I know this is pretty random, but... how the heck does telekinetically boosting a punch work? Seriously, I used to read X-Man, and he'd punch someone with TK BOOSTS!
...
What does that mean? Are his hands surrounded by force fields? Does that make them tougher somehow? Is there like a bounce effect that sends people flying more? If it's just a force field, does he even need the fist? Does he make his arm, and possibly his whole body, move faster? Wouldn't that be a huge strain on his body, roughly equivalent to something forcefully flinging it around?
Seriously, what the crap does "throwing some TK" into a punch mean?! I've been wondering this for years! Do even the writers of the comic know?
I always figured they used TK to make the punch go faster, you know giving there arm a push or something. but that's just me.
ReplyDeleteWell, it could be a couple of different things.
ReplyDelete1- He could be using a telekinetic field to bolster the punch.
2- He could be accelerating his arm, admittedly dangerous, but not exactly that bad.
3- (This one only matters because you never said WHO you are talking about) If his TK is body-originating, as opposed to free-form, then the acceleration of his arm might be literally 'throwing' the TK further.
4- Telekinesis holding them in place would make the punch cause much greater damage.
5- TK effects delivered via the punch could damage or scramble internal organs.
Really, I could keep doing this all day- If someone asks, I can probably throw another 10 explanations out with no prep-- TK is versatile stuff.
IMHO, it's basically like casting a "Bigby's Punching Fist" spell, with the otherwise crippling requirement of "you have to touch opponent to cast" and "your arm is your wand." Otherwise, artificially making your arm/fist faster is a great way to pull muscles or dislocate joints, if it was done IRL.
ReplyDeleteIn Newtonian physics, Force = Mass * Acceleration
ReplyDeleteIn Telekinetic Newtonian physics, Force = Mass * Acceleration * TK Factor, where TK Factor is the amount of additional power provided (or removed, if the factor is less than 1) by telekinetic forces. Simple, really.
I figure they increase the speed of the hit by projecting another force out, accelerating away from their fist.
ReplyDeleteActually, in some martial arts you use your other arm to increase your punch's strength, so doing it properly with TK isn't really that farfetched.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the "punching" is simply a "focus" for the telekinetic attack so that they can do it more effectively. The momentum of the arm never enters into the equation so much as the arm's motion serving to "direct" the telekinetic force. Just a theory.
ReplyDeleteIf it was a force field that nullified resistance it could be devastating. Normally energy from a punch would be transfered from the fist to the body. With a force field, the body would receive the force, but the fist would not lose any.
ReplyDeleteSo, doing a little googling, a pro boxer's fist can move up to 32mph. Instead of a fist, let's use a metal beam attached to a car moving at 32mph. A lot more damaging hmm?
X-man came out about 5 years after I stopped collecting comics the first time. I really don't know how powerful his TK punch was in the comic.
I've always thought it was just pushing the arm/fist faster using TK forces -- by proper and precise manipulation of not only the fist, but the muscles and everything, the motion can be augmented so that all parts are accelerated in a non-destructive fashion.
ReplyDeleteNaturally, the first question is, "if the fist is moving faster, won't that hurt the fist more due to the equal/opposite aspect of the interaction?" TK by it's very nature has some sort of dampening of the equal and opposite reaction to the forces that it produces (which is what lets it work), but presumably if the force were *distributed* throughout the fist (including the foremost contacting layer of skin & bone), the effect would be lessened.
The other possibility is the concept of a synchronized telekinetic strike, using the point of contact as the focal point of the TK energy. Presumably, TK works via manipulation of energy and mass, producing forces that can move a target object. If one were to focus telekinetic effort (force) onto the relatively small area on the target where their striking force was being applied (where the punch connects with the opponent), you get both forces acting on the same target mass, providing the combined acceleration on the target (sending them flying, for instance) while only causing the same amount (or even less) of strain on the fist as a normal connecting punch would. In this scenario, especially with "powerful" psychics (where their psychic forces far outweigh their physical forces), it's likely that the fist would be used primarily as a focal mechanism (providing a specific area for the psychic to focus the TK, maximizing the pain).
It really just depends on the physics of your canon. I haven't been entirely clear, I'm sure (kinda tired), but I've actually thought about this a lot -- in fact, I rolled some homebrew GURPS psychic/TK rules (the stock ones didn't satisfy me as a physicist), as well as some awesome gravity control ones a while back.
When someone says "TK Punch" what I picture is someone "Wrapping" TK energy around there arm and then pushing that energy forward when the fist makes contact with the target... Of course, I also picture TK as "free" and not tied to the body, so no danger to the arm/fist being used as the Energy was never actually putting pressure on it in the first place...
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with X-Men, so the first thing I thought of on reading the title of this post was the following:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY3qF5SGlF0
*Cookies for reference get
I like Bryan's Science, but lets expland on it with simplicity. Your TK can lift say 5 tons. That 5 tons is added to the mass of the swing going at the same acceleration which, in turn, greatly increases the resulting force of the blow. Do with the force what you will, increase the damage or the knockback, that part is up to special effects.
ReplyDeleteAh, Contact Telekinesis.
ReplyDeleteHuh.
Basically, nobody KNOWS what energy really is.
We know that we can create kinetic energy in a conductor by applying a magnetic field.
We know we can create kinetic energy by causing muscle fibers to chemically contract.
We know that two masses in free space are drawn together by gravity, pulling kinetic energy out of 'somewhere' until they go bang.
But "Pure Energy" ?
No idea what it actually IS.
(It's not atomic level Brownian motion, either. You could have a perfectly cold object moving through free space just as well as a hot object.)
Whatever kinetic energy is, it must exist at sub-atomic levels.
So if someone had the ability, say, to psychically convert quarks directly into kinetic energy at the point of contact, you could knock somebody flat on their butt by touching them with a feather.
And you wouldn't get much force feedback, as it would be THEIR mass being converted into energy.
No force would be transferred, so Newton has nothing to do with it.
Nor would it use that much mass. So little would be converted you'd never notice without a Geiger counter handy.
With that little trick you could punch right through a brick wall.
Basically you touch the wall and the bricks fling THEMSELVES away from you.
And you could fly by converting the mass in your shoes into kinetic energy. There's SO much energy in mass, your shoes wouldn't wear out for centuries.
I have no idea what KE actually IS, but one possible shortcut would be to convert the quarks into neutrinos.
The neutrino is supposed to be a "massless" particle.
Legions of them flood through us every second and we never notice.
It's hard to pick them up on a detector without having a big swimming pool at the bottom of a coal mine, lined with photodetectors.
Every six months, a neutrino should hit an atom in the water and give off a photon.
But they do carry energy.
If you could create a stream of neutrinos going THAT way, you would be kicked the OTHER way.
can you post another post please i just love your blog! and the story line is getting awesome thanks for being my fave webcomic artist!
ReplyDeleteCould be that he compresses the space between him and the opponent, adding extra momentum if done properly.
ReplyDeleteI dunno if anyone's said this already cause I've been drinkin. But TK Boost to me always meant that it damaged the psyche or soul of the one punched. As well as the physical dmg.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Love the comic.