The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

Author:James Kakalios
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2010-08-28T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15: Electro's Clinging Ways. Electrostatics.

Up till now, we have primarily focused on how forces change the motion of objects, and the force that has concerned us almost exclusively has been gravity. Whether slowing Superman down in his leaps or speeding Gwen Stacy in her fatal plunge, it is gravity that has been invoked when a force F is needed in Newton’s second law F = ma. But there are forces other than gravity in this—and the comic-book—universe.

Physicists have discovered that only four basic forces in nature are both necessary and sufficient to account for the wide range of complex physical phenomena we observe. These forces are: (1) Gravity, (2) Electromagnetism, and the unimaginatively named (3) Strong and (4) Weak forces.* The latter two only operate inside atomic nuclei. The Strong force binds protons and neutrons together in close proximity within the atomic nucleus, and without it the positively charged protons would repel each other and no stable elements other than hydrogen could exist. The Weak force is responsible for some forms of radioactivity (such as the nuclear decays that led physicists to suggest the existence of neutrinos, as mentioned in chapter 11), and without it few superheroes or supervillains would exist. Nearly every force we encounter in our everyday dealings, aside from gravity, is electrostatic in nature. The forces generated by our muscles, the force the chair exerts on

* These four forces, in the form of the villains Graviton, Zzzax, Quantum, and Halflife, can be quite formidable, as the West Coast Avengers found in “The Unified Field Theory.”

the seat of your pants to keep you from falling to the floor, the force exerted by the hot gases in your car engine’s cylinder that lead to locomotion, all these and many others are, in the final analysis, electrical. It is thus time for us to consider the twin forces of Electricity and Magnetism, which we will find are really just one single force properly termed “electromagnetism.”

Very few superheroes have powers that are electromagnetic in origin. Two of the earliest Silver Age comic-book characters whose powers do utilize electricity and magnetism are Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy. These heroes are from the future, and they first appeared in Adventure Comics # 247 (April 1958) when they, along with Saturn Girl, traveled back in time in order to recruit Superboy into the Legion of Super-Heroes. Lightning Lad is able to create and discharge electrical bolts from his hands, while Cosmic Boy can control magnetic objects. The third founding member, Saturn Girl, possessed the superpower of mental telepathy, which we will argue later is intimately connected with electromagnetic wave propagation. Consequently the three founders of the Legion are direct manifestations of electricity and magnetism theory in action. The Legion hailed from the year 2958 (current stories take place in 3005) and was comprised of teenagers from different planets who each had a unique superpower. The concept of a club of teenaged superheroes in the future proved very popular with comic readers, and the

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