Stopping Runaway Trains: Superman and the Science of Strength
INTRODUCTION STRONGER THAN STEEL Superman’s strength is legendary He can bend thick steel beams with his bare hands He can lift subway cars airplanes and oil tankers He can even crush diamonds in his fist But if you think amazing feats of strength are limited to the Man of Steel think again Strength is at work just about everywhere you look Take your own body for example Every single move you make from picking up a pencil to carrying a backpack depends on your muscles You have hundreds of muscles in your body and they allow you to move in thousands of different ways Some people train their muscles to be stronger or faster Others teach them to do delicate things such as perform surgery or play the violin But the science of strength is about more than just muscles From powerful animals to strength-boosting technology our world is loaded with examples of incredible strength Get ready to explore how strength plays a part in just about everything we do 4
FACT The very first comic book featuring Superman showcased his incredible strength The cover of the 1938 Action Comics 1 showed him lifting a car above his head 5
SECTION 1 HUMAN STRENGTH Superman gets his strength by absorbing the energy from Earth’s yellow Sun But his muscles still work much like the ones in our bodies What’s a Muscle Muscles are the parts of your body that create movement They either move things inside your body such as blood and food or move the body itself In fact your body has more than 600 muscles They make up roughly 30 to 50 percent of your weight The three main types of muscles are smooth cardiac and skeletal Smooth muscles are also called involuntary muscles Why Because they often move without you telling them to Smooth muscles move food through your intestines push air through your lungs and even help your eyes focus 6
muscle Cardiac muscle Smooth muscle Skeletal Cardiac muscle is very specialized It’s only found in your heart The heart is a muscle that pumps blood throughout your body Just like some smooth muscles it works all by itself with no help from you The three main types of muscle have unique structures to help them do their jobs inside the body The muscles you probably think about most are skeletal muscles These can move push pull and lift Skeletal muscles are voluntary which means they move the way you tell them to They help you walk run throw a ball and turn the pages of this book FACT Eye muscles are the busiest in the body They may move more than 100,000 times a day involuntary done without a person’s control voluntary done on purpose and not by accident 7
