Superman was launched Moses style in a basket as an infant, arrived on Earth in that same basket as an infant. And anyone who knows infants knows that a month, 2 months, you know the difference between the baby who's 2 months old and what's 3 months old. This baby did not age. So there's only 2 ways. I'm telling this guy on the phone, only 2 ways. At least take some notes, right? He didn't argue with anything I was doing. I said the 2 ways it could have gotten here: if he traveled this— because they're aliens, so they could do what they want. If he traveled the speed of light to Earth, he would not age relative to Earth because that's Einstein's relativity. However, if he's traveling the speed of light, so is the destruction of Krypton. That light, those light beams from the destruction would be right alongside him and he'd land on Earth, you'd see Krypton destroyed. He couldn't show up later and then observe the event.

So this is Neil's area here. Of course, if you don't know, Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist. So a lot of people know this from school and things like that. But what, you know, basically what he's saying is he's saying that the, the, the destruction of Krypton, because so many light years away, that, uh, how they want to set it up in the DC Comics story was that Superman could go to the Hayden Planetarium, which is where the actual physical place where Neil deGrasse Tyson works, and they could— he could look through the telescope. He could see Krypton is just now reaching, uh, you know, uh, visibility, right? Because it could take hundreds of thousands of years for, you know, for— they would— you would just be seeing Krypton explode in even though it happened hundreds of thousands of years ago. The problem is though, how did Superman beat the destruction of Krypton in a ship that can only travel the universal speed limit of light speed, right? So 186,000 miles per second, right? So that's as fast as allowed, or you start to, you know, travel back in time or something crazy happens. It's just impossible, right? Yeah, it can't—

it can't be the speed of light. It was at this point the gentleman from DC Comics knew that he had made a mistake. So then I said, the only way you can get him here and have all this work is through a wormhole.

Okay, yeah, it would have to be like a wormhole or You know, I guess in DC Comics they use the Mother Boxes, they use the boom tubes, they use, uh, you know, uh, um, portals and such, right? Things like that. It would have to be some tear in time and space to beat the destruction of Krypton for that to work.

I know the pit stop, but wait, what is this? It's— knew that he had made a mistake. So then I said, the only way you can get him here and have all this work is through a wormhole. Okay, a wormhole. You put him through a wormhole, he gets here instantly, long before the light beam. Okay, that's, that's really, that's very cool, man. Okay, so to be honest, that's really cool. Okay, so now hang on. So then I said, yeah, hang on, how, how old is Superman? And he said he's eternally in his late 20s. So I said, okay, I can find you a star that's like 26, 27 light years away, and I can make sure it's red because there are plenty of red stars in the galaxy.

That's pretty interesting. So basically what Neil's saying then is he actually is finding a real red sun a star, right, uh, that would be about the age of Superman arriving to Earth, that actually exists in, in the universe. And because Krypton's not there anymore anyway, you know, they exploded, you can pretty— that, that could represent the actual physical location of Krypton. So that's pretty interesting, pretty interesting stuff.

See, because the Krypton star is red, right? And we can make that the star he came from. I could find an actual star. He said yeah. So I went back. But is there an exoplanet around that star that could actually be Krypton? Well, most stars will have exoplanets, we knew at this time, so I wasn't worried about that. Okay. So I gave a choice of 2 or 3 stars.

That's interesting. So it actually would have the exoplanet. But as Krypton exploded, either way, you wouldn't— you know, it wouldn't be there. It wouldn't be there either way. But that's interesting stuff.

Okay, okay. And they said, we'll take this one. Well, I said, why? Oh, because it's in the constellation Corvus, one of the 88 constellations of the night sky. Corvus is a crow. And I said, well, why? They said, oh, The mascot of Smallville High is the crow. Oh, that's good.

Wow. So all of that kind of lined up, uh, very, uh, very neatly, right? Very well. Like the Smallville High, the mascot being the crow, the crow of the star system, right?

Oh, so there it is. It's now Superman canon. This conversation. And so yeah, they drew him, and then they called me back and said, do you mind if we have him meet you? And I said, yeah, let's do it. Okay, so in this comic, I am meeting Superman, and there's a tender moment because he sees the destruction of Krypton and it's sad. He's crying super tears.

Yeah.

Oh, that's pretty cool. So yeah, Neil deGrasse Tyson does— is an official part of Superman canon. He exists in Superman Mythos now. And, um, that's interesting, that vest with the moons and the stars, since the constellations and such. That was a vest that, uh, he used to wear a lot on many shows. I remember that vest. So that's pretty cool.

He's just sad. And I never— I realized at that moment I'd never seen Superman emotionally sad, right? And angry, sure, but not just genuinely sad, right? And so I know a little more than usual about how Superman got here because of that conversation. So here's the takeaway, people: Neil deGrasse Tyson made Superman cry.

Well, this conversation went a little different than I thought. Obviously a cool story about Neil deGrasse Tyson being a part of Superman canon now. Um, But I was hoping— some of the university courses about the physics of Superman, they go very deep into detail about how he flies with the gravitons. They talk about, uh, the planet Krypton being hundreds of times larger than the Earth. And so Kryptonian physiology, their bone structure is a lot stronger, uh, the gravity— because the gravity is similar to What would happen if you were born on Mars? They do a good job of that, of this, in the television show The Expanse, right? Taken from the book where Martians come to Earth and they have trouble, you know, even being able to walk on Earth because Mars is a lot smaller, right? So the gravity is a lot, it's a lot harder for them to handle Earth's gravity, right? So in the future, people who might be born on Mars, right, would suffer issues like that. But because of the physiology of the development of what you would have on Krypton, I'm a little bit surprised though, with Krypton being so much larger, I'm just a little bit surprised Kryptonians themselves aren't a lot bigger, you know, like tall. Or like, I'm a little surprised they're not 9, 10 feet tall or something like that. But maybe it's just a misunderstanding of of how development works, or maybe there's just so many different ways people can develop on these planets, right? So, and size doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it, right? Creatures can be all different types of sizes, right? So I thought they would kind of go there. I was hoping that they would discuss how Superman flies, you know, as far as some type of energy field propulsion system that's part of his physical body. Body or aura or something like that. Uh, it just kind of, uh, uh, makes me think of the octopus and various sea creatures that in their environment, in their oceanic environment, they use, uh, what would be, uh, like jet propulsion systems that are created from their own internal physiology, right? And so just so many different things they could address Uh, they didn't so much talk about the physics of Superman as much as some of the physical issues with the things he would do, uh, as it affects the environment or the people in the environment right around him. So, uh, yeah, I kind of wish they would have got deeper into that, but these guys are scientists, and I, I think they were just mostly looking at Superman as he You know, as he navigates the environment, you know, the physical Earth environment, right, in the atmosphere and stuff. I don't think they were that well-versed on how Superman himself functions in his body. They didn't talk about how he even can absorb the sun's radiation, the yellow sun. And why is a yellow sun even more, you know, gives him more abilities than a red sun? You know, the photosynthetic cells he has absorb and so on. So many— so it's very interesting. So many different things you could do with Superman as far as the psychic abilities and such and psionics. Is that physically possible? I couldn't really You know, all I can say is that the government has, you know, psychic programs, you know, that they, you know, that money was actually put into various psychic programs and Russian, certain Russian scientists that were rumored to exhibit types of telekinesis and things like that. Uh, you know, so if, if, if that research, uh, was evidentially, uh, uh, sound and it was more information on that, uh, maybe there would be something there as far as, uh, psychic abilities existing. Um, as far as humanoid-like beings growing up on different atmospheres, different planets and such, I think there's evidence there that they would be able to, uh, quite different than humans and, and maybe able to do certain feats many humans couldn't do. So there's just so many different ways they could have went with this. I found it very interesting. Anyway, guys, tell me all what you think about Superman. Is he physically possible? Uh, until next time, as always, take care of yourselves and each other.