A4_4 Deeper Than Any Elephant Has Gone Before

 In this paper, the depth of an Olympic size swimming pool required to crush an elephant is calculated. The depth of the swimming pool required to half the volume of an elephant was calculated to be 1.02 x 106 m (1020km) equivalent to a pressure of 1.004 x 1010 Pa (approximately 100000 times that of atmospheric pressure). Although this is an overestimate, it shows the strength of bone

A4_3 The Human Barbecue

This paper considers the feasibility of the Human Torch, calculating the energy taken to turn a human body to plasma, generate a large amount of heat for long periods of time, and how much food would need to be consumed to provide the necessary energy. Johnny Storm's secondary power of absorbing thermal energy from his surroundings is also calculated as another way of fuelling his flames

A4_1 It's a-me Density!

This paper considers the composition of small scale planets as seen in the video game Super Mario Galaxy. With an approximate radius for these planets set at 50m, the required density to maintain Earth-like surface gravity is calculated and compared to known super-dense structures such as white-dwarfs. The stability of such a planet is then discussed and it is concluded that it would likely explode due to the severe imbalance of gravitational pressure to degeneracy and coulomb pressures

A4_7 Supermassive (Interstellar) Black Hole

This paper considers the plausibility of an event from the 2014 film Interstellar. It states that an hour on a planet orbiting a supermassive back hole is equivalent to 7 years passing on Earth. Calculations made state that the planet is inside the minimum orbit for a planet around a black hole and would thus fall with a ballistic trajectory into the centre.However, a static system was assumed, so with an optically spinning black hole the planet may be in a stable orbit. A spacecraft orbiting at a distance unaffected by time dilation is also considered and found to be largely implausible

A4_8 The Power of Mjolnir

This paper calculates the maximum kinetic energy of Mjolnir can achieve being thrown by Thor and how much energy he can use from the redirection of lightning strikes during thunderstorms. The kinetic energy achieved from a throw was calculated to be 5.97 x 1018 J and the energy redirected from a single lightning flash was 108 J. It was also calculated that Thor could use the total power output of a thunderstorm equivalent to 2 x 1012 W