Extraordinary claims. Ordinary investigations.

“Since Time immemorial, man has sought to explain the powers of Kal-El, a.k.a. Superman. Siegel et al. supposed that His mighty strength stems from His origin on another planet whose density and as a result, gravity, was much higher than our own. Natural selection on the planet of Krypton would therefore endow Kal El with more efficient muscles and higher bone density; explaining, to first order, Superman’s extraordinary powers. Though concise, this theory has proved inaccurate. It is now clear that Superman is actually flying rather than just jumping really high; and His freeze-breath, x-ray vision, and heat vision also have no account in Seigel’s theory.
In this paper we propose a new unified theory for the source of Superman’s powers; that is to say, all of Superman’s extraordinary powers are manifestation of one supernatural ability, rather than a host. It is our opinion that all of Superman’s recognized powers can be unified if His power is the ability to manipulate, from atomic to kilometer length scales, the inertia of His own and any matter with which He is in contact.”
[Ben Tippett: A Unified theory of Superman’s Powers (PDF)]

Inertia. That would be the key to all of Superman’s powers, according to the Grand Unified Theory proposed by Ben Tippet in the style and prose of a scientific paper. The work has generated quite a buzz and we are actually a week late on this, but bear with us for some comments on what looks like one of the most promising theories for understanding this ancient enigma.

Consider, for instance, that if Superman was simply very, very strong guy, capable of lifting dozens of tons with only one arm, this would still not be a satisfactory explanation for the observed behavior in many comics, TV series and movies. A figure of Tippett’s work illustrates the problem:

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Observe the image carefully to see if something does not seem appropriated. You will find there’s actually a shoulder hidden in the picture. It’s all on your mind. [via @barryandstuart, Richard Wiseman, who asks if you’re male or female and what you saw first, bottom or shoulder. Definitely a bottom]

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From “We are Om”, some nice trickery. Pics of the set, making of and our inevitable comment about UFO hoaxes after the jump.

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Here’s an original optical illusion based on the Best Visual Illusion of 2005.

Believe it or not, Michael Jackson is exactly the same on both sides, he didn’t change his hat, pants nor shoes. Keep reading if you don’t believe it or want some more.

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“I’ve invented a device which makes you read this in your head, in my voice! Also, you are Mark Frauenfelder!”

I want to welcome all the new subscribers to our RSS feed, and also thank Mark Frauenfelder, for not only does he write about our best posts over at Boing Boing, he picked our feed too as a Google Reader power user, which is why two thirds of you are now reading this in your feed readers! So many thanks, Mark!

I must also apologize to you faithful readers for the lack of posts lately, but the good news is that there was a reason, and it’s now over: I was working on the redesign of my skeptical website in Brazil, which included launching a dedicated subdomain analyzing photos of alleged UFOs and ghosts. Much of the material published here in broken English comes from the work there, so as those sites are renewed and receive more input, you can expect the best to be published here too. If the aliens land in Brazil, you will read it first here.

As I’ve just launched the new Brazilian websites yesterday, a new post here is on the way… right now!

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