The Tortoise vs The Hare: comic style

Tortoise: Reed Richards, flying a custom built space craft*

vs

Hare: Superman, flying at peek speed**

Course: First one to reach a star 30 light years away and return to Earth wins.

Stipulations: Race takes place in the real world and real world physics apply.

*Unlimited financial resources are available, Reed's lab is on an island in International waters and therefore exempt from real world laws, treaties, and outside political interests. Current real world technology is his starting point. Space craft must be designed and built from scratch.

**For this thread Superman's alien physiology allows him to achieve and withstand the force of traveling 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999% light speed.

Depends what constitutes "there and back" Reed wins if he opens a singularly effectively closing the distance.

Also if superman begins to accelerate to that speed he will sling shot everything around him making turning around nearly impossible.

Superman gets to travel to the star from the get go? While reed has to design and build a space craft able to sustain a bulk distance of 60 lightyears?
hard to decide, ima going with superman

Reed shouldn't be able to process information (telemetry, random objects crossing his route etc) at speeds approaching light.

Meaning Superman should win this, with ease.

Ofcourse if he's allowed to pre-plot the course and setup some sort of auto-pilot AI that can do that job for him. His prep credentials are such that this would be spite against Superman.

"Real world physics apply"...

So no creating a ship that travel's 100c?

Isn't Supermans very abilities breaking the "real world physics" rule, though? 😉

Well, if we're truly applying "Real World physics", then nobody would be alive to finish this race, both Superman and Reed would die of old age, on their way out.

Lol, tbh this thread failed

Originally posted by janus77
Well, if we're truly applying "Real World physics", then nobody would be alive to finish this race, both Superman and Reed would die of old age, on their way out.

Real World Physics and FTL speed travel are not (to the best of my, limited, knowledge) consonant.

Just because the trip is 60 lightyears, doesn't mean they will be completing it in any where near that 60 years.

It's currently assumed that approaching lightspeed means to take on infinite mass, no? So Superman would be crushed to death my his own body if he went too close to lightspeed.

Same for Reed's ship.

Anyway, this is bizarre and arbitrary nonsense. Reed's prep vs Superman's abilities is a spite contest in favour of Reed.

Originally posted by janus77
Real World Physics and FTL speed travel are not (to the best of my, limited, knowledge) consonant.

Just because the trip is 60 lightyears, doesn't mean they will be completing it in any where near that 60 years.

It's currently assumed that approaching lightspeed means to take on infinite mass, no? So Superman would be crushed to death my his own body if he went too close to lightspeed.

Same for Reed's ship.

Anyway, this is bizarre and arbitrary nonsense. Reed's prep vs Superman's abilities is a spite contest in favour of Reed.

superman would win... reed has to avoid stuff floating in space superman doesnt.. superman can bash reeds ship..reed stranded lol...suns rays would make superman stronger and faster

Real world Physics leans more and more to FTL.

http://rt.com/usa/nasa-warp-engine-light-488/

This is read we are talking about..... If it can be done, he can do it!

Originally posted by cdtm
"Real world physics apply"...

So no creating a ship that travel's 100c?

Isn't Supermans very abilities breaking the "real world physics" rule, though? 😉

edit: to clarify Superman could never contain the required energy in his limited mass form. Could never physically survive moving at his top speeds. He'd be shredded instantly as well as every other inconsistency the very premise of his existence relies on as a comic book character

How is this fair? Superman is restricted to flying at just under lightspeed meaning this is going to take him just over 60 years...

Reed wins this way before Superman even leaves our solar system.

There is no way Reed can win this. RL physics says you can't go FTL, period (or at least you can't go FTL and simultaneously transmit any kind of matter or coherent information, which would be required to meet this challenge).

There is no substance on Earth, let alone one you could make a spacecraft out of, that could survive a quick acceleration to the speed you're letting Superman have here. At most Reed's ship could reach that speed after several years of acceleration, but Superman would already get the lead. I'm assuming you're also letting Superman stop on a dime and turn around immediately after he reaches the destination. However using RL physics, it would take just as much energy to slow down from that speed as it would to reach it in the first place, so about halfway through the trip Reed would have to stop accelerating and start decelerating, making him lag even further behind Superman.

The only chance is if Superman starves to death or something in interstellar space, if he can't get enough sunlight...

Of course if relativistic time dilation applies he would only experience maybe a few hours of travel time. So scratch that too.

Reed doesn't need to actually travel at FTL speeds he just needs to use a warp drive. Which may be possible to make.

Not in the "real world", like the stips say. There's no warp ships in the real world, yet. 😉

If he meant Reed gets to keep his super tech, whether or not the "real life physics" support such tech in "the real world" (And at this point, we're really just guessing.), then it becomes a spite thread.

Well that's the thing isn't it. It hasn't been made yet. But, with our current understanding of physics, it may be possible. In fact, certain theories suggest that it is possible. By contrast moving at FTL speeds is impossible according to our current theories and laws.

Originally posted by cdtm
Not in the "real world", like the stips say. There's no warp ships in the real world, yet. 😉

If he meant Reed gets to keep his super tech, whether or not the "real life physics" support such tech in "the real world" (And at this point, we're really just guessing.), then it becomes a spite thread.

It's not possible. Every theoretical model for such a device always comes up against a limitation - like creating a warp bubble to travel 1 light-year away would take 1 year before you could even start, or moving it to FTL would subject everything inside to infinitely intense radiation that would destroy it.

Granted there might be a workaround, but for the purposes of this thread "real life physics" means "the understanding of real life physics possessed by contemporary real life scientists" and according to that, it's impossible.