While watching “X-men” the movie, the first one, I remembered the part when Login, or Wolverine, comes into the room where Professor X is dismissing the physics class. Considering that mutants tend to defy some law of physics, does physics really apply to mutants? Do they really need to know it or were the writers trying to just throw in some joke?
Maybe. But even if the X-Men can ignore the laws of physics, they’d have to know it as part of their education.
Welcome to the board, BTW. And this particular question would be better posed in Cafe Society.
Welcome to the boards, ukyo895.
Mutants do not break the laws of physics.
Magneto might be able to levitate certain objects. You will tell me that this violates the laws of gravity. Of course, in fact, it does not because an object will only fall to the earth if there are no other forces acting on it strongly enough to counter the earth’s pull. However, in this case, there is a counter force, namely the force being generated by Magneto.
Zev Steinhardt
I feel I must respectully disagree zev_steinhardt. What powers do we see? Levitation (Jean Grey), teleportation (Nightcrawler), weather control (Storm), walking through solid objects (a girl in the house), are not or barely compatible with physics as we know it. We might be able to achieve certain comparable efects, but since the means employed by the X-Men are completely mysterious, it looks like they violate several laws of physics.
Even Magneto does not avoid this problem: where does he get the energy he needs in order to do what he does? And how can he float himself on a disc: wouldn’t that necessitate a magnetic field with its primary standpoint outside his own body? With some suspension of disbelief I can go with a magnetic source inside his own body, even with normal physical laws, but the floating disc-trick, however cool it may be, stretches it farther than I’m willing to accept.
(Sorry if this comes off a bit confused. It is late over here)
Hey all, thanks for replying. I’m not one of those guys who posts something and doesn’t comment.
Thanks for the welcome. You’re right about being posted in Cafe Society, but I wasn’t sure so since this is a “general” area thought it’d be good just the same.
I agree partially with “zev”. Magneto does only lift his armor around him. The mutants powers are on the outside of their bodies, not from the inside out (except the mind stuff).
These types of powers with their abilities to control and master basics of physics seems to be a necessity to learn, somewhat. But if I was a mutant, I really wouldn’t care what people like Einstein and such say about physics. I’d kick some (I) however way I can!
Physics is a method of describing how the universe works, so nothing defies physics. I agree that the mutants defy many of the laws of physics as we know it, but that just means we need to modify and improve our understanding of physics. And whatever new laws we come up with, they will be extentions of what we know already, not replacements.