XKCD: It's more than a comic

You can't do that, but if you go anywhere near light speed, bad things will happen.

edited 25th Aug '16 4:24:40 AM by petersohn

Yes, once you get reasonably near to the speed of light, the pickaxe, the rocks, and the air stop being distinct entities and instead become "physics objects" — a somewhat wry term for a collection of super-high-energy atoms that share spatial proximity through coincidence. At that point, you're talking about nuclear fusion, not fission.

Why don't we ever see relativistic baseball scenarios in superhero fiction?

Probably because the idea of Superman vaporizing everything in a thousand-kilometer radius when he attempts to fly at the speed of light is a little morally grey. See also: Required Secondary Powers, particularly those related to Super-Speed.

edited 25th Aug '16 6:57:40 AM by Fighteer

It would make for a great nightmare. Clark could dream that somehow his actions start causing nuclear explosions because of real physics taking over comic book physics.

Something I've been wondering about for a while now is what a speedster would be capable of without the Required Secondary Powers. (It's difficult to define precisely where to draw the cut between the primary and secondary powers, but maybe let's say he can will his muscles to move at arbitrary speeds, yet he has no ability to deal with friction/air resistance/aerodynamic heating, or mitigate the potential damage from touching an object at ridiculous speeds. The energy requirements are perhaps a gray area, though I suspect that the other issues would come into play before this becomes a real problem.)

Presumably he would at least be able to achieve something a bit beyond Usain Bolt / Michael Phelps levels and so on (i.e. peak human physical ability, barring potential issues with whether his skeletal structure is strong enough to support it and whether he has good form), but that's still fairly mundane. Is there anything he could do that would be particularly cool or crimefighting-worthy?

Not really, because he'd run into those secondary powers problems as soon as he started getting beyond "really awesome human" and into more fantastical actions, like running at 100 miles per hour or snatching bullets from the air.

Physics: It's not just a good idea, it's the law!

edited 25th Aug '16 8:26:06 AM by Fighteer

Most super powers require either Required Secondary Powers and/or physics-defying to be any fun at all.

He should at least be able to beat a cheetah at about 75 miles/hour. As for faster, I remember this story about an airline pilot being sucked half out of the cockpit of his plane. He survived, but he did mention that breathing was rather hard, because it was like air was being forced into his lungs. That speed would probably be a good candidate for maximum speed without secondary powers. Perhaps if we figure out how much air pressure human lungs can produce at maximum, we can also deduce at what wind speed (and thus, running speed) breathing becomes impossible.

"I shelve physics texts under 'Fiction' in the library. I consider the laws of thermodynamics loose guidelines at best."

On the other hand, ye cannae change the laws of physics!
(And yes, I know that's a case of Beam Me Up, Scotty!, since the line's from The Firm's "Star Trekkin'", while the actual line from "The Naked Time" is "I can't change the laws of physics; I've got to have thirty minutes." Shhh.)

Linear Regression — or, How To Do Bad Statistics.

I think that's great statistics

Linearization is much of a help anyway when it looks like that and you have to do 3,000 logarithms to get to it. Making up constellations would be much more telling. Those equations weren't telling us anything anyway, might as well make pretty pictures

Linear regression is a useful tool when the data have identifiable correlations. When used on random data, it's worthless. Randall isn't saying that statistics as a science is flawed, but that flawed applications of it create garbage data.

edited 26th Aug '16 7:29:48 AM by Fighteer

But I thought that if you do enough natural logs, everything is linear

Math humor, folks!!!

Especially in science, it's hilarious how many backflips and data parkour you have to do to make your data linear. "It's linear, I promise! Let me just take the reciprocal one more time!"

I never understood the aversion to non-linear trend lines. A "U" tells you quite as much as a line.

I think because people want to see whether a trend is generally up or down, and u-shapes are difficult to interpret in that way.

That's a very succinct way of putting it. Do you want to validate your pre-conceived beliefs, or do you want to discover what is actually happening in the world?

The latter, obviously. :p I was only guessing at why people would prefer one over the other.

There are cases when you just cannot apply simple models to complex things.

Also that's totally a martini with an olive and a slice... or maybe the umbrella's been blown inside out.

About the superpowers thing: I suspect that with a little practice and protective gloves, a superspeedster could probably throw any object that fits in their hand at speeds comparable to a bullet, as fast as he can pick them up or grab them out of a pouch. With enough practice you could probably aim it about as well as a baseball pitch (while standing still at least). So, well enough to always hit a human-sized target at reasonable distance. Combined with moving faster than a cheeta, that's not nothing.

But you probably won't be any more effective than, say, a squad of four people holding guns. And you'd be more effective if you just used a gun yourself.