Slicing towards 24320 GS, Superman and physics...

When I went to sleep last night I put on the mandatory show for sleepy-time. The series Smallville. For those of you who don't know... (Damn you!) It's a show about Clark Kents early days before becoming the Man of Steel. It's always been one of my favourite shows but I've always wondered: What was the people behind Superman smoking when they came up with this superhero? He's damn near indestructible, he can shoot fire from his eyes and he can lift... we almost anything. Let's put Superman up for the physics test... I will be using stuff from the movies, the comics and Smallville to the extent of my knowledge of course...

A rundown of Supermans powers for starters:
Speed: He can move faster than a speeding bullet. Now I don't know excactly how fast that is but it's probably damn fast. In one of the movies with Cristopher Reeves, Lois dies and in an attempt to save her life he goes back in time by flying backwards around Earth. For this to be possible he must be travelling at the speed of light (or near it at least.)
Flight: All who know of Superman knows that he can fly. Probably the first thing that comes to mind when you mention his name.
Strength: He has been lifting and throwing stuff through all of the medias shown above. In the lastest movie he slowly stops a Boeing something something plane from crashing. He is damn strong.
X-Ray vision: He can see through solid objects. Everything except lead.
Heat vision: He can emit heat from his eyes setting the spot he stares at on fire.
Indestrutible: He can take practically any amount of asskicking without it leaving a scratch. He cannot be shot or blown up for example.
Superhearing: He can hear stuff that happens from a great distance.

Supermans weaknesses:
Kryptonite: Green Kryptonite could potentially kill him and every villain in the world seems to have one or two of these rocks lying around. Lead is the only thing that protects Superman from Kryptonite exposure. There are also different Kryptonite that affects him in a various amount of ways.

As we can tell from the information above Superman is not really something that would work in real life based on his weakness alone. He could easily create a lead armor and be even more awesome.
Because of his powers I thought it would be fun, since I've studied some physics, (I'm not an expert mind you) to analyze if it's even remotely possible that a Superman would somewhere along the line visit our great blue planet.

Let's start from the top with the speed. As shown by physicists all around the world it's not possible to travel at the speed of light. The amount of energy needed to travel at that speed would rip everything apart. Period... It doesn't matter if he can take a bullet. To make things a little more easy to grasp: The speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second. It's measure comes from the speed light has in vacuum. And not only light but all massless particles. As far as I know Superman is not massless.

What about flight then? Well, since he doesnt' have any soft of powering device we would just have to imagine that he is "moving himself". The only way I could see this possible is if he negates gravity. (The little thing that keeps us on the ground.) Now gravity is not random. Gravity is basically the difference between two masses. In order for Superman to "negate" gravity he has to have a higher mass than Earth which I find highly unlikely. If he had a higher mass than Earth, then Earth would get pulled towards Superman since, he now has a greater mass than Earth. Sorry to burst your bubbles.

What's next? Oh, his strength. We will actually combine his strength and his indestructability to make it easier to break the myth. The strength itself is hard for me to explain. I guess it is theoretically possible to have super-strength but combined with his indestrutible body we can start to punch some holes in the theory. In order for Superman to be indestructable he has to have higher density that normal people. Density is how close together the particles are to each other in any matter. This would also increase his weight substantially. Now I've seen Superman do some crazy shit but let's take one of the classics. Imagine you're falling from a building and Superman catches you on the ground. First of all his strength makes you very light for this hunk of skin. Coupled with him being indestructable it would actually be better if you landed on the ground. This guy can get shot. He won't even feel you crash into him. It will literally be like being launched into a mountain from a space station. You know the things that shoot rockets up in the air? In an episode of Smallville I saw Clark Kent catch a car like it was nothing in midair. The problem is that in real life the car would become dust.

The x-ray vision could work since we actually have machines that can do it. But let's think about it for a moment. Have you ever gotten an x-ray of any sort. Like when a dentist checks your teeth? Well they give you something to bite on to and then they all leave the room. Why? Well x-rays are waves at a certain wavelength. This particular wavelength is radioactive and can be dangerous to people. So the defender of humanity who wouldn't hurt a fly would not go around using it since it can hurt people.

The other two remaining powers, the heat vision and the super-hearing is probably not possible either. I just couldn't find a way to make it impossible so let's leave those to for someone else to crack...

Another little sidenote. What about his appearance? I mean why can't the people around him see that he is Superman? I mean, come on! If Clark Kent was my friend and he removed his glasses and put some gel in his hair and started flying I would notice... Please...

So to sum things up: Superman can unfortunately not visit us any time soon. Not until all the laws about physics have been rewritten. I feel kinda sad. I really like Superman. He is the epitome of justice and defender of all.

He is a hero...

Japanese Picturepuzzle

Can you see it yet?

Achievements (contains spoilers)
I am pissed! Really, really pissed! I will explain why but first: Huge day for achievements!

I had a long day in school so it was rather late when I got home. When I did get home I did some laundry for Emma since she was still working at the time. Then I booted up Afro Samurai and continued the story...

I was apparently at the level Kuma's Story. It was a snowy, very straightforward level in a valley of sorts surrounded by cliffs. There was no enemies save for one. A guy in a bear mask. So I was gonna chase him apparently. During my chase he'd dissapear and launch up through the ground in an attempt to kill little old me. I ran in to him twice while getting the first 2 mementos for this level. After that I reached a big snow field where the bear-guy was waiting for me. We had some sword-to-sword action before he once again fled up a destroyed tower. Here I found the third memento. After I climbed up the tower I found myself in something that reminded me of a ship. Of course it wasn't a ship since it stood on to pillars (which I originally thought was a tower.) This is one of those traditional japanese structures you see in all the movies. They are usually red I might add. After another fight with the bear-man I found my fourth memento. After climbing the last few steps the building caved down and I was now in a last stand against the bear man. The last fight was rather intense but I got him down without a bigger fuss. After that I got The Past Laid to Rest achievement for finishing Kuma's Story. I then had to redo the whole chapter to find the last memento which apparently also was up in the building before it collapsed. That got me the Widow Maker achievement.

Oh snap! He died...

The next level was The Empty Seven's Story. This was a rather big level. At least it felt big. It mostly consisted of a big room where you'd first be attacked by a smaller country's worth in men and later you had to pull levers to gain acces to another part of the tower. I got up the first path of the level, getting the mementos available on the way and was presented with a mini-boss of sorts. An old guy was shooting at me with a gun. After a succesful reflect the bullet hit another old guy who was set on fire (!?) This old man then started chasing me throught the room until I could lure him down a tube with gears grinding his body to bleh...
This put me back in the original room where I had to pull a second lever and climb up another part of the tower where I was presented with yet another mini-boss. This was an easier one. An old guy just summoned regular ninjas which was dead faster than Superman can run in real life.
Oh... back in the first room... again... Now I had to pull the third lever and climb up a third part of the tower. The controls really didn't make these climbs easy. I'm starting to get annoyed more than I enjoy the game now... Never a good sign. Before entering the last door at the top I got the last of the mementos netting me The Samurai Ghost achievement. But that's not all. I also got The Number One achievement for unlocking all skills in the game! Inside the door I got to face the boss which was a favourite of mine. The flamethrower guy. Yay! Not! This time he only had a stick though and was still easier than the first time I fought him. Upoon defeating him I got the All That Stood Are Gone achievement.

How dare you jump over my sword?!

Now I entered Ninja Ninja's Story which i'm not gonna spoil. It does contain either the longest or shortest boss fight of all depending on how lucky you are. I managed to get the Kengo achievement and the Four to the Floor achievement for getting 1000 kills and slicing 4 enemies at once respectively.

Now it was time for the last battle. This is also something I will not spoil. It's an enjoyable fight once you get the hang of it. Pretty hard at first though.Whn I finally killed the boss ( I died quite a few times at first) I got the Revenge Served? achievement.

This game is pretty awesome!

Not much left to do now. I would have to play through the story one more time on Hard before I'm done but I still had some random achievements left so I started working on those.

This is why I'm pissed. The card mini-game thing is killing me. It took me a few tries before getting the Kunoichi Suicide Queens achievement which is for slicing off a head, a hand and a leg from female ninjas only. The next one was even worse. The enemies needed for the cards have a tendancy to block... a lot... It took me about 35 tries to get the Off Suit Samurai achievement which is for slicing off a head, a hand and a leg from samurais. Only one card achievement left to get. And this proved to be the worst of the bunch. I never managed to get it even after about 20 tries. I did however get the Let it Flow achievement which means I've now spilled 2000 galons of blood (Awesome achievement!) The last remaining card achievement will have to wait for another day. Now I'm off...

All in all I got 11 achievements worth 325 GS!

Looks like it's steak for dinner tonight.

Go achieve something!

Clip of the Day