Superman's strength in real-life (read below)?

In the comics, we see Superman being able to bench-press planets even though Superman is approximately a 100 kilograms (220 pounds). That's fine because it's a comic-book and comic-books don't have to be like real-life. However, just out of curiosity and interest, if someone was strong enough to bench-press planets in real-life, wouldn't their bodies have quintillions of tons worth of mass. People can generally lift 3 times their body weight, so since planet Earth has a mass of 6.6 quintillion tons, does that mean that if someone could bench-press a planet in real-life they would have to have a mass of 2.2 quintillion tons? Is it impossible for someone to be able to bench-press planets in real-life even though their body mass of MUCH, MUCH less (100 kilograms or 220 pounds) than the object they are bench-pressing?

And also, if someone mass was quintillions of tons, would they have to be much larger than humans? Is it possible for someone to be as big as an average human (in terms of height and width) but have quintillions of tons of mass?

Well, no. It means his body is made out of muscles with better strength to mass ratio than us. (Like: heavier metals and duralumin: the second is lighter as well as stronger or ants, maybe? They can lift 20 times their body weight while other insects that size can't as far as I know)

Edit: Also, shouldn't this be in general discussion/superman board?

The Earth is like 6.6 sextillion tons actually.

And no.. It's not possible to bench that much in real life.

@tjsh96: Earth has a mass 6.6 sextillion tons, not quintillion. A single tectonic plate weights almost 4 quintillion tons. To answer you question, not necessarily. There are several alternative energy source that output a far better weight to lift ratio. However, you would have to exert a huge amount of force to lift that, and the simplest way to do so is the simply be super massive. Mass also does not translate directly into size, though being more massive does tend to make you larger. One could be super, super dense in order to perform this feat. A dwarf star is vastly smaller than our sun, but some have comparable masses.

In order to efficiently lift a planet, one would also need a way to not break through the crust of the planet.

@monsterstomp:

What do you mean it's not possible to bench-press that much in real-life? Can you explain yourself more?

@tjsh96: A human will break their own arms before they can even press 3 tons. It's just simply impossible.

@tjsh96:

You would need to have more mass, yes.

Because you would need to have a denser bone structure in order to be able to handle that much pressure.

There's a formula for it online.

supermans powers aren't physical it's an invisible energy field around him made by the solar energy that lets him do all this stuff you would have to be 20,000+ feet tall and weight over a thousand pounds to bench something the size of earth or any planet really

What? Do you hang around power-lifters all the time? Most people don't bench 3X their BW.

20,000+ feet tall, 1000lbs! Lol, that person isn't lifting anything, they are rail thin!

@green_skaar: i said over 20 thousand feet and over a thousand pounds read it right next time bro

I read it right. That's the skinniest dude ever.

lol i even highlighted the word and you still missed it oh lawd.....

@monsterstomp:

Of course a human can't bench-press a planet, at least not today. But that wasn't my question. Re-read the OP.

Superhuman is not human, he's Kryptonian, so he have excuses lol.

@tabascosauce:

Your numbers implied a 20:1 ratio for feet:pounds...about 10,000x off.

i kinda hate battle threads now... and before you tell me "than why are you on it", because i wanna cry and complain.

Few days ago I saw a screenshot of the Pacific Rim robots, where it was said that if you double the size of a person, the weight increases 8 times. But the strenght does not increase as much as the weight. So if you had a person, who weights 2.2 quintillion tons and was also big enough to hold that weight, that person would still not be strong enough to lift its own weight let alone the 6.6 quintillion tons of the Earth.

And on the 220 person being able to lift the Earth.. No, not even that would work and it shouldn't even work in comics, if there are not some really specific cirumstances. A character like Superman shouldn't even be able to lift an airplane, because it should collapse under its own weight. To lift the airplane, even if its in comics, you would have to have specific superpowers and super strenght is not the only one. You would need the ability to stabilize the weight of the airplane and something like that could be achieved with telekinesis, the control over matter or magnetism mastery. I think at one point it was even mentioned that it's impossible for Superman for do stuff like that, but that he was able to do it, because he uses telekinesis, without even realizing it.

You asked a bunch of questions in the OP. Can you be specific about what question you want answered?

I only asked two questions in the OP. I just want the first one answered and also the second one if you want, but I'm more concerned about the first one.

@tjsh96: Actually when It comes down to it he's as light as feather its gravity that's holding us down but its gravity that's holding him up but he's able to hold himself down now that's the only thing that's missing how does he hold himself down? And as I was saying since gravity holding him up gravity is also helping him hold up the weight of the world it also means that if he were real he'll probably float away unless there a logical or magical or mental powers that holds himself down

do you not see that i said OVER a thousand pounds not A thousand pounds read it right man over a thousand pounds could be 100,000 or 200,000 or even 999,999 pounds no one is implying its just a thousand

@tjsh96: Something is removing posts without leaving evidence on the forum... luckily the notifications has the thing there...

terrestrial planet means a planet that is rocky... Earth, Mars, Mercury, Venus, and several moons would fit this category. The biggest one of these planets can get it is estimated is about 5 times what earth is.

Also I agree that it's wrong to use the weight of small things for human sizes. I was just using the most extreme difference in nature as a sort of cheat...

Some of you may know this but the Human body is about at it's peak in size. It may seem like "giants" are stronger but at a certain point the body starts to crumple in on itself and though absolutely stronger super tall people, or giants, are relatively weaker and slower and have much harder times doing things... So any strength we are talking about we have to do from our size now rather than bigger.

Doesn't terrestrial mean something that is on Earth? And can you show me proof that a rocky planet can only get 5 times bigger than Earth? How did you find that out? Can you send me a link to that information type as well?

@tjsh96:

According to wikipedia...relevant selections...

Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth.

Terrestrial planet, a planet that is primarily composed of silicate rocks, and thus "Earth-like"

I remembered the number wrong... it's around 10x, though that is not an absolute. Bigger rocky planets are possible, but unlikely... Hypothetically, from what we know, our system is rather small, but has more planets. It could be that bigger stars have bigger planets due to more material and if you scale our system to the largest star we know and then clump then clump all the rocky material together and then somehow keep gases from surrounding it you'd have the biggest possible rocky planet which is probably something like 100,000,000 times bigger than earth or some crazy number like that... it's just not likely... and perhaps, I'm not 100% sure impossible, due to mass over a certain limit will do this or that, but it can't maintain the planet thing long... I dunno, but i'm pretty sure something like that would establish an upper limit to "mass" as far as size... is a dyson sphere a planet to you? if it is then a dyson sphere if ever built is the biggest planet ever...if not then meh. I'm in the not category.

Anyways, here's info on Super earths from wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-Earth

lol i think I learned more about Physics here than in 3 years of school.

@durakken:

Why would there be a limit as to how big a rocky planet can get?

And to answer my question, if someone was as strong as Superman in real-life (able to bench-press a planet), would this person also need to be as heavy as a planet? Could someone be as strong as Superman while having the same mass as an average human (220 pounds or 100 kilograms)?

@tjsh96: If I remember right and such about how big planets can... it is largely due to #1. there is always lots of Hydrogen when a star forms. The star usually doesn't get it all and so if there is anything else that can attract it it will be attracted. #2 Earth's Atmosphere is a sorta delicate balance. We have just enough gravity to hold a decent size Atmosphere without pulling in to densely while at the same time we have magnetic field which prevents the solar winds and such blow away the atmosphere too much, but allows it just enough that there isn't a huge accumulation. So as a planet get's bigger atmosphere gets harder to pull off and it pulls in more gases from it's surroundings.

As to could superman be average human and lift a planet... e=mc^2 says no. There is no way that a 220lbs anything can move something that big, even if you were to convert all the energy via antimatter annihilation and directed it at Earth. 220lbs is 1,980 x 10^16 J. For reference - The worlds most powerful nuke was 240,000 TJ or 240,000,000,000,000,000 J

How much could this energy Bench Press then? First lets, take out the scientific notation...

19,800,000,000,000,000,000 J

according to this link: http://courses.washington.edu/bhrchem/c456/energycalcs.pdf

It takes roughly 1000 J to lift 100 kg... so, simple math...

1.98 x 10^18 kg

Earth is 5.9736 x 10^24 kg

Converting to the same scientific notation...

A 220 lbs perosn, if they could utilize all the energy in their body to bench press something could lift...

0.00000198 x 10^24 kg

Or 2 ten millionth of the earth's total mass... or

1/5,000,000 (1 over 5 million is the fraction)

They could maybe almost lift Mimas though...

Though this is supposing that you could convert all the energy in your body, all at once and direct it towards moving a planet only a very small distance. To do this you would need to cut yourself in half, convert one side of you to antimatter, and have some sort of funnel to direct that energy in one specific direction...and you'd be dead multiple times over.

To move Earth Bench Press the Earth you'd have to weigh a minimum of 1,100,000,000 lbs or 498,951,607 kg and for some perspective... that is 2444 times what the Statue of Liberty weighs.

@durakken:

I see. So since Superman would need to have a mass of half-a-billion kilograms at the bare minimum to be able to bench-press planets like he does in the comics, would Superman also need to be bigger than an average human in terms of height, width and volume? What I'm asking is, could Superman's body be exactly the same as your body (at least in terms of height and width from side-to side) but still have a mass of half-a-billion kilograms? Isn't that what density is? Isn't density compressing a lot of mass into something small?

@tjsh96: That energy is the energy it would take to do it once. The feat is that he did it for 5 days. Someone estimated that's 250 reps. That means that he'd have to weight 250 times 1,100,000,000 lbs which is 124,737,901,750 kg.

That is a 50th of the classic example of a teaspoon of a neutron star and if it was on earth it would just fall right through the planet. While I can't say for sure... I'd have to think that no it's not really possible... on earth.

Keep in mind that object pull each other and mass expresses the strength of that pull towards a center of mass. It could be possible that he is at perfectly the right weight that he doesn't fall through the earth. But when when we get up to this weight we then have to point out that while it's impressive that he could bench Earth, at this weight his ability to fly would have to be the result of an even further extreme amount of enery that Bench Pressing Earth would be a joke to Superman.

@durakken:

Now could you answer my previous question as well?

@tjsh96: You mean whether or not you could have a normal human body shape/size and weigh that much... I did answer that... It matters what you say is "could" and I don't know a very important bit of information, but I have to guess base on the information in the last post.

I don't know how to convert the above information to whether or not that would turn him into a black hole or not. If it would then no it's not possible. Also I don't know at what mass things pull into a sphere... I think that mass is well over that limit, but again I'm not sure. And then there is whether or not he could stay on the surface of the planet and again...I don't know.

Superman were to move at the speed of light superman would have to bend his flight pattern. It will vaporize him if he goes straight at the speed of light, but if he were to go in a zip zag at the speed of light he wouldn't. From are perspective he is going straight but in science he is actually zig zagging at light speed.

Light Travels has you all know Physics 101 at

Superman and Flash move at this speed differently , Superman its threw flight not running Superman cannot run at that speed

Flash can but with flash it is very very very dangerous him moving at that speed around people would cause the whole of central city or Pennsylvania to explode.

Superman flies at that speed but its still dangerous even for him cause him punching someone at the speed of light pretty much vaporizes a person.

Flash does that mass infinity punch he will vaporize that person also.

If these two characters moved at the speed of light time stops and there basically running or flying for superman when time as halted. Like if i were to move at light speed from a person looking at me lets say i went to get a apple from mexico that person looking at me in my location when i tell them i will move at light speed basically saw the apple pop into my hand.

Flash in Kingdom Come storyline was basically omnipresent or near omnipresent. I do like that its separate between two characters one moves at the speed of light thru flight another thru foot.

@drudox19: Light speed is a bit weird. If you were to run around at light speed it would take several seconds and light would still reflect off you. Every thing around you would seem to "stop" and no time would pass for you, but from someone watching you's point of view it would take several second and you would appear to run off where ever you are going with multiple images blurring together due to all images traveling to you at light speed... so you'd see a streak around the world for those several seconds.

An apple wouldn't just pop into existence from your perspective. Flash can actually move faster than light which means he can travel back in time and if he did that then you could make it so an apple appears to just pop into his hand.

Flash also doesn't run at high speeds. rather he controls speed... or time in general sorta. Because he stops time light doesn't move and thus he can make an apple appear to pop in his hand ^.^ This also is why he doesn't have to worry about mass, because he's not really going at super speeds

@durakken: Yes indeed, but in real life wouldn't any of these characters moving at light speed on earth be very devastating to things around them or no?

@drudox19: Flash no, simply because the way is power works. Though I suppose it would depend on how he does it.

Superman on the other hand ... maybe. The problem is the mass + amount of time to effect. I don't know what whether they'd be in the area long enough for the effects to propagate (i think they propagate a light speed so 1/4 the earth would be effected ^.^), but as something approaches light speed they approach infinite mass and because they approach infinite mass it would attract stuff to it... but assuming you're going around the earth i'd think the force would balance itself out quick enough that it wouldn't matter... not sure about lesser distances...

@durakken:

So it's not possible to be as big as a normal human in terms of height, width and overall shape but have a mass of a billion kilograms?

@tjsh96: I doubt it. The reason planets are sphere is because of their mass and gravity. I don't know if this is an absolute or not though, but it seems to me that any being with enough strength to hold a human form under X weight it would require that they be of a higher weight, which would be the idea of singularity or runaway... that as you move towards X goal the requirements become ever more impossible to reach.

@durakken: So do you know the minimum height and width a person would have to be to have a mass of a billion kilograms? And also, could a person have a mass of a billion kilograms (and therefore be really big) but still have the shape of a human?

@tjsh96: It depends on a lot of factors that I really don't know...

Muscles any longer/bigger than ours starts to drop strength quickly so while you might be able to get a very large human you'd have problems with muscles.

We're warm blooded and that's a lot of area to keep warm which means you are going to needs something that is able to produce a ton of heat... perhaps even hotter than the Earth's core.

The biggest thing to maintaining any form would be, I think, that to get a human form you'd have to equalize the gravity pulling in with internal pressure pushing out... which is what our body does anyways... At base you'd have to do this so it's a matter of can you get big enough to keep pressure, at least, below 647 K and 22.064 MPa because at that point Water, which is what 75% of the body is made of turns into liquid-gas form and that probably wouldn't work for humans. If you did a direct scale up...465.4 times (22.064 MPa / 14PSI) bigger would be the maximum... 2,792.4 feet... just barely over a mile in height and that would only get you 102,388 lbs. We know you have to maintain this measure... roughly below it so to keep the internal pressure below this point while weighing much more you'd have to basically do (275,000,000,000 / 102,388) * 2,792.4 = 7,500,000,000 feet tall...or 1420454.545455 miles tall or... 2,286,000 Kilometers tall which is about 190% the mean diameter of the Sun...

That's just a guess off of the line of reasoning of needing to maintain pressure under that point... You'd have to be at least that big to maintain the shape of the human body... sure it still wouldn't work.

@durakken:

Is there a limit as to how tall and big a person can get while still having a human-shape or would you have to be a different shape to be bigger after a while?

Also, is there a limit as to how dense something can be?

@tjsh96: Yes there is a limit to how dense anything can be. I don't know the math to that and i tried to look it up but couldn't find anything. There is a limit to what our body itself supports and it's something like 7 foot. To the form... you have to scale up to lower density if you can't change material and you still want form. To keep form and change materials that depends on the materials... and I don't know what you could use.

The basic rule to maintain a shape is that the internal pressure has to at the very minimum equalize the gravitational force that it exerts as well as anything that presses down on you. To do that you can lower density which is done by scaling up if you want to maintain a given mass.

These questions are waaay outside of what i or most people can answer. You should find a Xenobiologist who studies and speculates this stuff.

at the OP: Yes...sort of. A normal mass human would have no possible way of generating the power needed to lift even a less-super amount of mass. There's a limit to biology (ie: it's dumb to propose a human having "the strength of an ant" (~50x weight lifted) because that relies on the physics of being tiny & having an exo-skeleton). More likely, any human sized character is making the giant weight less massive (through mental manipulation).

It's possible for a mass the size of a person (I won't say a person - b\c it wouldn't be a biological thing) to be insanely dense. Something composed solely of neutrons (as opposed to them + protons & elections) would be insanely dense. There's no repelling going on ( + protons vs - electrons) so all the atoms can be placed right next to each other. (Most material's volume is empty space, because of the atomic repelling going on).

Example: The densest element is Osmium at about 22.6 gram/cubic-cm. A matter of pure neutrons could be about 400,000,000,000,000 g/ccm - almost 17.7 trillion times as dense (which is about 394 thousand tons per every cubic centimeter. Which roughly for a ~154lb person is 27,557,782,772,800 tons or 27.5 trillion tons. Not quite quintillions (18 zeroes) but still insanely heavy). To put this in a different perspective, the minimum-sized MLB baseball (made of only neutrons) would weigh around 80,011,944,000 or 80 billion, tons. Further perspective, the estimated total mass of all humans (when the population was 6.5 billion) is only 415,827,258 (or 415.8 hundred thousand) tons. 1.06 cubic centimeters of neutron-mass would weigh more than the entire human population of the planet.

And just to throw it out, in my skimming I saw the Infinite Mass Punch mentioned & just thought I'd share (since I learned it here first - forgot who to credit though, sorry) that your mass does not increase as you reach light-speed. Your relative/observed mass is what increased (what an observer would measure it as), but your own mass is not increasing, so for calculating force you'd use Flash/Superman's normal mass times their speed/acceleration.

@lightsout:

But is there a limit as to how dense a biological organism can be? Like Superman? Is it possible for an organism to be exactly like us in-terms of it's shape, height, width and body-makeup but be so dense that the organism (he or she) has as much mass, or more mass than the entire planet-Earth?

Also, is there a limit as to how tall and wide a person can become whilst still maintaining the same shape as a human?

@tjsh96: No. A "person" made of the densest material possible (in my example) wasn't more massive than the earth, so no biological organism can be that dense.

That second part is a little far-reaching for my "qualifications" (what I've studied), but I'll try to use my best judgement & logic to answer. Would you accept a slightly-off human shape, like a great-ape? If so, I might point towards the now-extinct ape known as Gigantopithecus (or more specifically Gigantopithecus blacki) - often brought up in discussions about Sasquatch. Based on fossils, it's believed to have grown up to 9.8 feet tall & weighed around 1,200 pounds.

If you only want exact human morphology, I would say we've probably already seen it. Given that our record holding tall-people are the victims of mutations that cause them to be that large, I'd say the biggest "stable" human size would be not much more than 7ft tall (like a tall basketball player). At a certain point, it becomes a disadvantage to be so big-tall (as a human) - from an evolutionary perspective. You'd lose the versatility that made us successful.

@lightsout:

Isn't it possible to exceed the density of the densest material possible?

@tjsh96: If you're talking real world physics - the problem with that much mass is gravity. You'd have someone on the Earth with a stronger gravitational force than the Earth itself is able to exert - this would be VERY problematic. Theoretically something doesn't have to be physically large to have high mass - dwarf and neutron stars can be quite small right (on a stellar scale of course) but are extremely dense with particular matter - however for something to have more mass than the Earth, I'm not sure something the size of a human would work. Anyway, Superman is officially around the 220 lbs mark, suggesting his mass is no different to any normal human.

Of course I'm not a physicist or a biologist, so I'm not exactly an expert on the matter.

@lightsout: biggest a person can be - http://youtu.be/DkzQxw16G9w

@wishiwassuperman: Very awesome video - great find! Nice, I was pretty close to that 7'6" :D

@tjsh96: Do you mean more dense than densest element on earth? Yes - the neutron example & artificially made materials. (Though this cannot be organic - just based on what organic things are composed of). Denser than the neutron example? No...lol..that's the densest possible by the laws of physics.

See Man of Steel that was a pretty weak Superman