- The foundational manga and anime Dragon Ball Z
has made a huge mark on popular culture and on me.
Cell saga is the best saga.
Its influence is everywhere, going Super Saiyan as a meme
has even made it into sports culture.
But is there a way to explain this iconic transformation
without mystical talking dragons
and hyperbolic time chambers?
Oh wait, let's start the episode correctly.
(off-key singing)
In Dragon Ball Z, going Super Saiyan is a way for a fighter
to unlock potential and radically increase
their power level.
But tapping into this reservoir of energy
is explicitly about life forces and ki and the afterlife
in the show and the manga, but I think that science
can make sense of the transformation too.
Let's be scientific about this.
When someone goes Super Saiyan, what do we observe?
Well, when Goku makes the transformation,
his hair stands up and changes color,
and then an aura of energy stuff forms around him,
and electricity crackles randomly throughout the air.
Also when he's in this state,
he can fly and fling energy orbs around.
Is there some theory that we can come up with
that explains all this data?
I think so, and we can start with
what starts in the clouds: lightning.
Now, we don't know how lightning starts,
it could be random cosmic rays,
but we know how lightning gets going.
During a thunderstorm, air in a cloud
is moving around enough that the particles
inside of that cloud are gaining charge and then separating.
They are moving negative charges to the bottom of the cloud,
which is inducing a large positive charge on the surface
of the earth.
Now when this imbalance of charge gets large enough
between these two systems, it is suddenly balanced
by a massive surge of electricity that thunders
to the ground at up to 50% the speed of light,
almost instantaneous.
Oops too far, too far!
So if Saiyans could build up massive electric potential
on the outside of their bodies, like storm clouds do,
then it might explain the random electrical arcs and sparks
that form when they transform.
It's like tiny lightning.
But this could also explain why their hair stands up on end.
Now you probably have heard of static electricity,
but do you know why it's called that and why it
makes you hair go all funny?
I didn't.
If I rub a balloon on the surface of my head,
some of my head's electrons,
which are negatively charged, are gonna wanna jump
onto the balloon, which leaves behind a relatively positive
charge on the surface of my head
just sitting there, statically, static electricity.
My hair is now attracted to the balloon because the charges
are dissimilar but because my hair
has a relatively positive charge,
which is all similar, they want to repel each other,
and the only way to get as far apart as possible
from each other, geometrically speaking, is to separate,
like this.
Kind of Super Saiyan-y.
I mean, it's not quite Goku, but he probably uses product.
Giant electric potentials do a decent job of explaining
electric arcs and spiky hair,
but what about the flashier stuff?
If we think--
- [Narrator] Will Kyle ever finish his episode?
- What?
- [Narrator] Find out next time on BecauseScience!
- I guess we can't do the--
- [Narrator] Last time on BecauseScience,
Kyle started his explanation but will he ever finish?
- Okay, like I was saying,
if we think about going Super Saiyan
like manipulating large electric potentials around the body,
can this explain the auras that we observe
around these characters when they transform?
Now imagine that this Dragon Ball here is covered
in a large amount of charge, say negative charge
like the bottom of a storm cloud.
This creates an electric field around it.
Now, any atoms around the air that have a charge
that come near this electric field
are going to be accelerated by it.
Now if just one of those accelerated particles
has enough energy to hit a neutral atom,
and rip its electrons off to ionize it,
then it will start a chain reaction,
where all the nearby atoms are ionized
going forward.
What's called an electron avalanche,
and it turns air instantaneously from an insulator
to a conductor, allowing current to flow.
This is how lightning propagates and this is what we see
because as these ions recombine with their electrons,
they release energy in the form of photons of light.
But, at smaller scales, before arcs, before sparks form,
these kinds of avalanches can look more like glowing auras.
This glow is called a corona discharge, casual Kamehameha,
and these discharges look pretty close to the auras
that we want.
And they form even better on edges and spikes
because charge tends to gather there,
which Goku and his hair have a lot...
Have a lot of.
And speaking of his hair, coronas can also change color.
Because corona discharges break down air like neon signs do,
if the gases change, then the colors change.
So for example, if Goku with all of his electric potential,
was on a planet with a sodium vapor-rich atmosphere,
his aura through corona discharge would look yellowish.
If it was a mercury vapor-rich atmosphere,
it would look blueish,
and if the atmosphere was full of neon gas,
then it would appear red.
So different atmospheric conditions
combined with the corona discharge
could change the color of Super Saiyan auras,
and by extension their hair
as you looked through those auras.
I know that the auras are more linked to power level
and has nothing to do with the gases that they're in,
but come on, I'm trying my best here.
It's very uncomfortable in weighted clothes.
They are heavy as...
All that's left to explain is Super Saiyan flight
and energy orbs, which is the next topic
that I am going to explain, right now,
if I am not interrupted.
Alright we're good--
- [Narrator] How will Kyle's explanation end?
- Dang it! - Find out next time!
- Why can't it just be one--
- [Narrator] Last time on BecauseScience.
Kyle continued his explanation, but can he science
the last aspects of going Super Saiyan?
(groans)
- I think electrically powered Super Saiyans
has worked as a decent theory so far,
and it works as a way for them to fly too.
If I had a large electric charge over the surface
of my body, it would spread out,
but gather at the points and edges,
and then it would break down the air
along these points and edges in corona discharges
like we talked about.
But because that air is breaking down and ionizing,
some of it is going to have the same charge,
meaning that it's going to be repelled in this process,
which drags surrounding air along with it,
creating an ionic wind.
Boop, if you perfectly direct ionic wind,
you can generate thrust, and you can spin tiny
paper airplanes around.
Or life ionocraft.
Sure the thrust on display here is minuscule,
but that's only because we haven't created
powerful batteries that are very very light.
So, if Super Saiyans could generate millions of volts
of electric potential on the surface of their bodies
and perfectly direct the ionic wind perfectly,
then they could in theory fly.
And this actually fits with what we observe in the show.
When you go Super Saiyan, you create a giant blast of wind
that can even lift other characters up off of the ground.
(yells)
Senzu bean please!
Thank you.
Ugh what, did a cat with a walking stick make this
that lives in the sky and talks?
(groans)
Dragon Ball Z is weird.
The final part of going Super Saiyan,
having access to giant channels or orbs of energy,
might be the easiest to explain.
In between large electric potentials,
the air breaks down in an electron avalanche,
and when that happens, the air goes from
insulator to conductor and current can flow
as long as voltage is being supplied.
Like we talked about, this is how arcs and sparks
and corona discharges form, but what they form
when it's hot and glowy and dangerous
is the fourth state of matter: plasma.
Basically a superheated gas with its electrons
ripped from the nuclei of its atoms.
This could be our blob of energy.
It would still have to be shaped by Super Saiyan powers,
magnetic fields question mark?
But we could in theory use this as a source
of potentially destructive thermal and kinetic energy.
So, how could you go Super Saiyan with science?
Well what I am proposing is that mastering life energy
or ki is really just mastering electric potential,
being able to muster and martial oceans of electric charge
to generate lift from ionic wind,
to create auras and their color from corona discharges,
to get spiky hair and electrical arcs off your body
that make you look all cool from static electricity,
and globs of plasma from the superheated gases
that result from all that other stuff.
All you need to do is throw the switch, because--
- [Narrator] Will Kyle ever finish his episode?
- I just did.
- [Narrator] Can he science going Super Saiyan?
- I think I did okay.
- [Narrator] BecauseScience.
- Exactly.
(upbeat electrosynth music)
Air is a very good insulator, the figure that you can use
is about 10,000 volts to break down one centimeter of air.
So if you've ever seen a spark jump a gap,
like if you rub your feet
and touch a metal object,
if it is an inch long, or 2.54 centimeters,
it's like 30,000 volts that is jumping from your body
into another body.
But because the current isn't that high,
you don't have heart attack, which is good.
Thank you so much for watching Derrick.
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(upbeat music)