1097
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 201 points 7 months ago

Gotta love the movies where someone is falling only to be caught by a superhero who has accelerated to ludicrous speeds to catch the fallen and intercepts their trajectory at 90° just before hitting the ground. So the victims goes from 150mph down to some crazy speed at a 90° vector to their original path after being slammed into by superhero.

They’re so dead.

But the superhero Suspension of Disbelief Field extends to secondary characters in the story.

[-] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 63 points 7 months ago

You're not wrong but there is one thing: hitting the ground is an instantaneous impact with a hard surface. Being swooped in some direction is a relatively slower process - the swooper is softer than concrete, and the change in velocity is spread over a longer period of time (even if it's still "instantaneous" to the casual observer, it can be an "instant" 100 times longer than ground impact).

It's like landing on a mattress vs a hard floor - from a high enough height both are deadly, but I'd still pick the mattress.

[-] ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

You ever ran into someone before?

[-] Jolteon@lemmy.zip 32 points 7 months ago

Flesh is still a lot softer than concrete

[-] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 24 points 7 months ago
[-] cyberic@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 7 months ago
[-] havokdj@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

With balls of steel

[-] Wogi@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

So is water but it'll still kill you if you're falling at terminal velocity.

[-] deaf_fish@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago
[-] Khrux@ttrpg.network 9 points 7 months ago

I also assumed the swooper still decelerates you a little even if not by much. If you're falling at 50m/s as you are trying to slow your fall by taking a skydiver pose, and a superhero caches you midair, you could decelerate over half a second and stop moving within 12 meters while still only experiencing 10g.

12m is pretty tall but not insane in a superhero style piece of fiction where people may be dropped out the sky or from tall buildings. If you want to increase that g-force to the maximum survivable limit of near 100g (in theory), you'd only need to go from terminal velocity to 0m/s in 1.5 meters. Being reasonable, being caught 5 meters above the ground would be enough for most people to survive without major reprocussions, and is always better than hitting the ground.

load more comments (70 replies)
this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
1097 points (97.7% liked)

Comic Strips

12304 readers
1315 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

Web of links

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS