Hello everyone.
In this blog, I am going to break down the Flash's most powerful ability, the Infinite Mass Punch, and explains the mechanics of it and then calculate how powerful it really is. Shouldn't be too hard.
Firstly, here are scans of the Infinite Mass Punch:
The Four Scans may vary in the specifics of their explanations, but they all share one common element: Relativity. While The Flash, and indeed many other such as Superman and Green Lanterns constantly break the Laws of Relativity by moving at FTL speeds, the Infinite Mass Punch functions by working under the limitations of Relativity.
To quote the comics themselves:
| “ | Flash Fact: Relativistic effects take over as a body approaches Lightspeed. Visual input will begin to blueshift and my body's mass will increase towards infinity. | „ |
| “ | This is an unusual effort, even for the Man of Steel. He only works this hard when he's about to go Faster than Light. He's not going to go that fast this time, though. He wants to stay just under. Relativity is his friend: As he accelerates towards the Speed of Light, his mass increases dramatically. | „ |
| “ | Physics 101. The faster an object moves, the more mass it attains. At Lightspeed my fist hits like a White Dwarf Star. | „ |
| “ | My foot hits her skull at half the Speed of Light, with the relativistic mass of a small moon. | „ |
So what exactly is happening in all these different comics? Well, the last page outright states it: Relativistic Mass. Basically, the concept in Albert Einstein's Special Relativity which states that the further an object approaches the speed of light, both his relative mass and the required energy to move at such speeds increase towards infinity. For an object with mass to move at the speed of light, infinite energy would be required (E = MC²).
When performing the Infinite Mass Punch, The Flash runs just under the speed of light, and per the Laws of Relativity his mass increases exponentially until he reaches the Relativistic Mass of a White Dwarf Star. Thus, we can use the Relativistic KE Formula to calculate the energy of the IMP.
http://www.quantonics.com/Quantonics%20Site%20GIFs/Relativistic_Mass_Equation.gif
^ Using this formula, and assuming Flash's hand has a resting mass of 5 kg and a relativistic mass of 1.2e30 kg (0.6 Solar Masses), we get an equation of 2.4e29 * √ (1 - v² / 8.98755179e16), which results in v = 299,792,000 m/s, or 0.999998472276c, so literally just under the speed of light.
Applying the relativistic mass and the speed into here, and we get a result of 6.15900e49 Joules, well into the 4-B range.
Alternate Method:
Credit for Gwynbleiddd for the calculation below:
KineticEnergy=E−Eo
m{rel} = γ*mo
mrel/mo = γ
Assuming that the Flash's hand has a resting mass of 5 kg and a relativistic mass of 1.2*10^30 kg (average white dwarf mass is between 0.5-0.7 solar masses so i'm using 0.6)
Their ratio is equal to 2.4*10^29, which is the Lorentz factor γ.
KE = (γ-1)*mc^2 (m is the resting mass)
KE = 1.08*10^47 Joules which is indeed Solar System level.
Final Tally[]
Method 1: 6.15900e49 Joules or 0.6159 MegaFoe
Method 2: 1.08e47 Joules or 1.08 KiloFoe