Customer Reviews

The Science of Superman: The Official Guide to the Science of the Last Son of Krypton

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A brief (256 pages, but the print is fairly large and there are a few pictures from the comics) and entertaining analysis of the powers and characteristics of Superman through the lens of real science. The author does not puncture the fantasy but weighs the possibilities and outlines the obstacles while explaining a fair amount of physics, mechanics, and biology along the way. Lois Gresh's "The Science of Superheroes" covers similar-but-broader territory in perhaps a more concise manner, but this book covers what it does with a bit more depth.

Mark Wolverton takes the techniques he developed from writing science history and fact articles for periodicals like "American Heritage" and applies them to arguably the most well-known character in American popular fiction, Superman. Through research and conversations with real scientists, Mr. Wolverton successfully culls actual data and theories necessary to explain how Superman's powers could (and could not) work. The tone is light but never tongue-in-cheek, and while the subjects discussed would not be out of place in a "Scientific American" article, Mr. Wolverton's style is never dry and will certainly keep even a non-technically oriented reader happy and involved. Also some of the revelations concerning Superman's powers portend interesting actual developments for us ordinary men and women.
The book bears the imprimatur of DC comics, so we can assume that the work will be the official explanation of why and how Superman works. It's not every day that a legend get rewritten, and the book will doubtlessly help serve as the foundation for a whole new set of adventures for the Man of Steel (or perhaps more correctly the Man with a Bioelectric Force Field...?).

I rushed out to get this book and was not disappointed. Science of Superman takes a very "real World" look at the scientific theories and laws that would govern superman's abilities. Anyone who complains about the book having "too much science and too little Superman" obviously did not get the point of the title!! The scientific aspect of the book, featuring all the theories, laws etc. was well explained in case you have never heard of any of it before, and it is all applied to Superman and how he would function in real life.
Great Read for any Superman fan :)

Yes, the title of the book is an oxymoron. In spite of this, the author does a fairly good job of examining Superman's powers from a scientific view. I found the background material a bit more interesting than the explanations of the superpowers, primarily because the explanations gave Superman powers far less super than those he has in the comics. Still, there were a few interesting observations, such as that in order to pick up an object such as a large ship, Superman must not only have the strength to lift the ship, but must also have some power which prevents the ship's mass from breaking it in two. I found the explanation of Kryptonite to be particularly disappointing: it's dangerous to Superman, but even more so to Earthlings. Overall, if you're a comic fan you'll probably enjoy reading the book, but it didn't turn out to be as interesting as I thought it would.

the purpose of the book seems to be
1. to create an interesting excuse to teach a lot of modern science
2. to stimulate discussion of how normal humans can enhance their own abilities
3. to make superman seem plausible.
the author achieves 1 and 2, but 3 not so much.

the book tries to give a plausible explanation of most of superman's powers -
invulnerability, flying, super-strength, super-speed, super-hearing,
x-ray vision, heat vision - and his big weakness - kryptonite.
the unstated rules are that the explanations must
agree with the comic books, but not violate what we know about physics too much.

superman supposedly gets his energy from
(a) normal food, which provides no more than about 2000 calories per day,
and (b) sunlight, which cannot possibly provide more than about 1000 watts,
since that's all the sunlight that falls on his body... when it's very sunny ... and he's naked.

the explanation for invulnerability is that krypton's sun, rao, is red,
therefore krypton is closer to rao than earth is to the sun,
therefore krypton has more radiation than earth,
therefore kryptonians are more resistant to radiation,
therefore superman is invincible.
ok, maybe.

in order to fly, superman apparently preferentially directs
the gravity of his body so that he 'falls' in the directions that he wants.
in my opinion, this breaks the rule that the explanation
must not violate current understanding of physics too much.
newton's law of gravitation says that gravity exerts itself in all directions equally.
asking the reader to believe that anything could change this,
let alone a biological creature, is asking a lot.

the explanation of super-strength is that superman
can decrease the gravitational constant of objects that he touches,
therefore making them easier to move. this makes no sense.
if he could do that, everything else would be able to move
the object just as easily. e.g. if he lifted a mountain,
it would blow right out of his hands from the force of the wind against it.
it also would not help him to win an arm-wrestling contest.
it also requires us to abandon conservation of energy:
once superman stops touching the mountain he just lifted,
assuming its gravitational constant returned to normal,
he just created a huge amount of gravitational potential energy,
well in excess of what he could have ever absorbed from sunlight + normal food.
if he starts flying with the mountain, he'd be creating energy at an astonishing rate.

heat vision is explained as his eyes focusing and redirecting
infrared waves. again this makes no sense since
his eyes are only about the size of human eyes and they
don't collect enough IR energy to do that.
if they did, and he can melt objects much bigger than
his eyes, like tanks, why don't his eyes melt?

why is superman weak to kryptonite?
according to the book, because its radiation has a special frequency that
superman can't block, but it's at least as harmful to humans.
ok, but then why do humans not seem to be bothered by it?
they usually don't even notice it.
and why does superman feel the effects so immediately?
a human wouldn't collapse to the ground gasping the second he
stood near uranium. it takes time.

so apart from the fanciful explanations,
and repeatedly ignoring energy conservation laws,
the main problems with the science of the book is that
the author doesn't seem to bother calculating anything.
yes, reason X may increase superman's ability Y, but by how much?
most of the time, a quick calculation would show that
the supplied explanation isn't sufficient to explain superman's abilities.
the book admits that superman gets most of
his energy from food, and only a small fraction from sunlight,
yet somehow superman has enough energy to lift mountains and move at near light speed.
mount everest weighs something like 5*10^14 kg.
for superman to lift it by 1 meter, he would have to
absorb sunlight constantly, buck naked, for 32000 years.

in the end, i think we must enjoy superman only for what he is
- a work of fantasy literature.

The book as mentioned in other reviews, does a good job exlpaining supes powers from a scientific view. Though the author uses the word "speculation" a lot, it doesn't take away how great it is to know that the entity known as superman could exist. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves superman.

this handsome book takes us where so many superman writers have been -- to the place where science and science fiction meet. if you ever considered how the man of steel could do what he does, this book cogently attacks the science behind it.

nicely illustrated and fun

Should have been titled "A lot of Science, A little of Superman". Author spends about 80% of book going into way too much depth about all sorts of sciences and then ties it into Superman's abilities at the end of each chapter. After a while you find yourself skipping the science sections just to get to the Superman parts. Author also states throughout book that Superman came to earth before he was actually born-as a birthing matrix-to support his theory about Superman's adaptability to earth conditions. Is this a recent comic book change to his origin? For those of us who read the comics through the 60's-80's, and have seen all the Movies and TV shows of the last 50 years, Superman always came to Earth as a small child. This bit of revisionism is quite jarring-especially for the older reader who is more likely to pick up this book. Book should have been more fun, save your money.

i JUST FINISHED READING THIS BOOK AND i MUST SAY I AM IMPRESSED WITH THE WAY THE AUTHOR TRIES TO GROUND "THE LAST SON OF KRYPTON"INTO REAL WORLD SCIENCE.TRUE,SOME OF THEORIES TAKE YOU TO THE OUTER REALMS OF BELIEVEBILITY,BUT IT WOULDN'T BE AS MUCH FUN IF IT DIDN'T.WHILE THE "MAN OF STEEL" IS MY PERSONEL FAVORITE(I'M MORE OF A "DARK NIGHT" MY SELF HINT,HINT!)I THINK HE DID A GOOD JOB WITH WHAT HE HAD TO WORK WITH.AND FOR ALL YOU HARDCORE FANS WHO HAVE TO NIT-PICK OVER EVERY LITTLE DETAIL I HAVE THIS TO SAY:GET OUT OF YOUR PARENT'S BASEMENT,GO FIND A GIRLFRIEND,AND GET A LIFE!