14 DAY TRIAL // Superman is going through a rough patch these days. He stands accused of breaking a fundamental law of physics every time he takes to the skies, and there really isn't all that much the superhero can say to defend himself.
The accusers are a group of students with the University of Leicester in the UK, and their case against Superman and his horrific disregard for the laws of nature is detailed in a paper in the Journal of Physics Special Topics.
The students explain that, contrary to what DC Comics would have people believe, there is no way Superman could get all the energy he needs in order to fly around from the Sun alone, Science Daily informs.
Specifically, his ability to fly goes against the law of conservation of energy. Thus, evidence indicates that, when flying, the superhero uses way more energy than he could possibly be able to absorb, the physics enthusiasts say.
The University of Leicester students detail that, according to their calculations, Superman's body, which behaves much like a solar cell, can absorb about 1,096 joules worth of energy per second simply by coming into contact with the Sun's rays.
The problem is that, in order to overcome drag forces, remain airborne, and manage to fly around for hours on end, the superhero would need much more energy, the young scientists write in their paper in the Journal of Physics Special Topics.
More precisely, an 8-hour flight at an altitude of 30 kilometers (approximately 18.6 miles) would come at an energy cost of 207 billion joules. This means Superman's body would have to have a solar cell efficiency of 656,000%.
Since energy cannot be created or destroyed within a closed system, the University of Leicester students conclude that Superman's ability to fly by harvesting the electromagnetic radiation in the light from our sun is a clear violation of the fundamental physics law of conservation of energy.
“To put it into context, a normal solar cell would need to be twice the size of a football pitch to acquire the amount of energy Superman would use during flight,” 21-year-old Jason Watson from Oxfordshire comments on the outcome of this investigation into the superhero's flying behavior.
Then again, it is possible that there are other energy sources that Superman is somehow able to exploit to his benefit. “As well as electromagnetic radiation, the sun emits neutrino particles. Millions of these pass through our bodies all the time. Maybe he is somehow able to use energy from the neutrinos,” Jason Watson says.