Superhero science with Bill Nye

Bill Nye you've been busy lately saving

the world and you're a big fan of

science so I thought why not talk about

superhero science Yeah right

yes superhero science oh sure yeah let's

have some fun I wanted to talk about if

things are possible or plausible and

some of our favorite science fiction so

I wanted to start with an iconic you

can't do that that stores hammer you

can't do it are you empowered Thor flies

by spinning it around really fast

throwing it and hang it on for the ride

you have an intuitive sense of it when

you swing a bowling ball or a bucket of

water you can knock yourself over you're

converting this angular momentum to a

linear momentum

what about Wonder Woman's lasso it

compels people to tell the truth we know

that truth serums exist there's no

science elasto truth however maybe there

is when someone is caught in a lie

that's the verb we use right so if

you're caught in malaria of truth then

you've got to tell the truth when you're

caught and alive and you start telling

the truth the flash going as fast as he

does yes it would have an effect on your

body and he has a super suit but I

always think about how the fact that his

face is not protected and I wonder what

would that do to your skin to travel

really really really fast for the flash

runs at supersonic speeds or near

supersonic speeds and his face is

unaffected so his face must be stronger

than yours and mine what would happen to

our faces who watch the guys on the

rocket sleds where their faith or a

guy's ejected from airplanes who

survived it their faces get in blown up

by the wind

one of my favorite movies The Rocketeer

where are we on jetpacks is it still is

it possible to have a jetpack and flower

we're just going to burn our buds so

there is not enough energy in alcohol

which is the supposed fuel to draw fly a

guy around like that however there are

rocket packs that use hydrazine and

hydrazine is conventional rocket fuel

it's very energetic you don't have to

light it you just need a catalyst to

start it you got Captain America shield

that's a material that absorbs the

impact vibranium right

[Music]

so this is a classic second order

differential equation the spring depends

on how much you compress it how fast the

damping depends just on how fast so the

more you squeeze it the more it pushes

back

so vibranium Captain America's shield

this really has great damping spider-man

okay a material that is condensed enough

that can more than flip and and hold the

weight of a 15 year old boy well where

are we on the science of that some bad

guys hey could you do me a favor hold on

to that he has the through pible web

material that squirts out sticks to

buildings and can support his weight and

he's so skilled he can make that spiral

web pattern just like that are we

getting any closer to having that

material be real yes

so goats have been genetically modified

so that their milk produces the proteins

of spider webs and I remember when I was

working full time as an engineer the

Navy was very US Navy was very

interested in this material so the very

near future may have spiderweb protein

material everywhere the same way we have

plastic everywhere all right kidding we

are busy and important thank you very

much for having us and you know watch

out for this hammer

[Laughter]

[Applause]