So while we were all locked up in quarantine I was being highly productive and motivated waking
up early eating healthy working out everyday just kidding I was snuggling up in a cocoon of
blankets on my bed and watching endless amounts of TV while I was watching my favorite superhero
Barry Allen fighting villains across Central City between eating a pound of nacho cheese and taking
my fifth nap of the day I had a realization the flash is surprisingly scientifically accurate
this channel covers so much real science I thought it might be fun to look at the science going on
behind the scenes of my favorite DC show don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an upload
and let's jump in before we get started I just want to say that this video will include spoilers
going through season three but that was nearly four years ago and chances are if you clicked on
this video you probably already watched the show right off the bat I also want to say that we're
gonna be taking an in-universe perspective so that means we're accepting that speedsters exist
and people can have superpowers one of the first things Barry and the viewer might notice after the
flash acquires this feed is the obvious friction at play now the writers especially in season
one struggle a bit with Barry's speed but in the second episode we have this exchange I'm dealing
with a lot right now look I know you are believe me I'm dealing with it too I've always had a very
simple set of beliefs gravity makes things evolve water makes things wet and up into a few weeks ago
I believe the fastest man could run a mile in four minutes four seconds even with that being
an offhand joke let's do the math one mile is 5280 feet and that means Barry can run about 1,800 feet
per second or about one and a half times the speed of sound although a few episodes later they make
a big deal about Barry having never run faster than the speed of sound how fast would I have
to go factoring in the metals tensile strength estimated dermal thickness atmospheric pressure
you'd have to hit him at approximately Mach 1.1 I've never gone that fast yet despite them being
a little wishy-washy with his powers we'll take this initial speed as Mach 1.5 at those speeds
Barry would encounter a ridiculous amount of drag now we could flash some equations on the
screen but that's a little too Mathieu for this video and said you just need to realize
the drag on an object increases it very quickly as the object speeds up you can experience this
yourself when driving by sticking your hand out the window at 30 miles per hour your hand can
walk nicely throughout the air but double your speed to 60 miles an hour and you'll feel much
more than double the drag as the air tries to rip your arm off your body so if Barry is moving
faster than an f15 how does he not get torn to shreds well the multiverse has a clear way of
getting around that when Barry runs he creates a sort of speed force bubble shield around himself
known as the Speed Force aura that chills him from most of this friction on top of that he
wears a suit designed by the great Cisco Ramon to minimize the friction he experiences you can
see this in the beginning when Barry's first learning to control his powers and his speed
force aura and before he wears Cisco's suit as he runs and catches himself on fire with
this bubble isn't infinitely powerful we can see that when one of Barry's time aberrations races
against zoom so fast his speedo is overpowered and in : Barry is ripped to shreds if you're
wondering his speedster shield is also what keeps him from swallowing every bug as he runs
with his mouth wide open and Gambon sonic booms preventing Windows from shattering as he runs by
at lower speeds then there's the question of very moving faster than the speed of light we're still
using an in-universe perspective but seeing as how basically all of science and history is the
same until people start going back to the past to mess with the timeline looking at you legends
of tomorrow it seems safe to assume the multiverse shares the same basic laws of physics with our own
universe including the speed of light in the flash number 136 at the human race Barry is able to beat
a human teleporter in a race by running faster than the speed of light although in the TV show
Barry seems to be considerably slower with the Tachyon device who was able to run about Mach 13
point to keep in mind the speed of light would be about Mach 1 million despite this hiccup there are
several interesting scenes in season 4 episode 15 the flash time Barry is able to run around while
a nuclear bomb is going off this whole time the nuclear blast only advances tens of feet we know
that the radiation coming off an atomic blast moves at the speed of light and seeing how that
deadly radiation never affected anyone around the blast even non metas like Joe we know that
all of Barry's movements had to be faster than the speed of light it's a little weird to think
about because the flash isn't really running the whole time but he's able to slow down his
surroundings while he moves at his normal speed in effect making them faster than the speed of light
to any bystander now while running faster than the speed of light does seem physics breaking it
actually might fit in with how we think general relativity may work there are handful of papers
on this subject but let me read for you a snippet from a paper published in the journal of classical
and quantum physics it is shown how within the framework of general relativity and without the
introduction of wormholes it is possible to modify space-time in a way that allows
a spaceship to travel at an arbitrarily large speed by a purely local expansion of space-time
behind the spaceship and an opposite contraction in front of it motion faster than the speed of
light as seen by observers outside the disturbed region is possible now this sounds remarkably
like what Barry is doing in this episode using the Speed Force to distort time around him and
allow him to move faster than the speed of light so no physics broken here and using
the Speed Force Barry runs back in time and interacts with himself well it's basically
breaking the number one rule of time-travel if the multiverse consists of branching realities
by going back in time he creates a new reality and there would be no paradox from interacting
with himself even other aspects of the show like snart cold gun or at least theoretically
possible by modern understanding given that the coldest known temperature in the whole universe
was created right here on earth absolute zero the coldest possible temperature is zero Kelvin
or negative 273.15 Celsius and on earth scientists have created temperatures of less than a hundredth
of a degree above that mark just like scientists were able to make a machine that could reach just
above absolute zero a gun could be fashioned to do something similar and all this is public knowledge
who knows if governments are already three steps ahead out there with coal guns freezing baddies
covertly so yeah well most people are just sitting there enjoying the show or getting furious at
Candis patent for ruining the show I was loving the attention to the scientific details there
are some moments when things don't add up like the flashes machspeed being all over the place
but most of those are more minor details that can be chalked up to artistic license with the
storytelling if you want to see another episode on the flash or any other show be sure to let us know
down in the comment section below have a great day and remember there's always more to learn