In GR physics, there’s an upper limit on speed, ‘c’.
Is there a similar hard limit on how fast cellular metabolism could go? Governed perhaps by denaturing of an essential protein?
Read something the other day about quantum components in photosynthesis. So > 10,0000 x c.
mollwollfumble said:
In GR physics, there’s an upper limit on speed, ‘c’.Is there a similar hard limit on how fast cellular metabolism could go? Governed perhaps by denaturing of an essential protein?
OK, let me rephrase this. What are the biomechanical limits on how fast “the Flash” could run?
The following biomechanical actions can be done:
Human sprinting 10.4 m/s (slowed by the need to accelerate from zero)
Fastest human foot speed 12.4 m/s
A fast cheetah on a smooth racetrack 28 m/s
Fastest thrown ball 46 m/s (turn this upside down to get human motion)
Some proteins denature at 41 degrees C (not much hotter than human body temperature)
Thermophilic bacteria that proliferate at 50°C will not express heat shock proteins until temperatures reach approximately 60°C.
According to wikipedia, some thermophiles can survive at up to 122 °C (another website has 108 °C), presumably these are at high pressure.
Muscles require oxygen and ATP for continued function, the speed of this is limited by diffusion of chemicals in water.
Muscle twitch contraction time is about 25 ms. The fastest 50% of that would take about 5 ms.
Through leverage, the speed of muscle movement could be amplified to a limit given only by limb mass and muscle strength. So let “the Flash” have really lightweight limbs.
Muscles need time to recover, so give “the Flash” parallel muscles to be used in turn while other muscles are contracting.
Muscle movement generates heat.
Nerve speed. This isn’t really relevant, except for changes in speed. Fastest mammalian nerve fibres transmit at up to 100 m/s.
What’s next?
mollwollfumble said:
mollwollfumble said:
In GR physics, there’s an upper limit on speed, ‘c’.Is there a similar hard limit on how fast cellular metabolism could go? Governed perhaps by denaturing of an essential protein?
OK, let me rephrase this. What are the biomechanical limits on how fast “the Flash” could run?
The following biomechanical actions can be done:
Human sprinting 10.4 m/s (slowed by the need to accelerate from zero)
Fastest human foot speed 12.4 m/s
A fast cheetah on a smooth racetrack 28 m/s
Fastest thrown ball 46 m/s (turn this upside down to get human motion)Some proteins denature at 41 degrees C (not much hotter than human body temperature)
Thermophilic bacteria that proliferate at 50°C will not express heat shock proteins until temperatures reach approximately 60°C.
According to wikipedia, some thermophiles can survive at up to 122 °C (another website has 108 °C), presumably these are at high pressure.Muscles require oxygen and ATP for continued function, the speed of this is limited by diffusion of chemicals in water.
Muscle twitch contraction time is about 25 ms. The fastest 50% of that would take about 5 ms.
Through leverage, the speed of muscle movement could be amplified to a limit given only by limb mass and muscle strength. So let “the Flash” have really lightweight limbs.
Muscles need time to recover, so give “the Flash” parallel muscles to be used in turn while other muscles are contracting.
Muscle movement generates heat.Nerve speed. This isn’t really relevant, except for changes in speed. Fastest mammalian nerve fibres transmit at up to 100 m/s.
What’s next?
I wish my brain would take the next step. I have “parallel muscles” on a maximum-strength minimum-weight limb arranged to maximise leverage. But that fails to take into account the chemical diffusion rate of energy (ATP and further back O2) into muscle fibres. It also fails to take into account the cooling of the waste heat generated by muscles.
But body speed is only half of “maximum metabolic speed”. The other half is how fast the brain thinks. How does caffeine make the brain work faster? Even then, there is a difference between “actual time” and “subjective time”. In a car crash, for example, subjective time is changed so that events that happen quickly in real time appear to take a long time in subjective time. How much could this difference between actual and subjective time be increased?