Category: Physic

Physic behind superheros’ superpowers was one of the projects in physic class. So basically, everyone needed to choose one of their favorite heroes and then researched the physic behind their hero’s superpower. My hero was The Incredible Hulk, and here are the science that I found behind some of his superpowers. 

Hulk’s superpower

“If you find yourself on a side of battle opposite the Hulk, you’re on the losing side.”

The Incredible Hulk is a fictional superhero appeared in American comic books. Hulk had two appearances and they were based on his mood. He was green when he was mad and was back to a normal person when he calmed down. The madder he got the stronger he was. Hulk was called “The Incredible” because of his superpowers: leaping and jumping abilities, high resistance and durability, thunder claps (slamming hand to create large force), healing ability, survival in space, superhuman speed, and more.

On the other hand, most Hulks’ superpowers were related to physic and some biology. For instance, his thunderclaps, was very loud as a sonic boom explodes or a hurricane. As a humans being, at around 150 decibels (the unit measurement of the loudness), our eardrums will be destroyed. However, Hulks’ thunderclaps were about 300 decibels, which could melt and devastate stuff. But how could this be possible? Hulks’ thunderclaps was extremely powerful because when his two hands came together so fast, it created heat and had formed large force that then went toward the direction that his hand was pointing until it hit with object(s).

In The Incredible Hulk movie, the Hulk was originally a scientist named Bruce Banner who is a geneticist who worked on cell regeneration. However, one day the machine that was working with was fail so Bruce got hit by gamma radiation accidentally. Gamma radiation is the most powerful energy formed of light. Its wavelength is pretty small but carried a lot of energy. The idea of Bruce Banner became the Hulk is an example of epigenetic, the study of how environment affects gene. Bruce’s body turned to the Hulk whenever he got angry because chemical of the gamma ray reacted to his gene that would then created proteins and improved Bruce’s muscle size. Upon reading this was not the reason why the Hulk is green because gamma radiation was not green. It was because of the Hulk got a full body bruise when he absorbed the gamma radiation, and when that happened his blood cells that were under the skin will got damaged. So, when the cells got destroyed some sort of side effect happened, which showed as yellow, blue, and black, and one of them was green. Therefore, whenever Bruce Banner got mad the gamma radiation provided him with a massive body bruise that made him turned to an immense green beast.  

Although what had happened to Hulk might seemed realistic but some of his abilities were  actually not. If anyone were to get hit gamma radiation, he/she won’t gained any superpower; in fact, it will make the persons’ cells damaged and there will be a high chance that cancer will be occurred.

However, one of the Hulks’ superpowers could possibly exist in the real world, and that was leaping and jumping abilities. Both of these strength got three different stages: take off, flight, and landing. Anyone could become a better jumper or leaper, all they needed to do were, exercising their body, training hard, and putting enough time in order to get successful. Leaping and Jump had to do a lot in parkouring. David Belle, was known as the inventor of today’s parkour and he was a parkourist professional as well. David was literally could do almost the same things that the Hulk performed with his jumping and leaping abilities. The differences were their size and the distance of jumping/leaping. In The Incredible Hulk movie, there were so many things that were based on fact but movie itself didn’t showed. For instance, as mentioned earlier, the Hulk’s thunderclaps is about 300 decibel, which did not make any sense if any human could handle to the situation when the Hulk clapped his hands because human eardrum has already been devastated within 150 decibel.

 
References:

https://screenrant.com/superpowers-you-didnt-know-hulk-has/

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/18160/how-long-can-he-be-the-hulk-before-he-has-to-turn-back-into-a-puny-human

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfS5VnVEmkg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DJjPXQsGng

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeYfIv5s10A

https://scienceonblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/21/gamma-radiation-in-the-incredible-hulk/   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPlrtgilgK8

https://www.livescience.com/2590-gamma-rays-incredible-hulking-reality.html

https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/august/marvel-heroes-alvarado-081214.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_GmrfIKbDg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShZrVG_tYU4

 

 

 

In physic, we learned so many laws and heard so many names of scientists who created those laws. However, most of them are male, it is not that there are no female scientists but they are just essentially unknown.  So, the project that we have been doing for about two weeks is called Women in STEM.  Every student was given a list of female scientists and we have to choose one of them and research about their profile, invention, achievements, and obstacles they had faced while growing up. 

The female scientist I chose to research about named Patricia Bath, and here is her life’s story and my opinion about women in STEM. 

Patricia Bath

Is it possible to restore sight for those who have blind for 30 years? The answer is yes.

A physician whose specialty is ophthalmology (the study of eyes and their disease) named Patricia Bath, has proved that. But how?

Patricia Bath was born on November 4, 1942, Harlem, New York. As a kid, she wants to be a(n) physician, inventor, and scientist. When Bath gets to try with microscope set, she knew she has a love for math and science. One of Bath’s dream is to become a doctor, not a nurse but doctor even though, becoming a nurse was something her friend wants her to be.

However, at school, Bath was a gifted student, for her teacher, and was purchased to explore her strengths. Bath grew up in a community where “Black were excluded from numerous medical school and medical society. Also, it is still a struggle because “My family did not possess the funds to send me to medical school”. Bath biggest obstacles are sexism, racism, and relative poverty, these are things she faced as a young girl growing up in Harlem.       

At the age of 16, Bath attends a cancer research workshop sponsored by National Science Foundation. Her work got impressed by Dr. Robert Bernard, the program head, and based on the publicity she received, Bath earned the Mademoiselle magazine Merit Award in 1960. Over time, after graduation, Bath went to Hunter College and earned bachelor’s degree in 1964. She then attends Howard University in 1998 and worked as an internship at Harlem Hospital. The following year, Bath began pursuing a fellowship, funding, in ophthalmology at Columbia University. She discovered that Africans Americans were twice as likely to suffer from blindness than other patients and eight times more likely to develop glaucoma (disease of the eye that can cause a person to lose their sight). Bath’s research led her to form a community ophthalmology system, which increases the amount of eye care given to those who were unable to afford treatment.

In 1986, Bath invented Laserphaco Probe, improving treatment for cataract patients. She got her patent, the legal rights to make an invention for particular numbers of years, of the device in 1988 and become the first African American female doctor to receive a medical patent. It took her about five years to complete the research and testing to make it work. Bath was able to restore sight for those who have blind for more than 30 years.

Patricia Bath is a change agent, her invention is a technique and concept for cataract surgery, laserphaco. With the support from family and hard work, Bath was able to achieve her dream.

“Even though there are no women in that field [physician] but that should not be an obstacle to prevent you from achieving that [your goal] ”, she said. “I realize that when I achieve these things [award] it helps what other women and other people of color what black women can do”.

In my opinion, I think that women’s academic opinion was not respected that time, especially if they are people with color. This stereotype keeps repeating, no matter how educated you are if you are a girl or women, things will not work out the way you expect it to be. For Patricia Bath, after she invented the laserphaco, people did get interested in her work until it made her earn the Merit Award. So, from this aspect, it reminds me of a phrase that says, “no one cares, unless you are beautiful, died, rich/famous. However, there are still people who encouraged her throughout her lifetime, such as her teacher, parents, and her mentor, Dr, Robert Bernard. Last but not least, I think it is very important to spotlight female scientist because they are the heart of everything, without them the world will be different. They all are inspirational and role model for everybody. In addition, I would say that the field of science and technology in the future will full of “white men” and women, will no longer get self-confidence in pursuing their dream again if they are interested in science and/or technology.

Works Cited

“Changing the Face of Medicine | Patricia E. Bath.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 3 June 2015, cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_26.html.

“Culture Shifting Pictures & Stories: Dr. Patricia Era Bath.” YouTube, YouTube, 3 Dec. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0SRe5mjMQo.

“Patricia Bath.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 19 Jan. 2018, www.biography.com/people/patricia-bath-21038525.

“Patricia Bath.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Jan. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Bath.

“Patricia Bath Invented the Laserphaco Probe.” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Oct. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKAhWWIaHtU.

TimeMagazine. “Patricia Bath On Being The First Person To Invent & Demonstrate Laserphaco Cataract Surgery | TIME.” YouTube, YouTube, 30 Oct. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcE_QMTBNW4.

Spending and hours in physic is like looking through real life situation, whether it is possible or impossible to happen.  

Formulas, equations, steps for how to do the problem, visual thought for how something works, and definitions of any term, these things seems flying around the classroom, since it is so that we got no more space to keep them in our brain anymore.

Physic is fun, in my opinion, because understanding the problems and start finding the answer for it is not actually a point at all, it is more important if we could dot connect the situations to real world, so that we know what it looks like and picture them in our head.