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TED Ed’s new series shows why super powers wouldn’t work in real life
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Well, there goes that dream. TED Ed, the educational arm of the non-profit organisation, has used its storytelling powers to create a series of videos using logic, history and a dash of science to explain exactly why you can’t (and wouldn’t want) to be invisible, able to fly, have super strength or be live forever.
Launched last year, TED Ed combines great animators and designers with amazing teachers to help explain often complex subjects in a way that you don’t need a doctorate to understand. It also offers teachers the ability to remix and adapt videos and provides additional resources and suggested assignments to engage their students. Aimed at younger viewers, their “If superpowers were real” series is put together by Cognitive Media and one of the platform’s top educators, Joy Lin, and features comic-book style illustrations and explanations by James Arnold Taylor, the voice of Fred Flinstone and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s Leonardo.
The videos take students through all the reasons why superpowers, as cool as they seem in movies and comics, really just wouldn’t work. Or, if they did, they’d have consequences you wouldn’t spot in the latest Superman movie. For example, if you were invisible, you’d, um, have to be completely naked at all times and all that skin exposure would make a convenient landing place for dust, making you look like a walking cloud of dirt. Lovely. If light was able to pass through you, it wouldn’t be able to reflect objects in your eye, so you’d be both invisible and blind.
While the videos are aimed at younger viewers, TED Ed is already generating some discussions in the comments section of YouTube about the possible factors they haven’t considered and debates about aspects of the clips. But they do serve to explain the laws of physics, as well as some biology and history in an entertaining way. Wouldn’t you rather learn about Newton’s laws of motion in comic book format?
TED Ed: If superpowers were real
Invisibility
From the progress that has already been made with achieving invisibility to the things you’d never thought would be a problem (if no one could see you, your chances of ending up being mistakenly squished in a car accident are pretty high), this video gives an overview of why life wouldn’t be so great transparent.
Flying
Ah, Newton’s laws, atmospheric pressure and decompression sickness may mess with your dreams for taking off into the skies.
Immortality
Assuming you could live forever, what emotional and physical state would you be in at the end of it all? Not a very good one, it would seem.
Super strength
This video explains how you’d probably end up killing falling damsels in distress and breaking plates more than you would think with super strength.
Super speed
Faster than a speeding bullet? Try managing to run that fast without burning to a crisp from the heat from all the friction you’d generate, or emerging covered in way more bugs than any windshield.
Body mass
Think it’s a simple matter to grow even three times your size? Think again. This video explains all the problems you’d encounter with everything from your colossal weight to your calorie intake to the friction you’d create just by walking.
