Spiderman is arguably the most popular cinematic superhero since Superman, and with the imminent release of the DVD of Spiderman 3 on October 30th, what better moment to do a little Spiderman 3 physics? In most successful movie franchises its hard for the sequels to match the original, and in the case of superhero action movies the cohesiveness of plot and dialogue tend to diminish in favor of ever more spectacular (and improbable) action sequences and special effects. Spiderman 3 is no exception to this phenomenon, however, that said, its still really fun to watch and the CG sequences are truly amazing. (check out the Birth of Sandman scene).

Now when analyzing the physics in a superhero fantasy obviously you have to suspend disbelief and accept the basic (impossible) premise of the movie if you want to have any fun. No matter how cool it would be, being bitten by a genetically enhanced super spider cannot change your own genetic structure and give you amazing super powers as it does Peter Parker. But at least hes still humanoid—unlike the Sandman who seems to offer proof that the human soul exists; not just because hes actually a nice guy deep down, but because you can blast him into a million little pieces (of quartz) thus destroying his body altogether, and yet he can reconstitute himself at will.

Allowing for such fantastic elements, it may be instructive to apply some basic Newtonian mechanics to a few of the action sequences in order to analyze Spidermans astonishingly resilient physiology.

We see in the climactic battle scene (scene 43 on the DVD), that Spiderman can survive a fall of 80 stories without a single broken bone, concussion, or presumably any internal bleeding. Using Newtons Second Law (Fnet = ma) lets calculate how much force the ground exerts on Spiderman upon impact.

First of all, for an 80 story plummet, Spidey will be close to his terminal velocity before he crashes. In the case of a skydiver, or a falling Spiderman, 60 m/s (about 130 mi/hr) is a reasonable and conservative estimate.

What forces are acting on our superhero during contact with the ground? There are only two: his weight force acting in a downward direction, and the upward force of the ground. It is the value of the force that the ground exerts on Spidey that we are concerned about. Applying the second law we get:

Fnet = Fground mg = ma

where mg is Spidermans weight (m is his mass which we estimate to be about 70 kg and g is the acceleration due to gravity), and a is the upward acceleration that Spiderman undergoes as the ground brings him to an abrupt halt. Since most collisions with hard objects (like concrete) occur on time scales of approximately one one-hundredth of a second we can calculate Fground as follows:

Fground = mg + ma = mg + mΔv/Δt

= (70 kg)(9.8 m/s2) + (70 kg)(60 m/s)/0.01 sec  ≈ 420,000 Newtons (thats 47 tons!).

Spideys acceleration upon impact is 6000 m/s2 or 600 gs. Since most bones will break if the body experiences forces exceeding 90,000 N, and concussions are pretty much inevitable for normal humans experiencing accelerations greater than 100 gs we can already see that Spiderman has no ordinary skeletal system!

In particular consider Spidermans skull. It must be constructed of some truly phenomenal material. In Spiderman 3 our hero experiences at least a half dozen collisions of his head with various solid objects. In the most violent of these (scene 47), Spidey gets flung into a steel beam with a speed that we estimate to be at least 15 m/s. Since he is brought to a stop by the beam and almost all of the force is exerted directly on his head (in about 0.01 second), the force on his head will be about:

Fnet = ma = mΔv/Δt = (70 kg)(15m/s)/0.01 second = 105,000 N.

According to some experiments, a direct impact to the skull exceeding 873 N will always result in a fracture (in fact the skull may fracture when exposed to forces much less than that), but Spideys skull is capable of withstanding forces at least 120 times as big. I guess when M.J. says Peter is hard-headed she really means it!  —Adam Weiner

Scenario 1: Sport


Sixty miles up, you sit in a chair on the open deck of a small rocket, admiring the stars above, the Earth far, far below. The vacuum beyond your visor is cold, but it would boil your blood if your pressure suit failed. You give your parachute straps a reassuring pat. It's utterly silent. Just you and your fragile body, hovering alone above the Earth. "Space Diver One, you are go," crackles a voice in your ear, and you undo your harness and stand up. There's nothing for it now: You paid a lot of money for this.

Waiting on the ground for the Twin Otter that'll take them up, Blossom DeRego and Jari Kuosma look like a pair of avant-garde performance artists posing as flamingos, with bizarre flaps of scarlet flowing from their armpits and between their legs. The other skydivers, milling about in skintight ninja suits, look like superheroes. Once aloft at 13,500 feet, though, they all pour from the plane's side door, and suddenly there's no doubt who the superheroes are.