A lot of folks enjoy watching superhero movies, especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe. People from all walks of life have at least seen one. Some have even become instant Marvel fans because of the MCU flicks.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re young or old, a student or a practicing family attorney, the MCU movies have somehow touched you more than it did entertain you. They’re fun to watch, inspiring, and are filled with lots of scientific references that seem to make the movie grounded to reality.
5 Scientific Phenomena in the MCU and its Probability of Existence
However, just because the writers fill the movies up with a lot of scientific talks and jargon doesn’t mean that all of them are real. Let’s take a closer look at the science behind the MCU and how real they are.
1. Iron Man’s Bleeding Edge Armor: Nanotech Suits
The first appearance of a nanotech suit in the MCU was in Avengers Infinity War when Tony Stark, Dr. Strange, Wong, and Bruce Banner faced Thanos’ allies on the streets of New York. Since then, we’ve seen this used in different costumes such as Spider-Man’s iron suit, Black Panther’s, and Captain Marvel’s.
Nanotechnology exists in our world today although it is used for different functions and not for creating suits. However, even if it is used for something with higher mechanical strength, the concept of nanotech suits is in principle a possibility although at present is still a fantasy.
2. The Quantum Realm
Since 2015’s Ant-Man movie, we’ve already heard about the concept of the Quantum Realm. According to the MCU, the Quantum Realm is a dimension in the multiverse that can only be accessed through the use of a Sling Ring, through magical energy, and by going subatomic (shrinking even beyond the size of an atom).
While certain elements about the Quantum Realm are real, such as subatomic particles and the time-space concept involving it, the idea of a Quantum Realm — as portrayed in the MCU — existing in reality is still far-fetched, according to physicists.
In connection to this, while the probability of a multiverse existing has intrigued some physicists — with some even giving it serious thought — it remains a hypothesis that still has not been supported by any real and tangible evidence. So much for alternate universes.
3. Iron Man’s Mark III Suit
When Tony Stark built his very first Iron Man armor, the Mark I, he used scraps for it which made it weigh about 150 pounds (68.04 kg) sans the weaponry. When he got back home, he streamlined the concept and made dramatic improvements with the Mark II. All seemed well until he went too high up in the atmosphere which caused it to ice and, therefore, malfunction.
He went to work on the Mark III using gold titanium alloy, which exists in real life. However, gold titanium alloy is a material used for dental procedures and is quite brittle. So unless he plans to fight cavities and gingivitis, Mark III, in the real world, would not do him any good in battle.
4. Quantum Entanglement
In Ant-Man and the Wasp, we were introduced to the concept of quantum entanglement via Scott Lang’s connection to Janet Van Dyne when he went subatomic in the first movie. It is believed that his psyche, for lack of a better term, got entangled with Janet’s which allowed him to see her and her through him, to put it simply.
The interesting thing about this is the idea of quantum entanglement is a real thing in physics. If one object overlaps with another object’s quantum-wave functions, they are, in essence, entangled. Even if you take these two entities and bring them as far apart as you could without entangling them, they remain connected to each other and what happens on one end will manifest in the other.
Scientists today are working with this principle in hopes of coming up with supercomputers.
5. Spider-Man Stops a Runaway Train
While Sony’s Spider-Man 2 is no MCU movie, we’ve included it in this list to show really how strong Spider-Man’s webbing is. In this scene, he stops a runaway elevated train from crashing by casting a net of webbings to slow it down.
When we first saw that, we were very impressed with the tensile strength of the webbing. How strong is it really? If you make the calculations, taking the speed of the train, its size and mass, the distance it has traveled, and how much webbing was deployed, it would mean that for that train to stop in its tracks, Spidey’s webbing should have a tensile strength of 1,000 megapascals or 145,000 psi.
Fact: A real spider’s web has the tensile strength of 1,200 megapascals. This means that the strength of Spider-Man’s webbing is accurate and consistent with its real-life inspiration.
With phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe all set and just waiting to roll out, we certainly have a lot more scientific and superhuman phenomena to look forward to in the coming years. Excelsior!
