Polite Dissent

20 Responses to “ Flash #240: “Speed of Light” versus “Speed of Thought” ”

1. Jim
   May 27th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
   

   I don’t comment often, but I appreciate your breakdowns. This sort of thing really interests me and more often than not I don’t know enough to figure it out.

2. Oliver Townshend
   May 27th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
   

   You accept that Flash can be faster than light, but quibble about the speed of thought? Picky picky picky. Personally I’d just assume that Grodd can think faster than light, i.e. backwards.

3. bjza
   May 28th, 2008 at 1:15 am
   

   A fine example of the speed of plot.

4. Keith
   May 28th, 2008 at 7:17 am
   

   If he’s moving faster than light, how does the Flash SEE anything? Technically, all he should see is a fatally hot point of blue radiation, which would probably kill him instantly. Also, his apparent mass should be enormous - hitting anything at that speed should kill him, his enemy, and probably everyone in the city where they are fighting. After the tidal effect ripped apart the Earth, that is.

5. arkonbey
   May 28th, 2008 at 7:40 am
   

   BJZA: ha!

   Funny, I’ll suspend my disbelief that a guy can run faster than the speed of sound, but get miffed that he can supposedly go faster than light. NOTHING is faster than light, it’s the universal speed limit.

   Of course, if he could go at LEAST as fast as light, what would the physiological effects be of a living being traveling at that speed without a vessel? Or the temporal effects? Or the mental effects?

6. Karl Withakay
   May 28th, 2008 at 8:36 am
   

   Since the Flash moves faster than the speed of light, he would actually reach Grodd before he made his move, since he would be traveling back in time.

   It’s interesting to note that Special relativity doesn’t prevent something from traveling faster than light, only from traveling at the speed of light, which would be necessary to transition through from sub-light velocity. Faster than light particles are allowed by special relativity, but lead to physical absurdities like speed increasing as energy decreases, leading to infinite velocity.

7. Sallyp
   May 28th, 2008 at 10:32 am
   

   Wait, is this Barry or Wally? Barry would know all about the speed of light and such, because Barry actually had a brain. Wally is a little lighter in the mental department.

8. Dr Archeville
   May 28th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
   

   > Funny, I’ll suspend my disbelief that a guy can run faster than
   > the speed of sound, but get miffed that he can supposedly
   > go faster than light. NOTHING is faster than light, it’s the
   > universal speed limit.

   Tachyons do.

   Maybe.

9. Mark
   May 28th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
   

   It takes four years to get to Alpha Centauri traveling at the speed of light. How long does it take to think about being at Alpha Centauri? Under a second. Case closed.

   Of course, narrow-minded critics will whine that when traveling by thought, you don’t actually go anyplace. Well, boo-hoo, but as Bill Gates would say, that’s a feature, not a bug. If you prefer to travel WITHOUT thought go right ahead, but you won’t be able to tell anyone what you saw when you get back so what’s the point?

   ;-)

10. Mr. B
    May 28th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
    

    arkonbey
    May 28th, 2008 at 7:40 am

    > Funny, I’ll suspend my disbelief that a guy can run faster than
    > the speed of sound, but get miffed that he can supposedly
    > go faster than light. NOTHING is faster than light, it’s the
    > universal speed limit.
    ———————————————————-
    Dr Archeville
    May 28th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

    Tachyons do.

    Maybe.

    ——————————————————–
    Mr. B

    I was about to post tachyons theortically surpas light speed, but Dr Archeville beat me to the punch. I recall that tachyons go so fast, that they can get in front of themselves. That just blows my mind! I like to think of tachyons as the Dunkin’ Donuts guy-(guy that makes the donuts commercial). Somehow they travel so fast, they will exist in two different spaces at the exact same moment.

    (Dunkin’ Donuts commercial)
    It’s Time to Make the Donuts (Classic)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY0Ecn393qI

11. mike.
    May 28th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
    

    But are either of these faster than the speed of night? I ask only because once upon a time there was light in my life, but now there’s only love in the dark.

12. Scott
    May 28th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
    Official Comment

    mike.

    Could be worse. You could be living in a powder keg and giving off sparks

13. Andy D.
    May 28th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
    

    Woo! Credited!

    I like the fact that all of the nay-sayers can be silenced with two simple words: Speed Force. The SF helps all speedsters go fast and not cause themselves any harm. In the DCU. Quicksilver in the Marvel U, however, is something entirely different…

14. Sean Duggan
    May 28th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
    

    I was about to say that I was under the impression that the Speed Force meant that the Flash was, to some degree, dimensionally shifted. Just like the Star Trek explanation, at high speeds, he shifts into a parallel dimension where either the speed of light is higher or relativity doesn’t apply (I can’t remember which it is). Supposedly, the classic Starfleet symbol is actually a depiction of this, with the upper part of the arc representing how, as speed increases, so does mass and therefore it bottoms out. The lower arc represents the “warp universe” where the rules work differently. Or maybe it’s the other way around… it was in one of the books.

    And darn you, mike… not only do I have the song going through my head, I have various versions from karaoke running through my head. The only song which attracts more off-key singing is American Pie. Curse my near-perfect aural recall…

15. Seth Finkelstein
    May 28th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
    

    For the story-conceit, I’d accept Flash can go at light speed without major collateral relativistic effects. Maybe he turns himself into something like photons, as has been suggested in some stories. But once that rule has been established, he should be near-unbeatable. Even at 1/10th the speed of light, he’s moving faster than any non-speedster can react.

    I think the only way to save this would be to say that Grodd can set up something that works as soon as the Flash comes within range, so it doesn’t matter how fast the Flash is moving, IF Grodd is devoting his attention to that mental capture-field (and Grodd can’t just do it all the time because it takes too much attention to maintain that sort of mental force field continuously).

    How far is Grodd’s mental range anyway? Couldn’t a good rifle-shot take him out?

16. Wriphe
    May 29th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
    

    Just because Flash CAN run past light speed doesn’t mean that he always DOES run past light speed. Even with the Speed Force, it was my understanding that Flash surpassing the sound barrier still caused a sonic boom and disruptions to the physical environment around him. (The Speed Force protects Flash from friction, etc., but does not protect the world from the Flash.) Therefore, in especially densly poulated areas, Flash has to be careful about when and where he maximized his speed. (As with all great power, yada, yada, yada.) Perhaps as Flash “runs across town,” he is regulating his own speed in order to prevent damage to the urban development and population? Two hundred-fifty mph is still pretty darn fast on a city street.

    Not to mention the fact that if Flash were moving at the functionally invisible speed of light when he hits Grodd as pictured, there would be very little Grodd left. After all, if a 40g rifle bullet can be so fatal travelling at speeds around 1900 mph, consider the damage of a fist weighing 400g traveling at speeds exceeding 670,00,000 mph.

17. james
    May 31st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
    

    Thanks for this excellent post. People often jump to the conclusion that the speed of thought is much faster than it really is. Heck, it’s basically one-third the speed of sound. BTW: I’ve added you to my blogroll at http://defendersfan.blogspot.com

18. M
    June 1st, 2008 at 8:16 pm
    

    Hypothetical speed of thought (psionic energy) is irrelevant to the problem, Grodd’s reaction time is limited by the speed of neural signaling. Flash just has to see Grodd before Grodd has a chance to react.

19. SN
    January 15th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
    

    Suffice to say that if Flash can travel faster than light, he must _always_ do so. The light barrier works both ways: sub-lightspeed objects can never go as fast as light (or faster), and anything that can travel faster than light can never go as slow as light (or slower).

    Oliver Townshend: “Personally I’d just assume that Grodd can think faster than light, i.e. backwards.” Backwards thinking? Wouldn’t that usually be considered a handicap? ;)

    Of course, the scientific worries about Flash travelling so fast go out the window, since it’s a comic. The fact remains that the thought vs. light issue _is_ to be criticised.

    And bjza and Keith are completely right (about speed of plot and fatality of massive velocity respectively).

20. Steve York
    February 28th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
    

    I just discovered this blog, and I’m having a lot of fun poking around.

    I’m speaking here as a writer, and as one who has always wanted to try writing comics (and though I’ve professionally written most every other form of fiction, it just has has never happened), and as one who has always considered the Flash a favorite character…

    I always though it would be fun to tackle the Flash as a writer, and try to come up with logical story that revolved around his abilities in a LOGICAL way.

    See, that’s the distinction that I think some of the commenters here fail to make. Of COURSE most super-powers are scientifically impossible when you really think about them. But “possible” means something different than “logical.”

    Take for example fantasy. As a writer, and as a reader, I like fantasy that’s internally consistent and logical. Bottom line is, I like magic that isn’t merely a matter of waving hands and shouting incantations. I like it to have a cost or energy requirement that is respected in the course of the story. In other words, some form of conservation of energy applies.

    Maybe it comes from energy that’s a natural resource that can be depleted, of it comes from the magic user’s personal energy and makes them tired (levitating a bowling ball across the room uses the same amount of energy as just carrying it), or it requires some form of life energy that can somehow be drained, stored, and moved around, or it exacts some psychic cost (for instance, it causes corruption of the spirit, or madness, or some combination of the two, a system I was forced to use in a trilogy of books, and wasn’t entirely satisfied with).

    I hate magic that’s “free,” as I don’t think it makes for very interesting stories. It’s either about who has the bigger ooga-booga, or the non-magic heroes sneak up on the magical villain when he isn’t looking.

    I also like magic with rules. If you can do anything (though probably you don’t have enough energy anyway, see above) then why didn’t you DO anything you wanted back on page one and make all right with the world (from your viewpoint, anyway)? So put some limitations on what you can do, and try to keep it straight.

    Okay, example. Fantasy world with dragons. Surly they can’t fly with those tiny wings? Yes they can, because they’re magic. You could then say that they have hollow bones, and high metabolisms, and eat lots of meat, and the magic just makes those little wings as effective as huge ones.

    But lets say the wings are mainly for control, and most of the lift comes from magic, and that magic comes from eating virgins, virgins having much magical ooga-booga.

    So when a character asks why the dragon in the royal zoo doesn’t just fly over the wall of his enclosure and escape, the keeper explains, “we feed him lots of meat, but without a virgin in his diet once a month or so, he’s stuck. We’re VERY careful about who we let near the dragon pen.”

    You could expand on this line of reasoning. For instance, it would then be reasonable to accept that virgin sacrifice would be useful in other kinds of magic not involving dragons.

    Which is logical, consistent, and explains certain traditional aspects of dragon behavior. But none of it is POSSIBLE or scientific.

    And finally (and this gets back to to point of this post, and I think this wonderful blog in general), you should know where the subtle line is where magic leaves off and the real world takes over. If fact, the more fantastic you get, the more important (to mind) those real-world things get.

    None of which means that if one of your characters gets bonked on the head, their fingernails should bleed and they should develop sudden flatulence, unless there’s an established magical reason for them to do so. They should get bump, maybe a conclusion, maybe a fractured skull, and (within reason, fiction does get to take some liberties if they can be sneaked past the average reader) the established rules of medicine apply.

    Even if they’re an elf or a troll those rules should probably apply (with adjustments for differing physiology), unless again you’ve got a good story reason, one that can be justified in context.

    So we’re back to the Flash. So, if you’re going to buy that his powers work even remotely the way we’ve seen them in comics for many decades, you’ve got to take some things a s a given:

    The Flash is immune to friction, acceleration, and most other physical effects of speed. His “aura” was established back in the silver age for just this purpose. It’s ooga-booga, but it doesn’t protect him from bullets, for example, so it does have limitations and rules. (I think it’s also established that the aura lets the Flash slip through the air in a way that avoids sonic booms or bystanders being flattened by his shock wave.)

    Where ever the Flash gets the energy from to move that fast, you’ve got to assume it’s part of his power. I love that the TV Flash started the tradition of Flash eating like a pig, but clearly most of the energy comes from somewhere else, not his metabolism and muscles.

    Relativity just doesn’t apply to the Flash. Time dilation, increasing mass as he travels faster, etc. just don’t seem to apply. Maybe it’s that very-useful aura, or the “Speed Force” or those nifty lightning bolts on his ears. They just don’t apply. Give it up.

    How the Flash sees, or hears, or anything else when approaching the speed of light, nobody has explained to my satisfaction. It would be fun to try, but until then, I’ll take it as a given that his speed of travel does not much change the way his senses operate.

    So yeah, the Flash SHOULD be able to take out most of his villains in the first few milliseconds of page one. Mostly you’ve got do dismiss this as weak writing, and this is a prime example, made worse by the dialogue.

    All of which dances around the REAL problem I have with how the Flash has mostly been written since his inception. What IS the speed of thought for the Flash?

    Clearly, when he’s running, some part of his reactions and perceptions have to be moving at superhuman speed, but things are usually written so that the Flash’s mind just completely speeds up to the appropriate level.

    That might be interesting, but if we assume it’s true, then the Flash’s secret power must be “super-patience.”

    Take a standard Flash scenario: “Flash, the only way to save Keystone city is to get a vaccine from Coast City, and we need it in the next ten minutes!” Then the Flash runs to Coast City in ten seconds, picks up the concentrated vaccine, then prepares and administers an injection to every citizen of Keystone inside the time limit.

    But if Flash’s brain speeds up, from his viewpoint, he’s just a guy running from coast to coast. On foot. Non-stop. He isn’t traveling fast at all. Not even motor car speeds. He’s just jogging.

    Even assuming he doesn’t need to eat or sleep or rest, it’s going to take weeks or months from his viewpoint. Alone. Without even any entertainment, unless an iPod or paperback book can be protected by his aura (which they probably can, but you never see Flash carrying such things around).

    Then he has to prep all those thousands of injections, and WALK them to every individual in Keystone, and administer them.

    And that’s one example of the sort of thing Flash seems to do a dozen times a day. By now, the Flash should be a gibbering loon. Also, from his viewpoint, he has to be thousands, maybe millions of years old.

    I don’t buy it. I figure that Flash’s brain and nervous system speed up as he moves faster, but his brain doesn’t do so in a linear fashion, and it’s probably under conscious control.

    So he can think at the speed of light when he needs to pluck bullets out of the air or read an encyclopedia in a second, but he can also alter his perceptions so that from his viewpoint his trip across the country takes minutes or hours at most. I figure the Flash has the equivalent of a fast-forward button on conscious brain, allowing it either to speed up to keep with his reflexes and motor functions, or fall behind to whatever extent he can or wants to get away with it. To put it another way, the Flash can slip in an out of “bullet time” at will.

    (Yes, this opens a whole ‘nother can of worms, about how his slow conscious brain could interface with his super-fast autonomic system, but I think we can write that off to ooga-booga, so long as we’re consistent about it.)

    That makes the Flash more interesting in lots of ways. For instance, it explains how you might be able to trip him in Oklahoma if you do it in a way that outwits his mental “autopilot.” It also means that, unless he wills it, the Flash isn’t thinking any faster than you or I. So if you sneak up behind him when he’s standing on the street and tap him on the shoulder, you’ve got a decent chance of getting in at least one punch before he figures out what’s happening.

    Maybe the clever adversary can even interfere with his fast-forward function, maybe simply by distracting him in some way (flashing lights, or a piercing noise), or maybe with some gadget or magical thingie.

    This makes at least some of his non-speedster adversaries some kind of credible threat, if written correctly.

    In the example given, if the Flash isn’t moving at full speed, it MIGHT even give Grod a chance to get in a lick before Flash can react.

    IF the Flash hasn’t anticipated this, and hasn’t taken precautions. Which is totally blown by the idiot narration box in this panel.

    The trick of writing this sort of thing is to be aware when you’re breaking the rules. In this case, in this one instance anyway, the writer clearly didn’t.

    Ultimately, there’s no defense against dumb dialogue. Neither science or magic can help us there.

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