Catching a Bullet

[broberfett]

Superman does all sorts of amazing things like catching a bullet. How fast would you have to move to catch a bullet? You would have to react before the bullet could travel to the intended target and your hand would have to move to intercept and catch the bullet from the side. So what is the fastest moving object that a person could catch? That could be used as a comparison.

 

[Sephiroth]

well, the mythbusters made an arrow-catching rig and human reaction topped out at about 44mph, where a bullet can move anywhere between 800-3,000 feet per second

 

[broberfett]

well, the mythbusters made an arrow-catching rig and human reaction topped out at about 44mph, where a bullet can move anywhere between 800-3,000 feet per second

Did the Mythbusters use someone with their awesome smart guy physique or someone actually athletic like a martial artist with a high hand speed?

 

[LightSith]

well, the mythbusters made an arrow-catching rig and human reaction topped out at about 44mph, where a bullet can move anywhere between 800-3,000 feet per second

Did the Mythbusters use someone with their awesome smart guy physique or someone actually athletic like a martial artist with a high hand speed?

Martial Artist. The best one they could find.

 

[Trekker4747]

well, the mythbusters made an arrow-catching rig and human reaction topped out at about 44mph, where a bullet can move anywhere between 800-3,000 feet per second

Did the Mythbusters use someone with their awesome smart guy physique or someone actually athletic like a martial artist with a high hand speed?

Martial Artist. The best one they could find.

They also built a "robot" that they tuned to both catch at the fastest possible human speed they observed (the maitral artist) and even tuned the robot to a "super human speed" that COULD catch it.

So it's possible. And it's not a matter of starting to close your hand before the bullet it's fired it's just a matter of reacting from "hearing/seeing the bullet fired" to "closing my hand."

For humans the time it takes a bullet to traverse any distance is too quick for a human's brain to go from "a bullet was fired to close my hand." In the Mythbusters, IIRC, in "catching an arrow" the Mythbusters tried to catch it and one of them even said he tried to do it by anticpating the arrow being fired so that his hand would close in time and he pretty much still couldn't do it.

So for Superman it's possible if his reaction time is fast enough, which it is.

 

[broberfett]

So if the bullet is moving half a mile a second roughly and there are 3600 seconds per hour(60 minutes times 60 seconds=3600) that equals 1800mph. I have no calculator, but if you divide 44 into 1800 that should tell us how many times faster you would have to move than the martial artist guy to catch a bullet.

 

[broberfett]

Did the Mythbusters use someone with their awesome smart guy physique or someone actually athletic like a martial artist with a high hand speed?

Martial Artist. The best one they could find.

They also built a "robot" that they tuned to both catch at the fastest possible human speed they observed (the maitral artist) and even tuned the robot to a "super human speed" that COULD catch it.

So it's possible. And it's not a matter of starting to close your hand before the bullet it's fired it's just a matter of reacting from "hearing/seeing the bullet fired" to "closing my hand."

For humans the time it takes a bullet to traverse any distance is too quick for a human's brain to go from "a bullet was fired to close my hand." In the Mythbusters, IIRC, in "catching an arrow" the Mythbusters tried to catch it and one of them even said he tried to do it by anticpating the arrow being fired so that his hand would close in time and he pretty much still couldn't do it.

So for Superman it's possible if his reaction time is fast enough, which it is.

Of course as the bullet is travelling at mach speeds, he must only rely on sight to see the bullet since it is too late if he has heard it.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

You also have to consider anticipation. You might be able to catch a bullet or an arrow if you began your movement when the person was drawing the bow or raising the gun. Like in basketball, anticipating the shot before the player even starts the shooting motion is what'll get you the block most of the time, not reacting quickly when the shot goes up.

 

[zakkrusz]

Noooo!

I'm doing problems like these in my college algebra course right now...word problems... and I really don't want to be reminded of those hellish things. They make me want to bash my own skull in to end the pain.

 

[broberfett]

Noooo!

I'm doing problems like these in my college algebra course right now...word problems... and I really don't want to be reminded of those hellish things. They make me want to bash my own skull in to end the pain.

This was supposed to be fun.

 

[Trekker4747]

You also have to consider anticipation. You might be able to catch a bullet or an arrow if you began your movement when the person was drawing the bow or raising the gun. Like in basketball, anticipating the shot before the player even starts the shooting motion is what'll get you the block most of the time, not reacting quickly when the shot goes up.

You're talking about an incredible set of variables and an remarkable set of anticipation. I'd dare say nearly impossible.

 

[broberfett]

You also have to consider anticipation. You might be able to catch a bullet or an arrow if you began your movement when the person was drawing the bow or raising the gun. Like in basketball, anticipating the shot before the player even starts the shooting motion is what'll get you the block most of the time, not reacting quickly when the shot goes up.

You're talking about an incredible set of variables and an remarkable set of anticipation. I'd dare say nearly impossible.

Superman just might be able to hear the tightening of the tendons and muscles before the gun is fired.

 

[Trekker4747]

You also have to consider anticipation. You might be able to catch a bullet or an arrow if you began your movement when the person was drawing the bow or raising the gun. Like in basketball, anticipating the shot before the player even starts the shooting motion is what'll get you the block most of the time, not reacting quickly when the shot goes up.

You're talking about an incredible set of variables and an remarkable set of anticipation. I'd dare say nearly impossible.

Superman just might be able to hear the tightening of the tendons and muscles before the gun is fired.

Possible. It's just far more likely to me that his latency period between "a bullet was just fired" (however he realizes it) to "close your hand to catch bullet" is really, really fast.

But, besides. We all know Superman doesn't catch bullets he stands there with his fists on his waist and puffs up his chest.

 

[ElScoob]

Good point. Superman can catch a bullet, but most of the time he doesn't need to bother, 'cos bullets are of little concern to him personally--it's easier to just interpose himself bodily in the bullet's flight path.

Catching bullets is a time-honored trick of the various Flashes, as well, though.

I'm not a big science or math type, but I'll put it this way. Most all of the guys to wear the Flash mantle have been able to at least match the speed of light while running. That's 299,792,458 meters per second. The fastest real-world sprinters usually top out at a bit more than ten meters per second. So the running speed of your garden-variety Flash is about 29,979,245.8 times faster in a sprint than the fastest normal human. If it follows that their reaction time is proportionately that much better than the fastest normal human, then they've got a pretty fair amount of wiggle room when it comes to catching a bullet.

(I leave it to more scientifically minded types than myself to work out how a Flash, who is generally not said to be significantly stronger or more resistant to physical harm than the average human, can manage to catch a bullet without any ill effects... in the comics, they usually make some vague noise about 'attuning oneself to the speed of the bullet', but I have no clue what that means in practical terms.)

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

Everything you do has an incredible set of variables. But then there are some things you can anticipate. The guy shooting the arrow is going to have a rhythm and a target. You can guess that he's going to wait for full tension, and that he'll fire as soon as he reaches it. That might give you the edge to not need robot reflexes to catch an arrow.

 

[Trekker4747]

Good point. Superman can catch a bullet, but most of the time he doesn't need to bother, 'cos bullets are of little concern to him personally--it's easier to just interpose himself bodily in the bullet's flight path.

Just don't throw the gun at him! That shit can hurt because THEN he ducks!

 

[Good Will Riker]

For those of you who are fans of Watchmen...

Oh, nevermind, I won't spoil it here.

 

[Forbin]

Ya know, even if you're fast enough to catch a bullet, you're not invulnerable like Supes, and the dern thing is gonna go right thru your flesh anyway.

 

[ElScoob]

For those of you who are fans of Watchmen...

Oh, nevermind, I won't spoil it here.

That was in my head when I first came across the thread, too.

 

[Silvercrest]

For those of you who are fans of Watchmen...

Oh, nevermind, I won't spoil it here.

That was in my head when I first came across the thread, too.

Same here!