Sidekick Girl

Saving the City: Sans-Spandex

It's ok. I don't get it either.

Any questions or arguments should be directed to Laura, as she is the scientist responsible for the physics of superpowers. Now, if you want to discuss the effects of mechanical rules arbitration on the pseudo-medieval society of a typical D&D world, I’ll be right here. Hint: a wizard probably did it. (Hazel would totally get that joke.)

15 responses to “Haze’s Hero Debut IV”

  • Chaos on January 9, 2013 at 8:46 AM

    “Whu…what?” LOL He’ll probably never figure it out.

    And Holy Cow Wall’o’text!

  • Sebastian_Sandberg on January 9, 2013 at 12:49 PM

    Would you believe me if I said that understood all that without looking it up? XD

    My point being, don’t underestimate a speedster, and I’m glad to see this comic get it right! Major kudos from a physics amateur!

  • Chaos on January 10, 2013 at 1:53 AM

    That made sense to me the first time I read it as well. For Mr. “Brick Shithouse” there, I suppose the concussion he probably got from that hit made things a bit difficult to sink in.

  • David Johnston on January 9, 2013 at 1:47 PM

    And…how does that explain how she ran in a straight line through him damaging only his bricks?

  • The Occupant on January 9, 2013 at 11:16 PM

    What says she did?

  • xero on January 9, 2013 at 11:28 PM

    oh thats easy Sword fight rules it only looks like that cause your eyes are to slow that she banked around him at the last second wich also cause him to get hit with her shock wave on top of what ever hit she did (likely a kab because if it was anything harder his head would be missing)

  • mrtt on January 11, 2013 at 7:38 AM

    So, did she have to learn the physics first before devising such a move or could she just do it due to her powers and the physics are just trivia for her?

  • PaulW on January 11, 2013 at 10:22 AM

    There’s a wonderful physics book out there by James Kakalios called The Physics of Superheroes and it’s a must-read if you’re into comics. When I saw this comic I immediately thought of that book.

  • The Occupant on January 11, 2013 at 1:52 PM

    For the cheaper, the TV tropes page on Required Secondary powers also is an interesting read, though ‘ware links. The rabbit hole goes really, really to the power of really far down.

  • Stefan on January 12, 2013 at 10:58 AM

    If her feet hit the ground with relativistic velocity, why is the city still there?

  • TheGeek on January 15, 2013 at 1:57 PM

    Just because she is moving a relativistic speeds forwards doesn’t necessarily mean that her feet are moving at that speed downwards when they hit the ground. When running at normal speeds your feet come to a complete stop for a fraction of a second when they hit the ground. That’s why running is a high impact exercise.

  • Stefan on January 16, 2013 at 5:23 PM

    It might be possible to do as you say, but it needs an awful lot of coordination.
    She still needed to push herself of the ground forwards and upwards to accelerate to this velocity within one or two steps because friction allows us to walk around. And she had to decelerate within two steps. Her momentum had to go somewhere.

  • BrogueTheRogue on July 20, 2014 at 11:31 AM

    Don’t forget that you’re talking about relativistic mass. Yes, she’s moving extremely quickly. Yes, her relative mass is high. But it’s still lower than the *Earth*.

  • Computant on July 29, 2014 at 12:42 AM

    I find myself wondering how much momentum she can generate relative to the Earth though. Given that momentum is mass times velocity squared. Out-massing a guy wrapped in bricks probably only takes about 1000 lbs, call it X10 mass. This requires a speed of 298289 KM/Sec, (per http://www.1728.org/reltivty.htm). Momentum is 1000*298289*298289 lbs*KM^2/Sec^2 (getting rid of the stupid english lbs at this step), 4*10^13. Earth’s mass is about 6*10^24 kg, so she changed the rotation of the earth by only sqrt(4/(6*10^11)) Km/s, 2.5mm per second.
    Given how close that speed is to “c,” the limit on further effects is actually how much mass she wants to take on. On the other hand, she is well over the speed of .9c, please refer to:
    https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

  • Hellothere on March 1, 2017 at 8:56 PM

    University physics student here. I’m sorry to say that this explanation does not actually work.

    First of there is the problem of practicality. In order for any kind of relativistic effects to become relevant she would have to move so fast that the air molecules in front of her would be compressed to into a super dense and hot plasma way past the nuclear fusion threshold. The resulting explosion would completely wipe out the city if not crack apart the earth’s crust.

    However even leaving that aside it still wouldn’t work. In relativistic physics every observer moving at a constant velocity is equally valid. Thus while from the thug’s perspective the approaching Haze would indeed be super heavy and dense, from Haze’s perspective instead the approaching bricks would be super dense.
    Thus while relativistic effects would increase the damage applied to the bricks they would also increase the damage applied to her fist.

    So yeah, don’t try this at home kids.

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