This episode of Because Science
is sponsored by The Science of Mortal Kombat.
This is why Link is stronger than most superheroes.
The Legend of Zelda's Link is one of
gaming's most iconic characters.
He's the hero of time, banisher of evil,
and a smasher of pots, (clay pot shatters)
but despite all of his super heroic efforts
through the decades,
Link, is never really portrayed with any of the
super powers you might expect him to have,
like super strength.
Thanks to video game logic, though,
and what we can figure out with physics
I think that Link must be way stronger than we think,
stronger than most superheroes.
(upbeat music)
(evil laugh)
If we wanna compare or calculate
the strengths of fictional characters,
we should start with the easiest possible determination
of strength that we could apply to all of them.
And I think that the simplest way
to get at the base strength of a character like Link,
is to estimate the kinds of forces
that that character can apply to an object,
whether that force comes from a simple lift or an impact.
(coins jingle) Aw, 20, sick.
So all we have to do is find some scenarios
that showcase Link's strength, use some basic equations,
and make some really good assumptions
and then see what we get.
(yells)
Let's start with an example from the most recent
Legend of Zelda game, Breath of the Wild.
In the game, there's a very cool ability called stasis,
(glass shatters)
which allows you to freeze objects in space and time
(sword slashes)
as you smash them and it's only when the stasis runs out
(crashes)
that all those built up forces are imparted to the object.
(shards clatter)
Gamers who try to complete Breath of the Wild
as quickly as possible, use stasis to great affect,
launching themselves with built up forces
over ridiculous distances
and I think that one of these launches,
(glass shatters)
could give us an idea of just how strong Link might be.
W-W-W-What, what just happened?
If we simplify a Breath of the Wild Link launch greatly,
then we have a classic case of projectile motion.
To understand where we get
the equations for projectile motion,
we are now gonna go through
the complete mathematical derivation
(loud beeping)
for all these equations in excruciating detail.
What?
(fast clicking)
Okay, fine, fine, you're right.
What we are actually more concerned with
are all the values that we're gonna have to estimate
from the height of Link, to the angle of launch,
to the initial velocity of launch,
to the radius and therefore volume of the boulder.
All of which we are gonna now go through
in excruciating detail.
(loud beeping)
What?
(fast clicking)
Okay, fine, I get it, dang.
(loud beeping)
We, we just spoke.
(beep)
Breath of the Wild launches are a little tricky
because there's no acceleration involved,
which wouldn't happen in real life
and there are multiple strikes
and there's a bomb in play
but estimating some values
that I don't want to bore you with,
for a boy to launch a boulder that's twice as tall as he is
through the air for multiple seconds and hundreds of feet,
it would take a super heroic amount of force.
If each of Link's stasis strikes are the same,
then each one might impart almost two million Newtons,
or 400,000 pounds of force.
If it's weight of our largest whales,
then a single Breath of the Wild strike from Link,
would have as much force behind it
as the weight of Jabu-Jabu.
And just think of how big a pot you could smash
with this kind of force.
(clay pot shatters)
These forces alone would launch Link
into the realm of superheroes
but for Link's greatest feat of strength,
we have to go back almost 20 years.
(bottle whistles)
Whoa, there we go, yep, good enough.
(chimes tinkle)
In the classic Legend of Zelda game, Ocarina of Time,
there are exactly two examples
of Link's deceivingly immense strength
that have stuck with me since I was a kid first playing it.
It's when Link finally gets
the golden gauntlets and does this.
This kind of strength is ludicrous and we can prove it.
To me, the pillar thing that you throw
inside and outside of Ganon's castle,
looks like a giant hexagonal prism
and it's hard to tell looking back at the game footage,
and this isn't to scale,
but the prism looks to be about four Link's tall
and the pyramid parts on top and bottom
look to be about half a Link tall
and the edges of the prism look to be
maybe a single Link wide.
(laughing)
I said single, not tingle.
No one wants a map.
You make me uncomfortable.
And everyone.
If adult Link is around 1.7 meters tall,
you can measure his height
in the Seaside Laboratory if you're clever,
then we can use that value to get the volume
of the hexagonal prism that he throws.
Do that and we get a volume for the pillar
of 55 cubic meters.
This would be the equivalent of thousands
(bubbles popping)
and thousands of pots.
If each one of those pots held a few liters of volume.
(screaming and clay pots breaking)
Sorry, I just gotta get them root-roots.
If we then take the volume of the pillar
and multiple it by the density
of whatever the pillar is made out of,
it looks to me like some kind of granite,
we can get the amount of mass that Link can dead lift.
Do that and you get almost 150,000 kilograms,
again, interestingly almost the mass of an entire Jabu-Jabu,
if that fish-boy is blue whale-sized.
When Link picks up those pillars in Ocarina of Time,
he is breaking the world deadlift record
for a human by a factor of 250
and this isn't even Link at full power.
Link has to be stronger than
some of the most famous superheroes
because he lifts and throws giant pieces of stone
like they're as light as deku nuts.
(yelling)
Thanks to scientists like Isaac Newton,
we know that it takes more force
to accelerate an object more quickly.
For example, it takes less force for me
to just raise this pot up off the ground,
basically just fighting its weight,
than it does for me to launch it into the air.
For a more human example,
the world dead lifting record is over 1,000 pounds
but the world record for the heaviest keg
that you can throw up over behind your head,
just like Link throws that pillar,
is under 60 pounds.
A lot less.
So if Link is throwing hundreds of thousands of pounds
up over his head like it's nothing,
then he is making the mountain here, look like a molehill.
(glass shatters)
Looking again at the Ocarina of Time toss,
we can use the same kinds of projectile motion equations
that we did for the Breath of the Wild boulder.
All we have to do is get the same
kinds of values that we're looking for,
like angle of flight and time of flight.
Basically we want to know how much force
it will take to give the initial velocity required
to carry the object on its projectile-like path.
If our estimations and calculations are on the right track,
in this scene in Ocarina of Time,
Link is applying maybe 18 million Newtons of force
or four million pounds of force to the pillar in question.
This is rocket launch levels of strong.
If this is the case, then Link has more lifting power
than the Space-X Falcon Heavy rocket.
If Jabu-Jabu is the weight of a blue whale,
he can pick him up and toss him
the same distance as the pillar in question.
He could just, at the end of the game,
grab Ganon by the tail
and toss him out of Hyrule Castle for good.
Whoo, give me a pot to break!
(clay pot shatters)
As many super heroes are defined by their strength,
it's not that hard to find hard values
for their lifting capabilities,
just like we calculated for Link,
sprinkled throughout their various calamity cannons.
(glass shatters)
For whatever reason, many superheroes
strength values are stated in tons.
We calculated that Link could lift and throw 150 tons,
each ton being 1,000 kilograms.
And if that's the case,
all other things being equal,
just looking at strength,
Link is canonically stronger than Batman,
(clay pot shatters)
stronger than Captain America,
(clay pot shatters)
stronger than Bane,
(clay pot shatters)
stronger than Ultron,
and stronger than Spiderman.
In fact, according to the sources that I could find,
this value would make Link stronger than most superheroes.
Isn't video game logic fun?
So a single feat over--
(laughs)
Single.
A single feat over 20 years ago,
puts Link in the realm of superhero class strength.
Sure this strength isn't all his own,
he needs the golden gauntlets,
but that's fine.
Ironman needs his suit and Superman needs the Sun.
He may be just a kid but don't count Link out
because in the right situation, he would absolutely hy-rule.
Because Science.
(horn blows)
Come on, take me back to a super time.
(hard breaths blow)
This is the darkest timeline.
(upbeat game music)
When Link lifts that pillar,
that is impressive definitely
but I did one other calculation
that I didn't want to include for whatever reason,
that if you had that kind of force, 150 tons,
and you applied that as a force behind the master sword,
on the edge of the master sword,
the amount of pressure that would be there,
would be more than the pressure at the center of the Earth.
Which means that Link, if he stabbed anything,
it would go through basically anything.
Which would make your fight with Ganon a lot shorter.
Oh you hit, you hit it out of my hand
and I can only use the Megaton Hammer.
Oh no, I'm gonna stab through your face.
I'm Kyle Hill.
Join me as we test fatalities, brutalities,
and realities in the Science of Mortal Kombat.
(thunder crashes)
(dramatic music)
Thank you so much for watching Magaly.
If you want more of me,
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Sometimes I use them and they're very helpful to me.
The big announcement that I have though is
have you checked out the first episode of
The Science of Mortal Kombat?
Whoa, we did an entire six episode series
all about fatalities and moves that you can find
in The History of Mortal Kombat
and it's a lot of premium science.
You're gonna wanna check it out right here on this channel.
Go back.
Watch it.
(electronic game music)