Before he was Squirrel Girl’s physics professor, Ben Tippett hypothesized an explanation for Superman’s powers and Case and Jmike want to to talk about it with him! Ben Tippett is on to talk about his paper and he has past guest and host of the “Science… Sort of… podcast”, Ryan Haupt, with him to translate!

Find Ben on Twitter: @bnprime
Find Ryan on Twitter: @haupt

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Transcription

(AI Generated. Subject to Error.)

00:00
Jmike
It makes sense because, like, there you always joke. We always joke about it. Like, when you see Clark, like, saving somebody from, like, jumping off a building or falling airplane, they're like, it'd be funny if they actually were kind of, like, true of how that's supposed to go. And he catches them and, like, all their bones break. Yeah. And he's like, oh, oops. Yeah.

00:18
Case
I commend you for not having a splat drawing when you illustrate Superman catching Lois.

00:23
Ben Tippett
Well, but, yeah, like, Lois never splats. Unlike Spider Man, Superman's never beefed it on this one. Dark. That got dark.

01:00
Case
Hey, everyone. And welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, J. Mike Folson.

01:05
Jmike
Hello, everybody. Glad to have you back. Yeah.

01:08
Case
Well, and we are going back in time because early in the history of this show, we did an episode on the science of Superman. Because at the time, were just kind of digging through DC Universe for all the videos that they had available that would just be good fodder for this show. And the two of us are laymen, and we did an okay job. But, you know, were just trying to interpret what this, like, pop culture version of science was gonna do. But now, you know, we've done 100 episodes. At this point, we probably should do it right? And so for that, we are joined once again by Ryan Haupt.

01:40
Ryan Haupt
Hey, everybody.

01:41
Case
And we also have, for the first time, Ben Tippett.

01:43
Ben Tippett
Oh, hello.

01:44
Case
Now, Ben, this episode came up because you wrote a while back a paper called a unified theory of Superman's powers.

01:51
Ben Tippett
Yeah, yeah. Like, 13 years ago, I wrote a paper called a unified Theory of Superman's powers, and I published it on the Internet. It's not peer reviewed, but it is notorious. It's notorious.

02:07
Case
Well, I mean, it's a very thorough explanation of it. So I guess, like, starting question is, how did that start? Like, what drove you to do that?

02:17
Ryan Haupt
Before we dive in, I will say, in the parlance of science communication, this paper is open access in that it is available to anyone with an Internet connection. So it's not behind a paywall that you got to pay Elseiver $30 to go read. You just need Ryan north to make sure he leaves his server turned on.

02:32
Case
Yeah, yeah, that's true, because it is on the quants website or the. Which most people know from dinosaur comics.

02:40
Ben Tippett
Yeah. So how did it start? This was back in the days before Twitter, when a person could just take all of their stupid ideas and just put them on the Internet without a second thought and then just immediately forget about them. So at the time, I was on Ryan North's Internet message board and, you know, his fanboard for his webcomic. And I was in graduate school in theoretical physics. I studied black holes and stuff, and I was walking to school and, you know, thinking. And when I arrived, I said, oh, I have this fun idea. So I sent Ryan a little email, and I was like, hey, I've got this weird idea that says that we can explain all of Superman's various powers in terms of a single power that is being expressed in a variety of ways.

03:39
Ben Tippett
And he said, write it up and I'll put it on the Internet. And so I did. And that's the. That's. That's how it came about. This is. This is how. How slow everything was back in the day before social media. Right?

03:53
Case
It wasn't just fire off immediately and then hope it's. Hope it's good.

03:56
Ben Tippett
That's right. But also, you know, you can you send somebody an email and they say, yeah, you should write that up. And then you spend all afternoon doing that instead of working. And then they put it on their. Their webpage is what people used to do. And then other people would visit the web page and send links to their friends and stuff.

04:17
Ryan Haupt
Do you still write in latex, Ben?

04:20
Ben Tippett
I do on occasion. Right now, I teach at a community college in British Columbia, in rural British Columbia, and sometimes I will give my students notes in latex, the fastest way to get equations on a piece of paper.

04:35
Ryan Haupt
So it's a markup language formatting scientific papers that is very popular in the more math heavy disciplines like physics, where you have to put equations into papers and a feature that other text editors are not great at?

04:48
Case
Yeah. When going through this, I was like, as soon as we got to, I believe it was super. Yeah, it was super vision. All of a sudden, like, equations just start popping up. And I was like, oh, okay. Let's see if I can crock any of this.

05:05
Ben Tippett
Yeah.

05:05
Case
So, looking through this, even though physics is just super, not a thing that I can really work with that well. The equations are just an area where I'm like, no, can't do it. I did really appreciate reading through this all because it is, one, fascinating and two, similar to some of my own head cannon. So I'm intrigued by this whole part. And, I mean, do you want to. Do you want, in your words, to sort of, like, give a summary of, like, what the basic unified theory is and then talk like, bit by bit, certainly.

05:39
Ben Tippett
Okay, so the basic idea here is Superman has a variety of powers. Super strong, invulnerable, he can fly. In addition to that, he can shoot lasers out of his eyes. He can breathe cold on things. Yeah, that's a pretty good rundown, I think. Anyway, he also can do super ventriloquism.

06:00
Ryan Haupt
And super knitting, powers he's demonstrated in the past.

06:03
Case
Oh, he is true. And when his gender was flipped, he had super women's intuition.

06:08
Ben Tippett
Oh, wow.

06:08
Case
Yeah.

06:09
Ben Tippett
I have no physical explanation for super women's intuition.

06:14
Ryan Haupt
What about super ventriloquism? I feel like that actually fits.

06:17
Case
No, yeah, that one works actually fairly well here.

06:19
Ben Tippett
Easy peasy.

06:20
Case
And the super muscle control of the golden age actually fits very well. You've incited.

06:24
Ben Tippett
So basically, instead of super, now, in terms of scientific approaches to Superman's powers, usually people bring up very heavy planet krypton, etcetera. And so he has super muscles because he is a different species, one that's much stronger. Anyway, basically, our hypothesis, my hypothesis, I'm using passive voice just now. The hypothesis is that what Superman can do is, to a level almost impossible to fathom, he can change the inertial mass of an object by touching it down to the molecular level. But essentially what this means is when Superman picks up a building, he's not picking up a building that weighs several tons. He's picking up a building that weighs as much as a cardboard box. And when he is flying, he is lowering his own mass. And, you know, he gets buoyancy effects and he gets, he can push off things and kick off things.

07:32
Ben Tippett
His muscles do not weaken, but he, you know, he's as strong as a regular person, but his capacity to change things as mass allows him to do all of these different things. And like I said, with the equations, the mass parameter enters into a whole bunch of different equations. When you're talking about heat, heavy things interact with heat in a slightly different way than lightweight things. So if you change that mass, you'll end up spewing cold or making beams of cold heat come out of your eyes, or they affect vibration. And so he can tune his ears to hear higher or lower frequencies. And that's basically the gist of it. He's only got one power, and it's based on things he can touch.

08:26
Case
Yeah, and like I said, that actually, like, kind of goes with a lot of the headcanon that, like I have and that I feel like a lot of writers, especially in like the eighties and nineties, really pushed because there was, like, kind of a. Kind of a movement post crisis to try to be like, how do his powers work? And it's interesting how this actually maps pretty well to sort of that era. I mean, particularly if you think about the death of Superman era, like the triangle era for Superman comics, where they introduced Superboy as, like, Connell, who had tactile telekinesis and as an offshoot, like, seeing that as an offshoot of Superman's powers.

09:06
Case
And then his clone match actually had even more advanced versions of that was able to emulate some of the superpowers that Superboy lacked, like, the, like, heat vision that he could, apparently.

09:16
Ryan Haupt
Tactile telekinesis?

09:17
Case
Is that what you're referring to, tactile telekinesis? Yes, but. But match apparently could, like, do, like, laser vision by, like, accelerating photons and things like that. So it sort of is, like, consistent with this, like, larger idea of some sort of psychic thing going on, not just strong, heavy gravity, yada, yada. And it's really interesting that the way you articulated it was by way of specifically inertia, as opposed to, I think a lot of people were just like, oh, it's psychic, you know, I mean.

09:47
Ben Tippett
The deal is that Superman doesn't affect his surroundings underfoot the way it should. The classic examples, like he catches somebody who's fallen out of a plane, that person has a tremendous amount of downward momentum. And Superman getting in the way of the ground and catching them before the ground, that's fine, but he needs to take all that downward momentum and do something with it.

10:18
Ryan Haupt
Otherwise, he's just the ground coming at them from a different direction.

10:20
Ben Tippett
Yeah, that's right. Force, for example, is the change in momentum divided by the amount of time that interaction takes. So, like Superman, he's man of steel. It's like when Lois Lane falls out of a plane into Superman's arms and doesn't hit the ground, unless Superman, like, bows his trajectory dramatically to increase the amount of time he's, like, catching her. It's like she's hitting two metal poles stuck on the side of a building, effectively. And so what we're conjecturing here is that Superman can touch Lois Lane and get rid of her momentum by driving down her mass instead of changing her velocity super fast.

11:08
Ryan Haupt
And one thing that might be worth mentioning at this point is people might be asking, why is Ryan back on the show? And the reason I'm back on the show is that Ben and I are buddies. And this paper had only recently been published in the early days of my own podcast, Science, sort of. And one of my friends had come across it and said, oh, this is hilarious. We should talk about it on the show. We have, like, two topics on my show. So we had our first topic, which was about something else. And then the second topic, were going to do Ben's paper. And I saw, as were, like, literally starting our recording, I saw that Ben had put his old email address at the top of this paper. And I was like, oh, that's interesting.

11:47
Ryan Haupt
And so I literally shot him an email and said, hey, Ben, you don't know me, but I do a science podcast, and were planning on talking about your paper. We're just on Skype. If you want to hop on, like, just send me a friend request. Here's my Skype ID 2009. I don't know if you remember Ben. September 2009, I believe, might have been.

12:07
Ben Tippett
I think, early October.

12:08
Case
Yeah, yeah, the paper is dated September 30, 2009.

12:11
Ben Tippett
Yeah.

12:11
Ryan Haupt
So he responded right away saying, yeah, sure, sounds good. So I surprised my two fellow co hosts with, like, when we got to that segment, I was like, okay. And now here to discuss the paper with us is the author, Ben Tibbett. And that was like, episode nine of our show. And Ben has been on the show ever since. Cause he's just a delightful person and we've become good friends. And it's just, it's so funny that, like, he responded to that email immediately and was willing to hop on Skype with three complete strangers to talk about his paper. And I like to think that I've become a better interviewer of scientists talking about their work.

12:44
Ryan Haupt
So, Ben, the question I would have for you at this point is, when you were working on this paper, how much did you have a sense that Superman's powers had evolved over time? In the earliest golden age comics, he can't do all of the stuff that you had found yourself having to explain. Were you aware of that, or were you just assuming that his powers, as presented in the modern era were kind of static?

13:05
Ben Tippett
Okay, so this is actually. I mean, I'm showing my ass here a little bit, but I'm not much of a comic book reader. The deal was I never had any disposable income as a little kid, so I just never bought comic books. So my familiarity with Superman comes almost exclusively from watching tv and movies. And this is his canonical power set that I'm dealing with. But, you know, in the early Superman days, it was Leap's tall buildings with a single bound. Let's see, faster than a locomotive.

13:37
Ryan Haupt
No. Faster than a speeding bullet. Faster than a speeding bullet.

13:40
Ben Tippett
More powerful than a locomotive. Right. Leap's buildings. Right. That was his canonical power set.

13:47
Ryan Haupt
Yeah.

13:47
Case
Specifically, an 8th of a mile was his leap. And then they stated that it was only a bursting shell that could pierce his skin.

13:54
Ben Tippett
Yeah. Since then, some of his canonical powers apparently were modified during the Superman radio show era, when they needed, essentially, a Superman power to get the writers out of a. Out of. They've written themselves into a corner, and they're like, oh, Superman can see through walls. Superman's weak against this rock called kryptonite. So now Superman has to go on vacation for two weeks.

14:23
Ryan Haupt
And it was the Fleischer cartoons that introduced full flight because they said Superman jumping all the time looks silly in animation, although they say that.

14:31
Case
But the opening sequence of the Fleischer cartoons looks pretty dope, like when he just jumps a building.

14:36
Ben Tippett
Yeah, I agree. So moral of the story is that I was, I guess, putting my neck out there, like, right now. Everybody knows that if you make yourself known at all on the Internet for any reason, the haters are gonna come for you. But I didn't know that back then because it was pre social media days, and so I kind of dodged a bullet because nobody said, oh, yeah, this is entirely wrong, because this seven issue spread from 1998 in Superman, whatever, says something totally different. Like, I mean, I don't know anything about Superman in terms of canonically, what the comics have, how the comics have evolved over the maybe 50 years since the first cartoon came out. Yeah.

15:27
Ryan Haupt
Cause when you and I were growing up, Ben John Byrne era of the man of Steel comics in the mid to late eighties, that was when he introduced that idea of, like, Superman isn't, his skin isn't impenetrable, but he has, like, a bioelectric field that he somehow generates, and that's what, like, repels everything from hurting him. So they've come up with, like, they've tried to come up with some pretty wacky explanations, none of which I think are actually as elegant as theory you put forth. Yeah. I mean, that genuinely. And I think, like, if you throw in a little bit of, like, krypton has higher gravity, so he's also just, like, he is just a little bit stronger than a human would be, even given his size. There was a great moment.

16:05
Ryan Haupt
I never watched all of that legends of tomorrow show, but I thought the concept was cool, and I liked all the universe jumping. And at one point, the Lex luthor from that universe ends up in the Smallville universe with Tom Welling. And he's like, tom Welling is out chopping wood and Lex Luthor pulls out a piece of kryptonite to try to kill him, and it doesn't do anything. And Tom Welling is like, yeah, I actually gave up my powers many years ago so Lois and I could have kids. I haven't had powers in a long time. And Lex, like, thinks about it for a second and then tries to throw a punch. And then Tom willing blocks it and then just punches him and knocks him onto the ground. He goes, I'm still stronger than you, Lex. Like, I'm still a big farm dude.

16:36
Ryan Haupt
It was such a good moment.

16:38
Ben Tippett
But, like, why Superman? Like, in terms of Superman's powers, why is Clark Kent so jacked? Like, yeah, but he's a farm kid. But even if you're doing manual labor all the time, if, you know, a hoe weighs like a feather and you know, he's like, he doesn't need to. He's not breaking any muscle fibers on.

17:00
Ryan Haupt
I know, but you gotta look at, you gotta pick your Superman artist when you're making that argument. Like you're, if you go with like a Tim sale or a Frank quitely the way that they draw Clark, he does look like a big barrel. Check. He's not a. He's not Arnold Schwarzenegger at Mister Universe. He's a big, like a guy who looks like he does hard work. And the way they draw him, frumpy as Clark makes it look more, I think makes a big dude look more believably not, you know, super jacked. But that's my personal preference in theory.

17:27
Case
Compare that with like an ed McGinnis, where he's also huge, but he's huge in like that. That's specifically like Lou Ferrigno style. Just like, oh, man, that's a lot of muscle.

17:35
Ryan Haupt
I think also like Ben, with your power, there was this idea at one point that, like, Superman could morph his face and that was how he was able to look.

17:45
Ben Tippett
Oh, yeah, that was the best one. He can make his, like, cheeks heavier and they sagged down.

17:50
Ryan Haupt
But your power explains, I mean, your explanation power explains that perfectly because he could alter the shape of sort of his muscles and face with this and.

17:56
Ben Tippett
The bounciness of his hair.

17:58
Ryan Haupt
Yeah, true. You're saying the s curl is even the s curls when his powers are active?

18:02
Ben Tippett
Yeah.

18:02
Case
I mean, I guess you could swell his muscles with the way that you explain it.

18:06
Ben Tippett
Well, the way I explain it would be he would have big muscles because he could make everything, you know, his clothes slightly heavier, goku esque, you know, and just like, he could just do regular training by making everything around him slightly heavier.

18:21
Ryan Haupt
By the way, I am not anime guy, and even I caught that reference.

18:25
Ben Tippett
Right. And then. But, yeah, his hair. His hair. His hair would have the s curl when he wasn't using his powers. So as Clark Kent, Daily Planet reporter, he would use his powers to make his hair extra heavy. And so the natural, you know, spring constant of his hair that wants to curl, it isn't strong enough to keep it curly, and it would flatten out.

18:48
Ryan Haupt
You would think if his hair is curly by kryptonian standards and krypton has heavier gravity, his hair would actually be extremely curly on earth.

18:57
Ben Tippett
Well, I mean, yeah, naturally.

18:58
Case
And that's why it naturally curls out the way it does in such a weird, not normally occurring for humans without some kind of product kind of way. And then he uses his powers to reshape it. I actually wanted to call out this section because I do love the way you wrote it, which is that while it's not clear where Kal El goes when he's not busy saving the world, I love that there's a presentation here where it's like, we don't know that he's Clark Kent, even though you then go on to explain how, like, the Clark Kent disguise would work and, you.

19:28
Ryan Haupt
Know, his kryptonian name, which I don't think is public. I don't think that's public knowledge in the DC universe.

19:34
Ben Tippett
Yeah, I, writing this paper was actually kind of fun. I was trying to write it in universe, which is strange. As an academic, you want to, when you're writing a paper, refer to all of the other papers written the, in the, you know, in the canon that you are working in. And I don't have to. I've gotten slightly better at this, actually, when I write fictional papers that take place in fiction universes. But at the time, I, there are no references in this paper. And so I'm kind of guilty about that. I don't know.

20:07
Ryan Haupt
But Siegel at all.

20:10
Ben Tippett
Yeah, I do. In the introduction, I do mention SIegel.

20:13
Ryan Haupt
And Ott, which I actually think that I might have to call you out on, too, because if the first, if action comics was one, just Siegel and Schuster, it should be Siegel and Schuster, not Segel at all. You're really erasing Joe Shuster's contribution here.

20:24
Ben Tippett
Yep. Yeah. I'm trying to.

20:28
Ryan Haupt
Wow this paper published by special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family.

20:33
Case
I mean, to be fair, Jerry Siegel also kind of tried to. So, you know.

20:37
Ben Tippett
Yeah.

20:39
Case
Dwelling still on the super disguised part, I do actually really love this idea that, like, yeah, the hair. The hair shape could change, the shape of his face can change, and even the shade of his eyes could adjust.

20:50
Ryan Haupt
That's true.

20:51
Case
I thought that was all, like, a really elegant way of presenting some of the wackier versions of the Superman disguise part, because sometimes it's just no one's really looking, and other times it's hypnotic glasses. And this kind of worked as a nice balance between all the different takes on that.

21:06
Ben Tippett
The one time we say he was moving really quickly back and forth so no one could really see how his face looked.

21:11
Ryan Haupt
Yeah.

21:12
Case
Well, so that was the John Byrne thing they introduced, where, as Superman, he intentionally was trying to be difficult to photograph.

21:19
Ben Tippett
Gotcha.

21:20
Ryan Haupt
One question I would have for you two case and Jamaica. Does the fundamental concept of changing inertial mass make sense to you guys, or is that something we need to actually dig into a little bit more and explain exactly what that actually means?

21:33
Ben Tippett
It makes sense because, like, there you always joke. We always joke about it, like, when you see Clark, like, saving somebody from, like, jumping off a building or falling airplane. Like, it'd be funny if they actually were kind of, like, true of how that's supposed to go. And he catches them and, like, all their bones break. Yeah. And he's like, oh, oops. Yeah.

21:51
Case
I commend you for not having a splat drawing when you illustrate Superman catching Lois.

21:56
Ben Tippett
Well, but, yeah, like, Lois never splats. Unlike Spider Man, Superman's never beefed it on this one, so it's far as dark. That got dark.

22:07
Ryan Haupt
Throwing Peter under the bus.

22:10
Case
Well, more accurately, throwing Gwyn off the bridge.

22:13
Ben Tippett
Yeah. Gwen Garcia. Yeah.

22:16
Case
No, the inertial mass like concept made enough sense to me. Like, while I'm. While I'm not a physicist, I am a comic book nerd. And, like, the comics that I love the most are the ones that do attempt to have some veneer of science to it. Like, I get it is what I'm like. I'm just not. Like, the equations are things that are always going to be, like, a little bit further than my classical studies, humanities major is going to, like, push me towards. But, like, in terms of, like, the basic idea of, like, oh, yeah. Well, you know, the momentum and shifting it and doing all that mostly made sense to me.

22:48
Ben Tippett
Okay. Mathematically, my argument stands. I have no complaints. Even all these years after about the math in this paper. But one thing is really funny, which is, like, the idea. The idea actually requires an incredible amount of information processing. So, like, for instance, Superman's, specifically, Superman's ability to heat things up with his. With his heat vision. Like x ray vision is fine. You just tune all of the mass in your eyeballs in a certain way. But heat vision requires, like, Superman shoots a beam of heat, right? Like, those are lasers in the comics. My mechanism for it is that. And this is right. If you just kind of tune, as the gas molecules are hitting your eyes, you can kind of use the mass as your eyes.

23:45
Ben Tippett
As the gas molecules bounce off your eyeballs, you can tune their mass to kind of baseball bat the particles to be traveling really fast and heat things up with them. And that's essentially the mechanism, is that your eyes, molecule by molecule, are kind of baseball, batting all of these particles in the direction you want. But in order to do that, the gas hitting your eyes is traveling in random directions and hitting your eyes randomly, which means that Superman needs to be able to distinguish one atom from another as it hits his eyes. So he can say, oh, yeah, these are the ones that are going in the direction that I want. I'll hit. I'm gonna hit this one. It's a. It's a. It's ridiculous. Anyway, I guess Superman has another power, which is that he's really, really smart and can.

24:39
Ryan Haupt
So you're saying Superman's essentially a giant mass controlling computer?

24:43
Ben Tippett
Yes, he is a. Oh, what's it called? Is it. There's a. Oh, geez. I forget the name of the physicist. There is a thought experiment in thermodynamics. It's called, like, Maxwell's demon or something like that. It's named after a thermodynamics physicist. I forget which one.

25:05
Ryan Haupt
Henry Clark. Oh, no, sir.

25:07
Ben Tippett
No. Well, and essentially, the idea is that if you have the capacity to distinguish.

25:14
Ryan Haupt
James Clerk. I said Henry Clark. James Clerk.

25:16
Ben Tippett
Oh, James Clerk. Maxwell. Well, maybe if I'm getting the guy right.

25:19
Ryan Haupt
I looked it up. I looked it up for you. I'm here.

25:21
Ben Tippett
Did I got it right. Good for me. 1867 it's the Maxwell's demon, I guess.

25:26
Ryan Haupt
Violation of the second law of thermodynamics. And you can't violate that one. You'll get by thermodynamic police.

25:32
Ben Tippett
So you can. You can take a room full of random gas and sort it. So there's a hot area and a cold area. And that's essentially what Superman's doing, but it's. I don't know. It requires a ridiculous amount of control. So Maxwell imagined a tiny little demon, like an atom sized demon with a little door that he could open and close based on the atoms that were coming to hit the door.

25:57
Ryan Haupt
I love the idea of, you know, trying to figure out a way to write an arc of a Superman comic called Maxwell's demon, where, like, Clark is somehow. Clark's existence on earth is somehow, like, screwing up all these physics experiments that they're.

26:10
Case
Oh, yeah.

26:10
Ryan Haupt
Like, you know, the neutrino detectors under the.

26:13
Ben Tippett
Under the ice or whatever. If Clark Kent is working this way, the LIGo gravitational wave detectors would be impossible to use. LIgO is so sensitive one source of noise that they have to try to filter out Ligo. There's one in Hanaford, Washington, I think.

26:37
Ryan Haupt
I think that's like. It's like two giant perpendicular lasers, right?

26:40
Ben Tippett
Yeah, yeah. There's, like, two lasers at a 90 degree angle, and there's two stations. One of them's in Louisiana, and the other's, like, in Washington. So they're on opposite sides of the country, as far apart in the United continental United States as they can be. And they're very sensitive to vibration. They can pick up tiny little vibrations, and that's what they're trying to do. But one thing they have to filter out is, like, waves hitting the shore of the continent provides vibrations that they can detect and have to filter out of their data stream. So if Clark Kemp was always changing his massive. As he was supermaning around and changing the mass of things, that would just.

27:21
Ryan Haupt
Be, like, skyscrapers, and it would just.

27:23
Ben Tippett
Be a source of vibrational noise that these sensitive detectors wouldn't be able to, like, calibrate for. And so they would just, you know, anytime superman was active, their detector would go crazy, and they'd be like, what is all this garbage?

27:38
Case
This feels like you're saying that Superman is an accidental example of the tricellarians from the three body problems. Like, purposely.

27:44
Ryan Haupt
I haven't read it. Wait, I haven't read it. Hang on. I'm taking my headphones off. Wave at me while I can come back.

27:50
Ben Tippett
Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So in what way?

27:54
Case
Well, just that our understanding of physics is being messed with is like. That's an early.

27:58
Ben Tippett
Oh, yeah. Like, what were they called? The. Not the phonons. They were called the. Yeah, they sent those little particles that were actually computers to fuck up our computer, our experiments. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

28:13
Case
That's all. So, like, Superman, like, passively is that you waving?

28:16
Ryan Haupt
I can't tell. Can I come back?

28:17
Ben Tippett
Sorry. Sorry.

28:19
Case
Not sorry. I immediately was like, this is not a big spoiler. It's just an early thing that physics are being messed with, or our understanding of physics is being.

28:27
Ryan Haupt
Ben recommended that series to me, and I've started the first book a couple of times now, and it hasn't grabbed me enough to keep going with it. But I know that once I get into it, I'll be super into it. And so thank you for your recommendation, Ben. I'm sorry I haven't got there yet.

28:37
Ben Tippett
It's okay. It doesn't hurt my feelings. I didn't write it. I mean, I wrote this paper, like, 13 years ago, and you keep. Keep bringing me on radio shows and podcasts to talk about it. So I'm. I have no complaints about you, Reinhaub.

28:51
Ryan Haupt
I feel like the idea that Superman is messing up science experiments brings up, you know, the fact that, like, I think I wrote an article for ifanboy about how, like, there are many superheroes where if they actually use their powers to help the scientific research enterprise, I think would actually do more societal good than, like, stopping a bank robbery.

29:13
Case
I can get behind that basic idea. I love the idea of man, of science. Like, we've talked about that on the show a lot, where a thing I loved about the animated series was like, oh, we've got, like, little bits of kryptonian technology. Let's learn about it together with Professor Hamilton and kind of go from there.

29:27
Ryan Haupt
Oh, actually, apparently I only wrote the article about Clark Kent. And I just. Here's other jobs Clark Kent could have had.

29:34
Ben Tippett
You know what? I'm going to disagree with you, Ryan. Okay? And here's my argument. We know that superheroes don't want to disturb the status quo. Superman, more than anybody else, you know, he'll use his journalism to do good journalism and create positive change that way. But Superman isn't in the business of assassinating or endorsing politicians, right?

30:00
Case
Not now.

30:01
Ben Tippett
He's not going to use his powers to change things dramatically. Right now, if Superman lets. Has just spent all of his time letting scientists unlock the keys to his powers, that would have unforeseeable repercussions.

30:23
Ryan Haupt
No, actually, the argument I made, Ben, wasn't that he should just let scientists study him. I was saying that, like, Clark Kent should have been a marine biologist because he can, like, go into the Marianas.

30:32
Ben Tippett
Trench and go around.

30:34
Ryan Haupt
Okay, and tell us what he, like, you know, tell us what he sees.

30:36
Ben Tippett
Yeah, why not?

30:37
Ryan Haupt
With his perfect memory and, like, draw a nice picture of it. And so, like, that was my argument, was that, like, I was actually suggesting that Superman or Clark do science not just be studied.

30:45
Ben Tippett
Oh, okay. I agree with you then. Sure. Yeah.

30:49
Case
But I don't think either are necessarily bad ideas. I mean, like, the status quo element being purely keeping the status quo, I think, is a byproduct of trying to keep this comic going. I mean, the original Siegel and Shuster stuff had a much more, like, revolutionary type character who was trying to make those changes.

31:05
Ben Tippett
Oh.

31:05
Ryan Haupt
I mean, my number one pick for Clark as another job was as a community organizer, because this was in the Grant Morrison boots and jeans era of the comics. So.

31:15
Case
Yeah, yeah. Cause he could be everywhere. He could just hop in for the next rally or whatever he was doing.

31:22
Ben Tippett
Sure. I mean, I don't disagree, but, yeah, I mean, like, sciences, the consequences of science aren't necessarily good or evil, but they're not necessarily good. So if Superman let people just study his powers all the time, that might be a real bad thing. They might make a Superman bomb that, like, uses Superman's powers to blow things up. He doesn't know.

31:42
Ryan Haupt
Well, didn't zack Wienersmith do that Saturday morning breakfast cereal comic where it's, like, the best use of Superman's powers is for him to run on a treadmill and turn a turbine and power the world?

31:51
Ben Tippett
Yeah. Literally just generate energy that would just provide fewer people with the capacity to fuck us over big time. Superman doesn't want to do that.

32:00
Ryan Haupt
But it's carbon neutral.

32:01
Ben Tippett
Yeah. No, I mean, it would. Yeah. There's a variety of things that Superman could do to alleviate global warming.

32:07
Ryan Haupt
I guess we don't know that Superman's carbon neutral, but yet, I mean, we.

32:11
Ben Tippett
Do anything to the current political, what apparatus?

32:15
Case
Well, he doesn't want to accidentally do anything to the current political apparatus.

32:18
Ben Tippett
Yeah. And so. And so if he, for instance, gave everybody free power, you could argue, yeah. Now the world has the capacity to never. Everybody has free energy, and nobody's going to go hungry. The current political apparatus isn't interested in making people not go hungry.

32:36
Ryan Haupt
You're saying Superman is not going to help us attain a post scarcity utopia like Star Trek presents?

32:41
Ben Tippett
I'm saying that until we earn it ourselves, Superman's not going to do that for us, man.

32:46
Ryan Haupt
Superman makes us work too hard. Help us out.

32:48
Ben Tippett
Yeah, man.

32:49
Case
I mean, it's interesting that we're saying this because one character I've wanted to reference in this whole conversation is Miracle man or Marvel man. The Alan Moore revision of the character, then followed up by Neil Gaiman, which we're finally getting the rest of Neil Gaiman's run soon was just announced this week. When we're recording, I mean, but in that there is actually one. The power system works very similarly to how you've written here, where it is a force field around him that he is apparently, through being engineered to have a super intellect, able to manipulate in such a way to allow him to fly and do stuff.

33:23
Case
And the characters, who are more advanced with their powers, are able to do additional effects that you could infer from your paper, basically, like, able to accelerate electrons and so forth to generate electricity and other kind of effects that are going on with it all. But one of the key things that happens is that ultimately, the character does take over the world and then creates a golden age for humanity. And then the book shifts gears to wrestling with what the implications for mankind in that scenario.

33:51
Ryan Haupt
And I think about watchmen a lot, you know, a comic that barely warrants any discussion, but I'm sorry, I've never heard of it. Okay, yeah, check it out. Kind of overshadowed by dark knight returns.

34:03
Ben Tippett
But hold on. I'm not a comic guy. Is that a comic about the creation of the pocket watch?

34:11
Ryan Haupt
I mean, sort of. I mean, the history of England is.

34:14
Ben Tippett
Trying to find a way to determine the longitude is that John Osterman's father was a watchmaker.

34:21
Ryan Haupt
And that is a big. That is a very important thematic element for that character, who then gets disconnected from time itself. But in the Netflix miniseries, which I absolutely loved, the comment that will, the grandfather, the original hood of justice. Spoilers. Sorry. Makes at the end of the show about Doctor Manhattan, who's like, this godlike being and is the only one like himself on earth. And he says, or considering what he could do, he could have done more. And I always thought that was really profound, and it made me realize that, like, I. I get very annoyed by superhero comics where the superhero is afraid to do anything because of the consequences. Like, it's literally called action comics. Like, go do some action, Superman. Don't sit around hemen and Han, about whether or not your actions are gonna have.

35:08
Ryan Haupt
All actions, including inaction, have consequences. And these are comic books. I want to see stuff happening. So that's sort of my meta thought on, like, my preference in reading these books. I don't want to see the character so worried about whether or not, you know, they'll change the science or change the whatever, that they don't do anything. And I think there was an era of comics where that wasn't a bigger issue. I think we're past it, but I think there was a long time where everybody was just like, oh, no, is it not? You know, my name's Matt Murdock, and should I even be a superhero? Well, if you're not, I'm not reading this comic anymore, so get on with it.

35:42
Case
Yeah, I mean, that's a question that has always sort of been an issue for later day Superman stuff. And like I said, part of that is just, how do you keep doing a month to month comic if they're wildly changing the world? But I do think it would be valuable to study something like this. I think while, sure, star prime directive kind of stuff could be in play. Like what? You know, Ben, you mentioned the idea of, like, a Superman bomb. Like, if you're able to figure out how Superman controls his inertia or whatever system we're talking about, even if it's just you figured out how to clone some of his cells and they solar batteries, and then they can be released as, like, a solar grenade or something like that. Could be catastrophic.

36:18
Case
Or maybe you could figure out a way to have cars that don't burn fossil fuels. And it would be interesting to explore that thing, but it's obviously just something they can't do in a monthly book that is expected to continue in perpetuity without major resets.

36:32
Ryan Haupt
Did we talk about the last time I was on the show, how I personally believe Superman's car does not have an engine? Or if it does, he never turns it on? And that he has reinforced the frame with more metal and his heat vision, and he just flies the car around using his super strength and flight. So he's holding the car up by the steering column so it looks like he's driving.

36:51
Ben Tippett
You're saying he's Fred Flintstoning his car?

36:53
Ryan Haupt
He's Fred Flintstoning the car, but with flight. But with his flight powers. But because I pointed out earlier in this episode that he has super ventriloquism, which is canonical, he does have super ventriloquism. He's also making car noises so that no one suspects him.

37:07
Ben Tippett
He's going, vroom.

37:10
Ryan Haupt
That is my. Like, that is every time I see Clark in a car, that is what I believe is happening. And I'm not kidding. Like, that is. I came up with that theory based on a specific episode of Superman, the animated series, and I will never back down from it.

37:21
Ben Tippett
May I make a proposal, Ryan? The only thing that I'm incredulous about is that if somebody was in that car with them, they could tell that he wasn't speaking with his normal, you know, they could talk to him and determine that he wasn't making the vroom sounds with his mouth, which just. Yeah, and throat and larynx.

37:44
Case
Well, I mean, that's why he eventually had to buy a Prius, or he.

37:48
Ryan Haupt
Has a crazy subwoofer that he does turn on. It's battery powered, and he just, like, blasts some sort of music that makes it impossible to have a conversation while you're in the car.

37:56
Ben Tippett
I'm just saying that Superman's got another orifice he can emit sound from. There you go.

38:01
Case
To go with Ryan's whole thing, Superman, canonically, was a big metallica fan in the nineties. So, like, maybe he was just blasting that everywhere he went, and that's why no one wanted to drive with him. It would be like, jesus Christ, Clark always is just blasting Metallica.

38:13
Ben Tippett
Yeah.

38:17
Case
I want to segue back to the paper because I had a question that I wanted to get to, and we've gotten fairly far from the paper. So the flight, super strength, et cetera, those all make perfect sense to me because that is pretty close to where my head was is at. And heat vision is fine. Like, you know, it's its own weird thing, but it's like, okay, cool. Like, well, you're, like, basically just doing, like, a mirror, bouncing a light at ant kind of thing, but just, like, intensified by his powers, the breath power. So the way I understand it from your paper and then the way I understand Superman's anatomy that is presupposed by your paper are at odds, because I feel that if he is chilling the air inside of his lungs, wouldn't that potentially fuck him up?

39:00
Case
And then to breathe it out, wouldn't that be accelerating the air? And I understand that, like, actual compressed air can be shot off from a hose or whatnot with incredible force, but I'm just trying to grok where in the process, the cold part is versus where in the process, the actual propelling it out part is, and also the limits of his invulnerability. I mean, I guess if he's just so smart, he can be making, like, the walls of his lungs super invulnerable at the same time that he's super chilling it.

39:29
Ben Tippett
Yeah, I think he would make, like, the. The walls of his throat, for example, super heavy to insulate them from the rest of his body from the cold. Yeah, that's what I'm imagining. So. So, yes, that thing you said is. What else? I think so, too.

39:49
Case
Okay. She's kind of wild. Cause it's like. Like the. Like, so the vision powers are weird.

39:55
Ryan Haupt
Wait, this brings up something. This brings up something else. Case, could Superman then breathe fire?

39:58
Case
Yeah, that's what I mean. That feels like the more natural thing to do, frankly.

40:02
Ben Tippett
Well, I see.

40:03
Ryan Haupt
Or could he. Or could he have freeze vision? Like, why. Why did he choose to have one come out his mouth and one come out his eyeballs? Answer me that, doctor.

40:12
Ben Tippett
Well, I don't know.

40:15
Ryan Haupt
Can he fart?

40:16
Ben Tippett
Let's see. Well, I mean, like, so if you're. If you're emitting a beam of heavy particles, they'll travel some. If they start out moving in a straight line and they're really heavy, there'll be some dissipation over the course of the thing. But those kind of keep traveling in a straight line ish until they get diverted. Whereas if you are exhaling the heavy particles, they will, they're naturally not come out of your mouth focused into a beam. I think I see no reason why Superman couldn't breathe fire, though.

40:53
Ryan Haupt
Heat whistling.

40:54
Ben Tippett
Except that it might be. There might be an aspect of. Maybe only his eyes can do the Maxwell demon thing because he's looking at each. I mean, it like, being able to resolve an individual particle is. Is below the rally criterion. So he'd have to have some kind of weird optics thing going on.

41:14
Ryan Haupt
Is the Raleigh criterion that, like, fundamental resolution of the universe thing.

41:18
Ben Tippett
It's a fundamental resolution of a lens and a particular wavelength of light. And that's probably the way I'm gonna get out of it. But it might be that for him to focus it into a beam, he needs to be able to use his eyes to see every individual atom as it comes in to bounce off him. Whereas if it's through his lungs, I think he's just exhaling. I don't see why he couldn't exhale super hot gas, though, except for maybe he just doesn't want to. And being able to exhale cold gas is fairly useful because you can do things like freeze yourself a little boat, and then maybe.

41:55
Ben Tippett
Maybe your friend Jimmy can ride in the boat made of frozen ice, you know, or, like, freeze a bridge so that it's not going to crumble under its own weight somehow, because I don't know what the. What the strength of ice is.

42:09
Ryan Haupt
Here's my theory. Do we think Clark figured out his heat vision or his x ray vision?

42:13
Ben Tippett
First.

42:14
Ryan Haupt
Which do you think came first?

42:15
Ben Tippett
My guess is x ray vision because it's passive. Yeah, yeah.

42:21
Case
I think x ray vision because if nothing else, assuming that both powers came on at a weaker level than they would ultimately get to, that the fir, he would notice the x ray vision before he noticed that he was making things hot. Like, people probably wouldn't notice that it was like, oh, that metal is a little bit warmer, but it's only by, like, four degrees warmer.

42:38
Ryan Haupt
And in a lot of interpretations of the comics, I agree. So I think x ray vision comes online first, or at least he notices that he has this ability first. And then I feel like, wait, are.

42:47
Ben Tippett
You saying x ray vision or heat vision?

42:49
Ryan Haupt
I think x ray vision first.

42:51
Ben Tippett
Okay.

42:52
Ryan Haupt
He notices that things seem translucent to him that don't seem translucent to other people. And then a lot of times they, like, tie in his heat vision with, like, anger. It's almost like he hulks out, and that's when he has heat vision a little bit. Or if you believe the whole thing, that he's, like, absorbing solar radiation. I could see, like, the need for, like, a heat dump. You know, heat sink. Right. So he's got to, like, dump some excess heat. So he got the heat vision first. And maybe he, like, tried to do cold vision, and it didn't really work as well. And he got frustrated. And in getting frustrated, he, like, went, like, and then, like, huffed and then noticed that the huff was really cold.

43:25
Ryan Haupt
And he's like, oh, maybe it's better if I do this through my lungs instead of my eyeballs.

43:28
Ben Tippett
I mean, narratively, that makes sense to me.

43:32
Ryan Haupt
I'm trying to tell a story here.

43:33
Ben Tippett
Yeah, like I said, narratively, it's a good story. I think all of these powers require a substantial amount of control to the point where he wouldn't be able to do, I mean, I can't think very well when I'm totally livid. The amount of control doing heat vision would require him to be very calm so that he could, like, Maxwell demon, individual particles in a line towards you. You know.

44:02
Ryan Haupt
You know what else this solves?

44:03
Ben Tippett
What?

44:04
Ryan Haupt
The fundamental situation. Well, maybe not. Maybe the bizarre situation. We can explore that too. But I was thinking in terms of the fundamental fear that Superman could go bad on us, like, and become an evil despot or dictator. Because I feel like his level of control necessary keeps him on the straight and narrow. And if he actually tried to go evil, he wouldn't have the control necessary to, like, use his powers to the full extent. And so he wouldn't be powerful enough to take over the world.

44:29
Case
I mean, it certainly keeps him on the lawful axis of the lawful chaotic side. But I'm not sure about the good evil.

44:34
Ryan Haupt
Do you still think we could get, like, a Darth Vader Superman? Yeah, lawful evil. I mean, I guess that's sort of what red sun, the Mark Miller series posits, but they don't lean as into the evil as much as the totalitarianism.

44:47
Case
Yeah. Or even Zod. I mean, sort of is like, he's definitely more lawful evil than chaotic.

44:52
Ben Tippett
Yeah.

44:52
Ryan Haupt
That's another thing I wanted to discuss, Ben, is how does your theory play into. So what were the conditions on Krypton such that this ability evolved? Because we know that kryptonians can't do all the stuff that Clark can do on Krypton. So, you know, I know you're a physicist, and I. And I didn't think to talk about this from an evolutionary biology perspective when we first chatted, you know, in 2009. But, like. Yeah, how did kryptonians evolve this trait such that when every kryptonian arrives on earth, suddenly they can control inertial mass? Or could they on Krypton and something else was going on?

45:25
Case
I have a hypothesis, actually.

45:26
Ryan Haupt
Well, I'm into it. Excited.

45:27
Case
I might throw this one. Okay, so, I mean, this goes back to the general issue of Krypton having, like, particularly harsh conditions for everyone living on it. Like, so much so that they bred doomsday on there because it was such a shitty planet to be like, krypton is like a giant Arrakis kind of thing. Like, it sucks to be there. And it is my. Because I have speculated on this one where just going off of psychic powers as opposed to like, being quite so precise to a science scenario where you could have one where rather than being then developing a higher density and larger muscles and so forth, that it is a neurological thing. Because there's entirely the possibility that Krypton itself was not their original planet.

46:06
Case
And even if it was, it could be a scenario where as the sun grew red and everything got worse on the planet, that they were forced to develop a way to function in spite of the negative conditions. And so especially if they aren't originally from there, but even if they are, and just as the sun got older and potentially larger and maybe messed up their axis and maybe bathed them in more radiation or changed the type of radiation that they were exposed to by virtue of it just getting larger and they're maybe swallowing up some of the closer planets to it that whatever sort of mechanisms that are in play for powers outside of just like, raw density, that is something that they physiologically developed. And that the circumstances of being on earth are what allows Superman to basically be unfettered.

46:55
Ryan Haupt
So if I understand your point, and correct me if I don't, you're saying to survive, they evolved this ability just to survive on Krypton.

47:04
Case
So they're functionally just to be a functionality, right?

47:06
Ryan Haupt
So they function as humans masimanus on Krypton. But then when they come to earth, the conditions are so prime that he's able to, like, unleash the full suite of what these powers could do if he wasn't just using them to, like, prevent himself from being crushed or killed or dead.

47:20
Case
Right. And potentially there's a photosynthetic effect occurring with him where like, oh, whoa, whoa.

47:26
Ryan Haupt
Gotta stop you there, because we have had so many arguments in the history of science, sort of, about whether or not Superman is photosynthetic or photovoltaic. And I come down strongly on the photovoltaic side, because he is not green. He is a caucasian male presenting person. And to be, to photosynthesize in my world, you need chlorophyll to do that. And chlorophyll is green. So.

47:48
Case
Well, chlorophyll, now, again, I am not science person, but I do recall, but I am a giant nerd.

47:55
Ryan Haupt
I will leave this call case.

47:56
Case
I have read that there are related pigments to chlorophyll that are red or blue, and that the settled upon one on Earth made sense based on our.

48:05
Ryan Haupt
Conditions, because of the spectra of light emitted by our sun. I'm familiar with that as well. And we have seen red and blue versions of Superman.

48:13
Case
Sure, you're more familiar.

48:15
Ryan Haupt
He is not currently red or blue. That they have done away with that particular. I don't actually know if that's still even in continuity, that he was the duality electric Superman. But no, I actually like that theory about the conditions on Krypton a lot. Because the planet Hulk storyline where Bruce Banner is in the Hulk form for years, because he's on this other planet as a gladiator king. I always interpreted that as, it isn't necessarily that Bruce is angry that entire time. It's that the conditions on that planet are such that if he reverted back to Bruce would die. And Hulk can't let Bruce die. So he just stays Hulk that whole time, which is why he's not quite as strong and a little bit smarter, because he's not in, like, full rage mode.

48:56
Ben Tippett
Yeah.

48:57
Case
Yes, I would agree on that point. I'm just saying that, like, that it is possible that there is some sort. I mean, like, solar energy has always been a part of it. I typically like to, like going off of, like, if it's a psychic power kind of thing, which could be translated to inertia manipulation, that there could be some sort of, like, glucose or other. Like, other sugar or whatnot that he is generating that is. That allows that.

49:19
Ryan Haupt
I mean, if you throw space, wouldn't it be galactose, which is a real type of sugar?

49:24
Case
Is it?

49:25
Ryan Haupt
Yes, it is.

49:26
Ben Tippett
Oh, wow.

49:27
Ryan Haupt
It is actually cognate. So the word galaxy in Greek is cognate with milk. So the idea of galactose, you know, it's literally lactose with a gall on the front of it. So it's lactose as a milk sugar. Galactose is a different kind of milk sugar. And the word galaxy is because it's the Milky Way. So it all is actually linguistically connected. But I always like to joke that beings like Galactus use galactose instead of lactose, because I just. I'm a dad now, and I think that's funny.

49:55
Case
No, that works. And also, the Milky Way is in part because of Hercules spitting a Paris milk. So, all getting back to our strongman scenario.

50:02
Ryan Haupt
Here you go.

50:03
Case
Yeah, so that was just my presentation of, like, regardless of, I mean, you know, more than I do in terms of, like, photosynthetic versus photovoltaic. But, like, whatever kind of aspect that is going on, like, he might have, like, the powers might be innate, but Earth's conditions are both not preventing him, and this is the gravity situation and then also fueling him. Well, that is consistent with his, like, longer term power source concept.

50:30
Ryan Haupt
This comes back to another question I think about a lot with Superman. And I'll ask it. I'll ask it to the whole panel. We know that clark does eat from time to time, but does Clark need to eat? So, Ben, you know, I want you to chime in. Like, where's the power coming from? But I also just want to know from Jamaica, in case, like, what do you guys think is happening there? Like, could Clark abstain from eating if he wanted to? Like, does he get enough energy from other sources, or does he occasionally need to take in some nutrients to keep going?

50:59
Ben Tippett
Case, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like he said that he doesn't need to eat a couple of times already.

51:04
Ryan Haupt
I think he said that, but I don't know that I believe him.

51:07
Case
Well, there's also the question of, does he need to eat, or does he need to eat often? Because it could also be a scenario where he just doesn't. It's like a snake.

51:16
Ben Tippett
Yeah, yeah.

51:17
Ryan Haupt
Like, just undo his jaw like Gaston and drinks a dozen eggs, and then he's good to go.

51:22
Case
It helps him get large. That's why he's so jacked.

51:27
Ryan Haupt
Everyone in town loves him.

51:28
Case
Personally, I think that he does actually need to eat because I like, again. Cause I tend to default to thinking that, like, whatever processes that are going on, I don't like the idea that he just is a raw solar battery. Like, there are fun versions of that. Like, I love Apollo from. From the authority as sort of that take. Talking about, like, heat vision is like a heat sink kind of facet in the League of the Superman Legends of dead Earth story, where, like, everyone was given one power from Superman. And, like, the guy who had heat vision had to, like, shoot off heat beams, otherwise his body would burn up. Like, I get those takes.

51:59
Case
But I prefer to think of Superman as a biological entity that does require some, like, certain assets for his powers to work, even if solar is the biggest one for him. Like, I think that it makes the most sense that, like, sure, he might not need to eat frequently. He might, for all practical purposes, not need to eat in the human lifetime. But I think that particularly when growing up and particularly in terms of, like, if he was weakened or anything, that he would need to consume some sort of nutrient to work in tandem with any sort of radioactive elements that are also powering him.

52:32
Ryan Haupt
I'll let Ben and Jamaica answer before I chime in, because I've been talking too much.

52:38
Ben Tippett
Okay, well, what I think is that Superman's power output is way too high for how long the guy spends exposing his body to the sun. So this is actually something else we've talked at length about on science, sort of the argument that he is interacting with solar neutrinos makes a lot of sense to me. So somehow, the sun emits a type of particle that's invisible, that doesn't interact with normal matter, that passes entirely through the earth. You barely get bumped by it.

53:14
Ryan Haupt
It doesn't typically interact with normal matter.

53:16
Ben Tippett
The likelihood that it interacts with normal matter is very, very low. And so.

53:21
Ryan Haupt
But if it didn't interact with normal matter at all, we wouldn't be able to detect it? No, we are able to detect that.

53:25
Ben Tippett
Is. That is correct. We can detect it. So somehow he was absorbing energy from these invisible particles. And so I would argue that his powers are fueled by this mechanism, these particles flowing through him from the sun that I would hypothesize. Krypton stopped making the neutrinos in the energy levels that.

53:51
Ryan Haupt
And that's what doomed the planet.

53:53
Ben Tippett
That's what doom the planet. Kryptonians genius couldn't emit these invisible particles at the right energy band enough. Superman comes to Earth. It's more like prime, the primordial star that Krypton goes around, and then he can absorb them again. So these he is the mechanism that he uses to work his powers. But his regular human body needs regular food, and he has a different metabolic system that keeps his organic parts alive. And so he does need to eat.

54:32
Ryan Haupt
Okay, I love everything you just said there, Ben, because, like, you've now introduced a really interesting twist on the failing of kryptonian society when Jor El gave them their warning. Because, like, Jor El's warning was always, Krypton's going to be destroyed, and there's nothing we can do, right, but what if Jor El's warning was more like, our star isn't giving off the neutrinos it used to. Krypton is at risk of falling apart. It's giving out enough neutrinos that if all of us chipped in a little bit and put our hands on Krypton once a day for, like, five minutes, give it the inertial mass to not fall apart, we could save the planet. And they're all like, nah, we don't believe you. That's like, Krypton's mass has changed before. It'll change again. It's not a real problem.

55:18
Ryan Haupt
Hopefully, you all can see the analogy I'm making here. Our economy can't withstand the hit of us all chipping in five minutes a day, so we're not going to do it. And so it would be so cool if Jorah had a method that through just everyone giving up a little and trying a little, they could have saved Krypton and they just didn't listen to him. It would hammer in the climate change metaphor that much harder. So I think that's actually brilliant.

55:42
Ben Tippett
I think the brilliant thing about what I said is that neutrinos have a different mass eigenstate than they do flavor eigenstates. So whenever they're interacting with matter, their mass is changing. They can change their mass. And so I'm like, Superman can change the mass of things. Neutrinos can change the mass of things. Not exactly the same, but they can change their own mass. It's not exactly the same, but it's thematically rhyming. That's what I think is brilliant about what I said.

56:10
Ryan Haupt
You're the George Lucas of the Superman prequel we're working on.

56:13
Ben Tippett
Yeah, that's right. Sorry.

56:15
Case
Back up and explain eigenstate.

56:17
Ben Tippett
Okay. Basically, so you know how, like, quantum mechanics, in quantum mechanics, you can't measure the position and velocity. The position or the velocity at the same time.

56:29
Ryan Haupt
Sure.

56:29
Case
The basic. I did know that.

56:31
Ben Tippett
Yeah. I mean, it's the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, right? Like, the cop comes and asks Heisenberg how fast his car was going, and Heisenberg says, I don't know, because I know I'm exactly where I am. I'm in Cleveland or something. Right. Isn't that the joke? I forget how the joke goes anyway. Yeah. So you can't know that.

56:53
Ryan Haupt
Had some of the elements of a joke.

56:55
Ben Tippett
Okay. Thank you. I mean, I can't remember the joke, but the moral of the story is, in quantum mechanics, occasionally you get two different types of information in a particle that you can't measure at the same time that measuring one type for one type of information scrambles the other type of information in the particle. Measuring what type of neutrino something is. So when a neutrino bumps into us, it can only be a neutrino of a very specific type. When it does that, it scrambles its mass. So you can't measure the mass of a neutrino and what kind of neutrino it is at the same time, which is totally weird. And it's one of the reasons we thought the sun was going out in the 1970s. We thought the sun did it. No, no. Not only did it not. But were wrong.

57:40
Ben Tippett
Well, I mean, so they had a neutrino experiment that was measuring the flux of these invisible particles coming out of the sun, because when heat tries to come out of the sun, it takes, like, a million years or, like, 100 million years or something. 100,000 years. I think there's a hundred.

57:58
Ryan Haupt
When heat or a photon.

58:00
Ben Tippett
When, like, heat. When, like, a photon travels from the inside of the sun.

58:04
Ryan Haupt
Because it's. Because it's essentially like a plinko inside a sphere, right? Yeah, it's plinkoing.

58:09
Ben Tippett
It's like Plinko. It's trying to plinko its way out of the sun, and it just bounces around too much. But neutrinos don't interact with anything, so they get made through nuclear fusion at the center of the sun, and they zip straight out of the sun, climb their way from the core of the sun, pass all the way out into space in like, a minute or so.

58:28
Ryan Haupt
So you're saying all the light, all the photons that hit us daily on earth when we're, you know, living our lives are actually older than us. Yeah, but the neutrinos that are passing through us and not interacting with us at all are little tiny babies.

58:41
Ben Tippett
Yeah, yeah. One of them is like 100,000 years or a million years old or something like that. I forget the number, but the other one is like three minutes old.

58:48
Ryan Haupt
Like, literally been traveling in the heart of a star for 100,000 years to eventually give me a tan.

58:55
Ben Tippett
That's exactly right. So, basically, the deal here is that in the 1970s, we started measuring these invisible particles, and we ended up with a number that was one third too small. And we thought that the reason. Well, one of the different possible reasons was that on the way out of the sun, the neutrino was changing what type of particle it was, and the other, because there are three possible particles. So it's like, hey, that might be. Explain the one third. The other possibility was that the solar furnace was shutting down and that solar fusion was happening at a rate way lower than needed. The sun was out of fuel, and we wouldn't know if it was out of fuel for a very long time, but we would know first through the neutrino signal.

59:46
Ryan Haupt
That's fascinating.

59:47
Ben Tippett
Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah. So, astronomers and neutrino physicists were very quiet about the possibility that the sun had already gone out, that it was already out of fuel. But then did they want to start.

01:00:01
Case
A panic that Krypton was doomed?

01:00:02
Ben Tippett
Yeah, pretty much. But, you know, there were other possibilities. So, in the succeeding years and in the late nineties, early two thousands, they built new particle detectors that could detect all three different types of neutrinos. And sure enough, those, that's where the missing neutrinos were. The types of neutrinos they were got scrambled on their way from the sun. So it turned into other particles and. Yeah, so the sun isn't going out. It's not a problem yet, but it is a very interesting physics story.

01:00:35
Case
Well, this is actually making me feel better, though, because then the idea that the sun would go out, but it would then be either 100,000 years or 100 million years or whatever number that.

01:00:42
Ben Tippett
There'S some zeros in there, that's all I can do.

01:00:44
Case
There's a bunch of zeros in there.

01:00:45
Ben Tippett
Yeah.

01:00:45
Case
It's like, also like, oh, well, I guess we have a little bit of time.

01:00:50
Ben Tippett
Well, we don't know when it would.

01:00:51
Case
Like, if it was assuming it didn't just, it wasn't already going out and that.

01:00:55
Ben Tippett
Yeah, let's imagine that it was. We wouldn't know when the going out process had started. Right. Like, it might have started like the sun. Well, anyway, don't worry about it. Not a problem.

01:01:08
Case
Because it's kind of works from a comic standpoint with stuff like final night. But also, then it works with me being a giant nerd for the book the Nightland, where the sun, quote unquote, has gone out because of the idea of how long the sun would be alive or active. Furnace was just wrong in the early 19 hundreds. And so it presents a world where the sun has gone out and it's people huddling around the last volcanic craters trying to survive, and it's like, oh, well, that actually could allow for that kind of scenario.

01:01:39
Ben Tippett
Well, I mean, you know, what happens when the sun goes out. Like, imagine it had is it doesn't have long to live on the astronomical time scales, but human civilization probably wouldn't be affected in the short term. But what actually happens over the course of star life is Superman four increases. Yes. Okay. Superman four.

01:02:02
Ryan Haupt
The quest for peace. Superman throws all of the world's nukes in a giant net at the sun. So wouldn't that buy us some time?

01:02:09
Ben Tippett
No, zero time. Nuclear hydrogen fusion releases all this energy, but stars get hotter as they age. So the story where Krypton's sun was releasing particles in a different energy band over the course of its evolution is entirely feasible. So, yeah, also. Yeah, so, also, the sun is heating up. Not enough. Not fast enough to cause global warming, but on a very large timescale, I mean, the earth's oceans will evaporate before the earth, before the sun runs out of fuel. That's so good to hear.

01:02:50
Case
I mean, we're talking on a timescale that, but also not even, like, I.

01:02:55
Ben Tippett
Wasn'T planning to be around for more than another billion years. It's not going to affect me.

01:03:00
Ryan Haupt
Well, Ben, we know. All that means is that the AI network that makes up your consciousness will have launched itself into space by then. But what? Tell. Tell me. Okay, here's the story I want because I keep taking your science and I try to make it into a superman story that I would want to read.

01:03:18
Ben Tippett
Okay.

01:03:19
Ryan Haupt
What does Clark feel when the sun stops producing neutrinos?

01:03:24
Ben Tippett
His power stops working. You know, it's like how he feels when he goes to a different planet in space. He's like, hey, Lois, how's it going? And then she'll be like, oh, hey, your hair is sure fluffy today, Clark, do you lose weight? Your cheek muscles are much less baggy than we're used to seeing. That's. Yeah, essentially, he'd lose the capacity to use his powers slowly but surely. And then as his whatever passes for this weird particle physics, who knows what battery.

01:04:05
Ryan Haupt
Would there not be some neutrinos hitting earth from other stars?

01:04:09
Ben Tippett
Oh, yes.

01:04:11
Ryan Haupt
Like, probably not at the same intensity.

01:04:13
Ben Tippett
Dramatically lower. I mean, you can compare it to how much light we get from other stars to the neutrino flu.

01:04:20
Ryan Haupt
So Superman's powers would go from, like, staring directly into the sun to staring up at the night sky.

01:04:26
Ben Tippett
Yeah.

01:04:26
Case
Like, you could picture the scene where he'd, like, look up and be like, the sun is turning red. It's like, no, it's not. It's like, not from a wavelength that you can see, like, articulating it, trying to, like, match it to, like, the more normal, like, superman concepts, but, like, him being able to observe a change that humanity can't. But it is robbing him of his powers.

01:04:43
Ben Tippett
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the. Yeah. So, like, there's this thing called the CNo cycle, which is a different fusion process that happens in hotter stars.

01:04:54
Ryan Haupt
Carbon, nitrogen, oxygen.

01:04:55
Ben Tippett
Yeah, yeah. It'll happen at a higher and higher rate over time in our sun, too. It's temperature dependent. So the hotter the core gets, the faster it goes. It happens in a lot more steps than the proton chain process that currently does most of the hydrogen burning. And so all of a sudden, the neutrinos that I posit he eats would come much weaker. They'd suddenly be the wrong energy for him to absorb.

01:05:24
Ryan Haupt
So he would notice it well in advance.

01:05:26
Ben Tippett
He would notice it well. He would notice the process. I mean, the process happens on, like, astronomical time scales, so.

01:05:32
Ryan Haupt
But that's also, like, I think it's really interesting. I think it's really interesting that the idea you put forth for what controls Superman's powers also includes a mechanism by which Clark does functionally age. You know, we all experience not being able to jump quite as high as we could, run quite as fast as we could. Like, that's a human thing. And many stories, they dull Clark's powers a little bit as he gets older, but he's still, like, way more powerful than most of the other. Like, even super heroes and so I think it's really interesting that you're proposing this idea of, like, Clark doesn't age on human timescales. He ages on stellar timescales.

01:06:12
Ben Tippett
Well, Clark's powers will decay over stellar timescales, but Clark is still made of meat and has to, like, eat, and his body's getting free radicals and crap.

01:06:22
Ryan Haupt
So you're saying Clark Kent is not immortal?

01:06:26
Ben Tippett
No, he'll get old like, everybody, only maybe, like, at a different time scale because he's not human. He's, like, kryptonian. So maybe their natural lifespan is 60 years instead of 70 years. Maybe he'll get old faster than us. I don't know.

01:06:40
Ryan Haupt
Canonically, he typically doesn't, you know, he ages at the rate of, you know, an amazonian God, you know, God adjacent being.

01:06:50
Ben Tippett
Yeah, but he went through, like, puberty in the early stages of human development to the same rate that any other.

01:06:56
Ryan Haupt
Yeah, but there's lots. I mean, there's lots of organisms on earth that age up to adulthood quickly and then functionally coast on a plateau. Like, most reptiles have what's called indeterminate growth, where they go through a juvenile to adolescent to adult stage within a couple of years. Once they reach the adult size, their metabolism shifts, and they don't keep growing at that same rate, but they will keep getting slightly larger every year, which maybe explains the frank, quietly superman, who is a hulking behemoth relative to normal humans. So, you know, maybe. Maybe kryptonian growth model is more earth or terran reptilian than it is mammalian primate.

01:07:34
Case
Well, but even looking at mammalian primate like that, we're looking at it from our own perspective. Like, our concept of aging. Like, if we are at our prime for a decent amount of time, like, decades, like, the life of many dogs.

01:07:46
Ryan Haupt
That's all. That's all nutrition and medicine, I believe. I think the functional human lifespan of humans is, like, 35, 40. But.

01:07:55
Case
But even that's way more than, like I said, like, our. Our adolescence through, like, what would be considered old man phase in, like, biblical times is still multiple dogs, but, yeah.

01:08:08
Ryan Haupt
So did I derail things enough, or should I have derail?

01:08:10
Case
No, I think this is perfect. I think. I think this is, like, a nice, fun conversation. This is kind of what exactly I was hoping for, because, like, speculating on the science of superheroes is a thing that I really love, even though I don't have, like, the collegiate level or let alone, like, a grad school level ability to really go into it too much. Like, I am just a nerd and I fucking love this shit. Like, it's so much fun.

01:08:35
Ryan Haupt
So, like, it's.

01:08:36
Case
It's so fun to speculate about all of these kinds of weird aspects of Superman's powers and how it sort of plays out and how it sort of matches up with things. And I do think, Ryan, to your point, like, there are a lot of ideas that we discussed here that are just great hooks for a story idea.

01:08:50
Ryan Haupt
Like the dying sun. That was the surprising part of this conversation, was the way that, you know, in hindsight, you know, having talked to Ben about this stuff for literally years, I'd never done it on a comics centric podcast where I was trying to think about, like, what would this look like in comic form? And thinking up, like, what's the story that comes with this idea? And I think Ben's ideas is quite fruitful and is really interesting to think about. So thank you.

01:09:16
Case
And one thing I did want to say that we didn't talk about earlier was that there is an aspect of. There is Superman, the conscious entity, and then there's Superman, the subconscious entity. So there's a lot of discussion about his powers that are things that he may not rationally understand that he's doing. The same way that we'd, like, have so many things related to our center of gravity or, I mean, just breathing. Like, so many autonomic functions that we aren't really calculating, necessarily, like, what the fastest rate to drink water is or anything to that effect. How do we balance ourselves? Well, there's a lot of factors that we're not thinking about consciously. So those could kind of go into sort of like, how this could all still work without Superman necessarily being this sort of, like, supercomputer automatically.

01:09:57
Case
Like, it's all behind the scenes stuff. Like, his conscious thought could be still relatively similar to what a human thought is, albeit with super speed.

01:10:05
Ryan Haupt
No, I think the speed has got to be a huge element of it. Ben, I got one last question for you.

01:10:11
Ben Tippett
Okay.

01:10:12
Ryan Haupt
So you said that you were writing this paper as an in universe person, trying to explain Superman's powers as observed by living in Metropolis or whatever.

01:10:22
Ben Tippett
Yeah, yeah.

01:10:23
Ryan Haupt
But you. Superman's pronouns are he, him, his. Yes. And you capitalize his pronouns throughout?

01:10:31
Ben Tippett
I did.

01:10:32
Ryan Haupt
Do you worship Superman in this?

01:10:35
Ben Tippett
Yes. I think everybody kind of thinks that. That maybe he should be capitalizing his pronouns. Sure. All right. Yeah, no, that was deliberate. I thought of it as a joke, and I went through and I searched for all the pronouns, and I capitalized them.

01:10:52
Case
Yeah, I mean, I got to tell you, as a spec script, this would be an amazing Astro city book.

01:10:57
Ben Tippett
Like.

01:10:57
Case
Like, just, you know, switch it out for Samaritan and, like, make the accommodations there.

01:11:01
Ryan Haupt
I actually don't know that it works for Samaritan. I think you'd have to up with a new character, but powers would be different.

01:11:05
Case
Yeah, Samaritan. Samaritan has that. What is it? Like, a tachyon field that he uses for everything because he's a time travel.

01:11:10
Ryan Haupt
He's a time traveler.

01:11:11
Case
Right. Yeah. But you can either use that or, I mean, even Superman. But, like, it's. It's a Marvel's approach. Like, it is that kirpusaic, like, kind of style of, like, person looking up, trying to figure out this, like, wondrous world that is so far beyond what our natural understanding of things are.

01:11:29
Ryan Haupt
I love it if, like, it's an intern at the Baxter building, and this is their summer project, and it's, like, century or something stupid.

01:11:36
Case
Yeah, this works actually really well for Hyperion because his powers being, or at least, like, the squad of supreme normal Hyperion, because he is an eternal. And, like, those powers actually map. Map out really well to this as well. In fact, all those extra permutations they have work really well with what they're. What's going on here. So.

01:11:54
Ryan Haupt
And Ben Tippett. Ben Tippett is canonically a character in the Marvel universe, which I hadn't mentioned until now, but Ben Tippett is Squirrel girl's college physics professor in the squirrel girl comic series.

01:12:06
Case
No shit.

01:12:07
Ben Tippett
Yeah, he's. Evidently, he works at NYU teaching first year physics.

01:12:11
Ryan Haupt
Does he work at NYU, or does he work at Empire State University? Because they always swap out.

01:12:14
Ben Tippett
It's always, oh, I don't know.

01:12:16
Ryan Haupt
In Marvel, it's usually ESU. It's Empire State University.

01:12:19
Ben Tippett
Okay. That's what Peter Parker. Maybe. It's ESU. Holy shit.

01:12:23
Case
That's amazing.

01:12:24
Ryan Haupt
Yeah, because Ben is buddies with Ryan north. Well, we're both buddies with Ryan north, which will come up here in a second when we do our plugs. But. So Ryan north put Ben Tippett in the 616 as squirrel girl's college professor.

01:12:38
Ben Tippett
Yeah, I sent Ryan. I got squirrel girl number one, and I was like, this is so good. I read it in the car, and I sent Ryan an email immediately saying, no. In a parking lot, say, distracting driving is very serious. Ryan saying, hey, can I be squirrel girl's calculus or physics instructor? And he was like, yeah, sure, send the artists some things. And then, yeah, I show up in a couple issues. It's pretty fun.

01:13:05
Case
That is fucking incredible.

01:13:07
Ryan Haupt
That means we could actually do this story case, because the character already exists.

01:13:11
Case
Yeah. Oh, my God. That works really well. And then you just.

01:13:15
Ben Tippett
Yeah.

01:13:15
Case
Like, I love the idea of a.

01:13:17
Ryan Haupt
Prequel of, you know, doctor Ben Tippett before he was a professor at ESU, doing an internship at the Baxter building and presenting this paper, presenting a paper very similar to this paper, you know, that we've been talking about. But to, like, Reed Richards and Reed Richards be like, that's stupid. Doesn't make any sense. But, like, he's right. Like, Reed writers.

01:13:33
Case
Oh, my God. It works even better for the century, because if the century rewrote reality so that no one remembers him, then this paper exists predating that rewrite. And people keep stumbling upon it, being like, who the fuck is this guy?

01:13:44
Ryan Haupt
But they also, like, the sentry's whole thing was, he has the power of a thousand sons. And like this, you know, this young postdoc Ben shows up and says, no, he's got the power of one son used very efficiently, and everybody laughs him out of the room. It's great. This writes itself. We should stop recording because everyone's going to steal this idea.

01:14:00
Case
This is a great idea, but that's because this paper was a great idea. So, Ben, thank you for coming on. I'm so glad that Ryan suggested us connecting.

01:14:09
Ben Tippett
Thank you, Case and J. Michael.

01:14:11
Case
Yeah, this has been a great chat again. I just live for this kind of nerdery. So, Ben, if people wanted to find you, follow you, where can they do? So what have you got going on?

01:14:21
Ben Tippett
I don't have any. I'm on undetermined hiatus from my podcast. I have a podcast called the Titanium physicist.

01:14:29
Ryan Haupt
But they can still go listen to it?

01:14:31
Ben Tippett
Yeah, you can listen to it. It's online. It's on anywhere. You listen to podcasts, just. Just Google. Just search in the search bar for the Titanium physicists podcast. We've got, like, 89 episodes or something like that to listen to.

01:14:45
Case
Awesome.

01:14:46
Ryan Haupt
And Ben is also a regular contributor to our. It's not my podcast, Ben. It's our podcast.

01:14:51
Ben Tippett
It's the OG. Yeah.

01:14:52
Ryan Haupt
Science. Sort of the most recent episode of Science. Sort of. I believe it will be the most recent episode by the time this episode comes out, or it might be a few episodes back, even if we're more productive than I hope. But episode 345 is Ben and I interviewing the many aforementioned Ryan north, who has a new book out called how to take over the world. A practical guide to supervillainy, something like that. So it's Ryan north taking both his. Ryan north has a science background in computational linguistics and has written a bunch of comic books. So he basically says, I'm the perfect person to write a guide on how to take over the world. So that's what his most recent book is. It's a non fiction book on supervillainy, and it's quite good.

01:15:35
Case
That's incredible. I need to check that out.

01:15:38
Ryan Haupt
So we chatted with him, and it was super fun, and I think it actually is a kind of perfect companion episode to the episode we just recorded. So I would encourage everyone to go check that out@scienceword.com. And available wherever you get your podcasts.

01:15:52
Case
So, Ryan, outside of your podcast, where can people find you and follow you?

01:15:55
Ryan Haupt
Twitter, Instagram, those are the main places I do. I do a lot of science outreach because of my day job. I'm also a regular contributor to the iFanboy Pick of the Week podcast. I'm on there once every four ish or so weeks, if you're able to do the math on that. And the 850th episode of ifanboy is fast approaching. So if folks are ifanboy fans, that the 50th marks of the show, you know, 800, and 5900 are all email shows recorded live with video, usually with a couple of drinks. So if you want to see me get silly, I'll say, but the 800 was a mess, so 850. I'm gonna try to keep together a little bit. But, yeah, I think you adjust, become.

01:16:46
Case
A father at that point.

01:16:47
Ryan Haupt
Yeah. Aka, I was a lightweight, and in my defense, the cocktail that did me in was made by my wife and handed to me. So I didn't make it myself. She just made me something. It had moonshine and something else in it. It was a. Yeah, so I was a little silly. But 850 is coming up, and I'm really looking forward to it because I love chatting with those guys. And, yeah, I plugged. I plugged this show on my most recent appearance on ifanboy. So hopefully folks went and hopefully we're getting some good cross pollination here.

01:17:17
Ben Tippett
Yeah.

01:17:17
Case
Well, the ifan boy community has been awesome. Like, we've had people just from the discord server on, just because we just love having these really positive conversations. So thank you both again for coming on. Jay Mike, where can people find you and follow you?

01:17:32
Ben Tippett
Oh, gosh, the pressure.

01:17:35
Case
The inertia, influence pressure on you.

01:17:39
Ben Tippett
I post meme, I react to things. That case puts me in. And it's sports season, so be prepared for all the sports scenes. I put out the next couple of.

01:17:48
Case
Weeks, and I didn't catch your handle when you said that, so.

01:17:52
Ben Tippett
Oh. Jmike 101 on Twitter.

01:17:56
Ryan Haupt
I guess I should have said my handles then. I'm helped on Twitter, and Ryan helped on Instagram. And Ben is bn prime, the letters b, the letter n, the word prime on Twitter, because mathematically, there was a previous Ben to this Ben. And so to indicate that he was a derivation of the previous Ben, he had to add a prime to his Twitter account, is my understanding, because all.

01:18:18
Ben Tippett
My humor is derivative. That's why.

01:18:20
Ryan Haupt
Yes, I'm a dad. So I had to explain your terrible dad joke, Ben.

01:18:23
Ben Tippett
Thank you.

01:18:25
Case
It's great. As for me, you can find me on Twitter acen. You can find me on Instagram etzelcoatl five, because I am both a mythology nerd and. And a legion of superheroes nerd. You can find the show on Twitter at Men of steelpod. You can find more episodes of the show@certainpov.com as well as all the other places you can get your podcast, but@certainpov.com. Comma, you can find links to other great shows like Screensnark, which is a wonderful, casual conversation about media and between a guest. And then the two hosts, Rachel and Matt. Matt is our editor, so that's a great show to check out. And then you can also check out a link to our discord server where you two sneak peaks. We have great conversations. Check it out. It's a really fun time, but also@certainpob.com.

01:19:04
Case
Comma, you can find this show, and you should come back for this show because we've done 100 episodes now, baby. This is episode 102.

01:19:12
Ryan Haupt
That's me applauding. I'm not just messing up your flow, just applauding.

01:19:18
Ben Tippett
So check that out.

01:19:21
Case
We've got more stuff coming in the pipeline. But, yeah, certainpov.com. Tons of great people doing great things.

01:19:26
Ben Tippett
Check that all out.

01:19:27
Case
And until next time, stay super man.

01:19:33
Ben Tippett
Men of Steel is a certain pov production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and case Aiken. The show is edited by Matt Storm. Our logo is by Chris Bautista. Episode art is by case Aiken. And our theme is by Jeff Moon.

01:19:52
Ryan Haupt
You should get. So what we do on science sort of is, you know, I'll end the show by saying, like, come back next week for a whole lot more science. And then all the guests will say, sort of. So you should try getting. You should try, like, just experiment with, like, you know, stay super and then have everyone else say, man.

01:20:09
Case
Hey, there screen beans? Have you heard about screen snark, Rachel? This is an ad break.

01:20:14
Ben Tippett
They aren't screen beans until they listen to the show.

01:20:17
Case
Fine. Potential screenbean. You like movies and tv shows, right? I mean, who doesn't?

01:20:22
Ben Tippett
Screenstark is a casual conversation about the.

01:20:24
Case
Movies and television shows that are shaping.

01:20:27
Ben Tippett
Us as we live our everyday lives.

01:20:28
Case
That's right, Matt. We have a chat with at least one incredible guest every episode, hailing from all walks. We've interviewed chefs, writers, costumers, musicians, yoga teachers, comedians, burlesque dancers, folks in the film and tv industry, and more. We'd be delighted for you to join.

01:20:45
Ben Tippett
Us every other Monday on the certain.

01:20:46
Case
POV podcast network or wherever you get your podcasts, fresh and tasty off the presses. What? That's no, that's not. Can I call them screen beans now? Fine, screen beans.

01:21:04
Ryan Haupt
So tune in and we'll see you.

01:21:06
Case
At the movies or on a couch somewhere. Cause you're a whole screen beans now.

01:21:13
Ben Tippett
My Aurora.

01:21:16
Case
Cpov certainpov.com.

AI meeting summary:

●      This meeting on the Men of Steel podcast featured **Ben Tippett** discussing a detailed scientific analysis of **Superman's powers**. The conversation delved into Ben's paper on "A Unified Theory of Superman's Powers" and explored how Superman could manipulate inertial mass for his abilities. They discussed Superman's superhuman traits, like **breathing cold air**, heat vision, and molecular power control. Speculations arose on Superman's potential to breathe fire and the significance of choosing x-ray vision over heat vision in power development.

●      Furthermore, the dialogue examined the theory that Kryptonian physiology evolved unique traits due to harsh living conditions on Krypton. The participants speculated on how this adaptation allowed Superman to exhibit extraordinary powers on Earth. The meeting expanded to discuss the linguistic link between the Greek words for galaxy and milk, connecting galactose to lactose. They explored scientific theories related to stars, aging processes, and scenarios if the sun's energy output changed.

●      Additionally, the discussion explored Superman's need for energy beyond sunlight, delving into solar neutrinos and their role in powering beings like Superman. They speculated on the impact on Clark Kent's powers if the sun stopped producing neutrinos. The participants considered power decay over stellar timescales and its effects on Superman's abilities. They also discussed writing comic book stories based on scientific principles, blending humor with physics concepts related to superheroes like Superman.

●      References were made to Marvel characters like Hyperion and Sentry as analogs for real-world science discussion. The conversation highlighted engagement with pop culture through podcasts, social media, and collaborations within the geek community. Overall, the meeting showcased an enthusiastic exploration of scientific inquiries within comic book narratives and imaginative storytelling.

Notes:

●      🔬 **Discussion on Latex for Scientific Papers**

●      Ben Tibbett teaches at a community college in British Columbia and uses Latex for equations in notes.

●      Latex is a markup language popular in math-heavy disciplines for formatting scientific papers.

●      Latex excels at inserting equations into papers, a feature other text editors lack.

●      🚀 **Unified Theory Overview**

●      Basic unified theory discussed, with Ben Tibbett providing a good summary.

●      **Fast-paced conversation with terms like "Easy peasy" and "That's basically the gist of it."**

●      💬 **Engagement with Ben on Paper**

●      Ben Tibbett engaged in a lively discussion about his paper with complete strangers.

●      Ben quickly responded to an email and was willing to discuss his paper via Skype.

●      📚 **Citing Previous Papers**

●      Importance of referring to other papers in the same field while writing academic papers discussed.

●      Reference to Siegel in the introduction of the paper mentioned.

●      🎙️ **Pronoun Capitalization**

●      Discussion on capitalizing pronouns in the paper, likened to a "Marvel's approach."

●      **Humorous anecdote about searching for pronouns and capitalizing them.**

●      🦸 **Superhero Analogy**

●      Analogy drawn to superhero themes in the conversation.

●      Thematic rhyme between the discussed topics highlighted.

●      🎤 **Promotion of Other Shows**

●      Mention of other shows like Screensnark and their content.

●      Encouragement to check out different podcast episodes and shows.

●      🔍 **Where to Find Jay Mike**

●      Jay Mike's Twitter handle shared for audience reference.

●      Description of Jay Mike's content on Twitter, including memes and sports-related content.

●      🔬 **Science Sort of Show Sign-Off**

●      Description of the sign-off for the "Science Sort of" show.

●      Guests encouraged to return for more science-related content in the next episode.

Action items:

●      **Ben Tippett**

●      Consider writing a fictional paper that takes place in a fiction universe (10:20)

●      Discuss the concept of changing inertial mass and how it relates to Superman's powers (38:22)

●      Explore the possibility of Superman breathing fire or exhaling super hot gas (39:49, 41:48)

●      Investigate the evolutionary biology perspective on how Kryptonians evolved their abilities and how they function on Earth (45:02)

●      Submit the paper as an in-universe person explaining Superman's powers (1:09:18)

●      Post the idea on social media (1:13:46)

●      **Ryan**

●      Plug the show mentioned in the transcript on his podcast appearance (1:15:17)

Outline:

●      Chapter 1: Introduction to Unified Theory (00:32 - 06:14)

●      00:32: Introduction to the concept of the Unified Theory.

●      02:07: Discussion on the origins and development of the theory.

●      05:32: Request for a summary of the basic Unified Theory.

●      Chapter 2: Latex and Scientific Paper Formatting (04:17 - 06:08)

●      04:17: Mention of using Latex for equations in scientific papers.

●      04:35: Importance of Latex in formatting equations in physics papers.

●      06:08: Teaching students in British Columbia with Latex notes.

●      Chapter 3: Exploring Super Ventriloquism (06:14 - 08:43)

●      06:14: Introduction to the concept of super ventriloquism.

●      08:17: Discussion on the implications and applications of super ventriloquism.

●      Chapter 4: Academic Writing and References (19:12 - 21:51)

●      19:12: Highlighting the importance of referencing other academic works.

●      20:07: Reference to Siegel in the introduction of a paper.

●      21:02: Balancing different perspectives in academic writing.

●      Chapter 5: Thematic Elements in Writing (18:25 - 20:56)

●      18:25: Appreciation for the writing style in discussing Kal El and Clark Kent.

●      19:42: Linking thematic elements in academic writing to character development.

●      Chapter 6: Implications for Mankind (33:44 - 34:37)

●      33:44: Transition to discussing implications of the Unified Theory on humanity.

●      33:59: Connecting the theory to a character disconnected from time.

●      Chapter 7: Storytelling and Creative Ideas (47:48 - 50:43)

●      47:48: Transition to discussing storytelling and creative ideas.

●      50:02: Engaging the panel in a creative discussion on theories and narratives.

●      Chapter 8: Concluding Remarks and Podcast Promotion (1:14:31 - 1:20:52)

●      1:14:31: Conclusion of the conversation with Ben, thanking for participation.

●      1:20:22: Promotion of the podcast and other shows for further listening.