My new favorite show is SciFi Science hosted by Michio Kaku on the Science Channel. Basically the show consists of Michio, who is both an amusing guy and a physicist, trying to find ways to make science fiction a reality. Tonight's episode was about creating a superhero suit.
Of course the show opens with clips of the old Superman TV show and references non-powered humans who have built crime-fighting suits like Batman and Ironman. The standards for the suit are super strength, "super" vision (X-ray vision and the ability to see in low visibility), and telepathy.
Wait, telepathy?
Now, I wonder which superhero out there is super-strong, has X-ray vision, and can read minds? (And who wasn't mentioned on the show, of course.)
Martian powers for the win.
Interestingly, Michio spoke with the police about how telepathy would be invaluable in revealing accurate witness testimony and/or getting information directly from the suspect. I don't know how that last one holds up in court or if it's even ethical. The one caveat is that the person needs to be thinking about what you want to read from their minds. But the atomic magnetometor that Michio decided to use for the mind-reading part of his his suit was pretty darn cool: it's the size of a sesame seed, not the size of a room like an fMRI machine.
But, I digress. I suppose all of these powers combined makes J'onn J'onzz the ideal crimefighter. That just warms my heart.
Of course, the show decided to throw a wrench into the mix at the end by adding in mechanical arms attached directly to the crimefighter's spine controlled with the mind. But that's not a good idea!! That's what made Doc Ock go crazy in that Spiderman movie!!!
3 comments:
Michio Kaku sure does a lot of TV. Then again, he's a theoretical physicist, so he can just warp some math to fit an SF concept and he is halfway to describing a new theory of everything :)
But, seriously, he makes physics fun...like CSI did for forensic science, etc.
Michio Kaku is like the first guy they call to explain Physics. So, he's like the Batman of Physics.
My comment about theoretical Physics wasn't aimed at Michio Kaku, but at some of his colleagues (against the background of the SCIENTIFIC METHOD of which I feel protective of sometimes).
Not only is he good at explaining it but he's so enthusiastic about science. It's fun to see someone who genuinely is excited about what they do for a living and who can transmit that enthusiam to others.
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