Can Physics Explain Superman’s Powers?
Superstrength, Heat Vision, Flight: Which of these are physically possible?
When it comes to caped crime-fighters, there is almost no one more recognizable than the Man of Steel himself.
To his friends and colleagues, he is Clark Kent, a young journalist at the Daily Star.
But to Metropolis, his resident city, and the Earth, he is their superhuman savior fighting for peace against those who threaten it.
Origin
Is he even human?
He isn’t actually. Superman was born Kal-El ,the son of Jor-El and Lara, on the planet Krypton.
How did he end up on Earth?
When Krypton was on the verge of being destroyed, Kal’s parents put him on their one-person spaceship, the only one on the planet, saving their only son’s life as they sacrificed their own.
After crash-landing in Smallville, Kansas, baby Kal was found and adopted by a childless couple, Jonathan and Martha Kent.
A normal life with a loving family
They raised him as their own son and taught him many of the values of righteousness, which would later define his heroic ideals.
Jonathan eventually revealed his true parentage,
but Clark was content to live an ordinary life with his Earth parents who had raised him and cared for him.
Then tragedy struck…
Jonathan and Martha died in a car accident on the night of Clark’s prom. Because he had no superhero role models to guide him, he was not able to use his powers to save them.
Overcoming his grief, he vowed to learn to use his powers to save people.
After his parents’ funeral, Clark moved to Metropolis, eventually donning his iconic cape and taking on the mantle of Superman.
What makes him so powerful?
Superman’s Kryptonian cells can absorb and store energy from the light emitted by stars.
To find out if Superman can absorb more energy from our Sun than Krypton’s sun, we need to
compare their luminosity, which is the total amount of energy produced per unit time
Our Sun is a type of star called a main sequence star.
With a surface temperature of 5 800 Kelvins (or 5 500 Celsius or 9 900 Fahrenheit), it is classified as a G class star.
Knowing its radius to be 696 000 km, we can calculate the luminosity using the formula:
where L = luminosity
R = radius of star
T = surface temperature
σ = Stefan-Boltzmann constant = 5.67 × 10^−8 W / (m² x K⁴)
A few calculator buttons later, the luminosity of the Sun turns out to be
3.91 × 10²⁶ Watts
Krypton’s sun was likely a red dwarf
which is also a main sequence star but smaller and cooler than a G class star. In fact, it is in an entirely different class, K.
In fact, Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Solar system, is a red dwarf. So we can base Krypton’s Sun off of it.
Krypton’s sun will likely have a surface temperature of 3 000 K (4 900 Farenheit) and a radius of 107 000 km.
And behold, the luminosity of Krypton’s sun is
6.6 × 10²³ Watts
So Superman can store about 600 times more energy on Earth than he could have on Krypton.
(assuming both planets are the same distance from their stars)
This means Superman’s muscles can do much more work, explaining his superhuman strength.
Is ‘Heat Vision’ Possible?
‘Heat vision’ could be explained by Superman’s eyes being built like a very powerful laser.
It has been shown to be able to cut through most things so the closest comparison would be a carbon dioxide (CO2) laser, which can cut through steel and most other metals, as well as plastic, marble and even stone.
CO2 Laser
1. A laser works by first ‘pumping’ the lasing medium
which is CO2 in this case, with electric discharges. This puts a great number of atoms in an excited state, where the electrons jump up 2 or 3 energy levels.
Because higher energy levels are less stable, the electrons fall back to ground state, emitting the energy as a photon (light energy).
Superman’s eye would need to have a hollow organ storing CO2 gas and connected organs which can discharge a current within.
2. What makes a laser different from a flashlight is that the photon emission is organized.
This is done through a process called stimulated emission. When the emitted photon from an atom encounters another atom with an electron in the same excited state,
it induces photon emission in this second atom.
The photon from the 2nd atom will then have the same frequency as the 1st.
3. A pair of mirrors, one at each end of the CO2 storing organ.
Emitted photons reflect off the mirrors and in the process cause stimulated emissions throughout the medium.
Soon there are many photons of the same wavelength and phase.
One mirror is half-silvered so some of the photons (light) can pass through.
The light that passes through is the laser light.
4. The lens then focuses the laser beams at a single point.
A high amount of energy is concentrated
and the laser would burn through most materials at this point.
Of course, the lenses in Superman’s eyes would have to be heat-resistant.
Surprisingly, Superman’s flight is more difficult to explain.
In the comics, it is said to be a result of ‘anti-gravity’ organs. This would mean there has to be a second type of ‘gravitational charge’ which would repel the usual ‘gravitational charge’ of mass-and-energy.
But unlike positive and negative electric charges, there is no counterpart to mass-and-energy and gravitational forces are always attractive.
Is Superman floating using some kind of gas?
Maybe Superman’s Kryptonian biology blesses him with organs which can fill up with a light,non-flammable gas, say helium (He), and make him float in air?
The upward buoyant force, U, due to the air displaced by helium would need to equal the total weight of the helium and Superman, W.
By Archimedes' principle, the buoyant force U is equal to the weight of the air displaced.
And the mass of helium would be equal to helium’s density times the volume. In canon, Superman’s mass is 107 kg, which is quite hefty.
The volume of helium, V, needed to lift Superman is
73.3 m³ or 73 300 liters
That’s equivalent to 5 200 balloons!
There is no way Superman could fit that volume of helium in himself.
Superman’s flight seems to be an inexplicable scientific anomaly.
Conclusion
Can Physics Explain Superman’s Powers?
Superstrength — YES, under assumptions about his cell biology
Heat vision — YES, under assumptions about his eye anatomy
Flight — NO
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