The
Science
of The X-Men:
Cyclops
Scott Summers was the first mutant to be recruited
into the X-Men by Professor Charles Xavier. As Cyclops, he became the first
leader of the original team composed of Angel, Beast, Iceman and Marvel Girl
(Jean Grey). Cyclops has been a strong dependable member of the X-Men, having
served as leader of the team for years during various changes in its
membership. He is currently married to Jean Grey. Cyclops' power first appeared
at puberty and, as is coincidentally often the case with mutants containing
X-genes, under a crisis circumstance. The adolescent Scott Summers and his
younger brother Alex (who later became the X-Man Havok) and their mother,
Katherine Anne, were passengers in their father Alex's vintage private plane when
it was attacked by a scout ship of the extragalactic Shi'ar Empire (see Shi'ar
entry for more about this alien race). In a desperate attempt to save their
sons from being captured or killed, Katherine Anne gave Scott and Alex the only
parachute on the plane
and pushed them out. Overburdened, and as a result of the attack, in flames,
the parachute could not support the boys.
Scott was
staring down at the oncoming ground when his eyes suddenly emitted energy
blasts that softened the ground and sufficiently cushioned the boys' landing to
save their lives. Unfortunately, the landing was not soft enough to prevent
both boys from being injured. Scott in particular suffered a head injury that
proved to have irreparably damaged the part of his brain that controlled his
newly-manifested power. As a result, Cyclops' optic blast power is permanently
"stuck" in the "on" position. The only two ways he can
dampen his optic blasts are by closing his eyes or by wearing a
visor-wraparound glasses or goggles made of ruby quartz.
The ruby quartz diffuses the optic energy and renders it harmless and
undetectable.
OPTIC BLAST PROPERTIES
Before we explore the
possible makeup of Cyclops' optic blasts, let's look at what they can do.
Cyclops can focus
the width of his force blasts with his eyes. The depth of his eye-blasts is
controlled by his visor's adjustable slit. His narrowest beam, about the
diameter of a pencil, at a distance of four feet, has a force of approximately
17 pounds per square inch (psi) or two psi above the standard 15 psi of air
pressure at sea level. One of the most powerful eye-blasts he has produced was
a beam four feet across which had a force of approximately 500 psi at a
distance of 50 feet. One of his broadest beams was approximately 90 feet and
had a force of approximately 10 psi across at a distance of 50 feet. The beam's
effective range is approximately 2,000 feet, at which point a one-inch beam
will spread out to 10 feet square, and then has a pressure of 0.38 psi.
At maximum force, his optic beams can tip over a full
5,000-gallon tanker truck at a distance of 20 feet, or puncture a one-inch
carbon steel plate from a distance of 2 feet. Cyclops also possesses the
ability to compute trigometric and geometric relations with great accuracy,
like an experienced pool player. This lets him bounce his blasts with
considerable precision.
ENERGY TRANSFORMATION AND HIGHER PHYSICS
The energy that comes out of Cyclops' eyes is unusual, to say the least. It
generates no heat, no radiation and no electrical or magnetic fields. Although
it's visible it doesn't seem to be part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It can
manipulate molecules and it has concussive shock power.
Cyclops' first use of his power offers us a clue about the possible nature of
his optic blast power beam. Obviously it simply cannot be any form of ordinary
energy such as a laser or particle beam. Those forms of energy would merely
have burned the ground. There has to be a telekinetic aspect to Cyclops's power
because when his beam struck the ground immediately below his brother and
himself, it re-
arranged the very molecules of the ground in order to soften their landing. In
effect it acted as a psychokinetic projection of Scott's mental desire for
self-preservation. Let's take a moment to give some background on energy, force
and how they're measured.
Kinetic energy is just what is says it is: energy, not force. And yes, there is
a difference. In the scientific sense, a force must fit the definition of the
four universal forces: electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak nuclear
forces.
By definition, there are only two kinds of energy:
kinetic and potential. Kinetic energy is a combination of weight and motion.
Momentum and inertia play major roles in kinetic energy.
Scientists use a number of different terms to measure
energy including ergs, electron volts, foot-pounds, BTUs (British thermal
units), calories and joules. The two that concern us most here are calories and
joules. Calories are used to measure energy changes caused by chemical
reactions, and joules measure other kinds of energy changes. It takes one
calorie of energy to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree
Celsius. One calorie is equal to 4.184 joules. One joule is the amount of energy
needed to lift one pound about nine inches. And so, by inference, it's obvious
that a whole lot ofjoules-and calories-would be required by Cyclops to do the
work of generating his kinetic eye beams. (More on calories and joules in a
moment.)
Energy is the capacity for doing work. Work is simply
moving matter, but that can result in many forms of energy that you wouldn't
expect to come out of simple movement. The Law of Conservation of Matter and
Energy (m=E/C2) says that energy can only change its form, it cannot be created
or destroyed. So, if energy is the ability or capacity to do work, then power
is the flow of energy from one form to another over time. For example, in the
process of baking a potato, complex starchy carbohydrates are broken down- by
heat-to simpler, more easily digested carbohydrates. In this manner, heat
becomes chemical energy. (By the way, when we think of calories as food
measurement, we're really discussing potential energy measurement. Food
contains potential chemical energy that is converted by our bodies to do work
by means of kinetic energy.)
The level of the kinetic energy of an object, and how
much work it can do, depends upon its mass and velocity. For example, if a
truck weighs ten tons and is moving at 70 miles per hour, it has an awful lot
more kinetic energy than a kid does on a bicycle.
At the atomic level, thermal energy is the kinetic
energy of the molecules in an object. Warm bath water has enough molecular
motion to heat it up to a comfortable temperature for humans. That motion is
the kinetic energy of the water. Conversely, if the molecules slow down enough,
the bath water would freeze. The average kinetic energy of the atoms or
molecules of a body is measured by the temperature of the body. To further
illustrate, a piece of buttered
toast contains about 315,000 joules of energy. With the same amount of energy
you could:
Light a 60 watt light bulb for 90 minutes
Nap for 90 minutes
Take a power walk for 15 minutes
Jog for six minutes
Bike for 10 minutes
Drive a car at 50 miles per hour for seven seconds
MATTER INTO ENERGY
It takes only a small amount of matter to create a great amount of energy-as in
an atomic reaction-but that transformation, obviously, produces too much heat
for a non-mutant human body to handle. If it could be contained, for instance,
the way plasma fusion reactors use huge magnetic "bottles" to contain
plasma for nuclear fusion reactions, it could be the "motivating
force" (if we may use that term) to propel molecular matter.
We can easily conclude that there is no fissile aspect
to Cyclops' power. There is no evidence suggesting that Cyclops' physiology is
as impervious as an atomic energy plant's containment vessel. In fact, he is
vulnerable to everything that a normal non-mutant human is, with two
exceptions. He is impervious to the impact of one of his own optic beams,
should it rebound onto him. Nor is he affected by the power blasts of his
brother Havok. Since for all practical purposes he seems to be composed of normal
flesh and blood, something else must protect his body. If he is capable of
projecting these energies, he must also be capable of generating a field of
some energy within his own body that repels or, more likely, absorbs them.
Havok's energy is different than Cyclops'. Havok's
blasts are plasma blasts. Plasma is the fourth state of matter- super-heated
gas, stripped of electrons, as occurs in the ionized trail of lightning or
inside the giant nuclear reactor that is the sun. This is unusual matter,
rarely seen on Earth, but not "exotic" matter, as we will explain.
Evidence suggests a link between sunlight and Cyclops'
power. It is possible that Cyclops metabolizes sunlight as a power source for
his force beams. The relationship of solar and electrical energy to his power
would suggest that his blasts are electromagnetic (EM) in nature but this is
misleading. Although they are part of the same spectrum, light and electricity
are very different in two aspects.
Electricity is conveyed by the negatively charged
subatomic particles called electrons. These are fundamental particles or
elementary particles.
Light is another story. The simplest way to explain
this is to say that it is composed of quanta packets. Quanta are the plural of
quantum, which is vaguely defined as "the smallest amount of energy a
system can gain or lose." Quanta are smaller than atoms, and there are a
lot of theories as to their exact nature.
The low end of the light spectrum begins with infrared
rays, which most living creatures can't see, but some can sense, and progresses
through the visible spectrum and then up to the invisible ultraviolet. Above
ultraviolet frequencies, we stop calling it light and start calling it
radiation. X-rays start happening at this range. At the high-end of the X-ray
range is gamma radiation.
Gamma rays come from the sun and the stars, which are
gigantic ongoing nuclear reactions. Those few gamma rays that slip through the
Earth's defensive shield of atmosphere can cause genetic mutation. We'll get
back to radiation particles in a moment.
RUBY QUARTZ
Why
can ruby quartz stop Cyclops' optic blasts? The similarity of the red color of
the quartz and the red color of his blasts would suggest that his blasts are
some form of light, but again, as we have already established, this is
misleading as light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
By the -way, Ruby quartz is not the same as a gemstone
ruby-a transparent red variety of corundum-nor synthetic rubies made from
aluminum oxide. Ruby quartz is mostly silicon. The red pigment is caused by
ferromagnetic metallic impurities in the silicon crystal structure of the
quartz. Metallic impurities in silicon and germanium crystals can cause them to
have very different properties as semi-
conductors in computer chips. Essentially, the impurities simply either add
free electrons or create electron deficiencies in the crystal structures.
The similarity between the color of the quartz and the
color of the Cyclopean blasts would suggest that these blasts are some form of
light. For the sake of argument, let's go ahead and assume that there may
indeed be some unusual form of light which is a component of the energy
emanating from Cyclops's eyes. If so, then the means by
which his visors block his blasts could be a process similar to polarization.
In the Einsteinian universe, light rays are
electromagnetic waves. Their energy consists of vibrating electric and magnetic
fields. In normal light rays, these fields vibrate in planes at random angles.
In polarized light, all the rays are forced to vibrate in the same plane, which
is the plane in which the electrical field vibrates.
Polarizing filters block all rays except those
vibrating in a certain plane. If polarized light strikes a filter whose plane
is at right angles to the plane of the rays, no light passes at all.
(Polarizing sunglasses work this way. Reflected light is partly polarized and
sunglasses-polarizing filters-block that polarized light, reducing glare.)
Does the ruby quartz in Cyclops' visor function like a
pair of really powerful sunglasses? It's possible. Quartz is a crystal, and
some crystals can force light waves into two separate rays, oscillating on two
separate planes. Those rays would have different properties, properties that
would cause them to bend in different degrees when passing through those
crystals. And a crystal might be designed to
deflect one-or both-of the rays. In the case of some crystals, only one ray
might get through because the other is absorbed and turned into heat. In this
manner, perhaps, Cyclops' mutant beams could be deflected and absorbed by the
ruby quartz within his visor.
How is Cyclops able to see past the energy always
flowing from his eyes? Whatever the nature of this energy, it is transparent to
normal light. Although the energy emits a red glow, it must allow normal light
to pass through it. Cyclops' may initially have perceived objects with a
constant red tinge, but as experiments on normal humans have shown, the mind learns
to compensate and adjust. In fact, you can perform this experiment yourself
with sunglasses of different color tints. For instance, if you were to wear red
glasses for a week or two, you would eventually stop noticing any tint at all.
Once you removed the glasses, your adjusted/altered vision would perceive the
world around you as green-the complementary color to red.
But, if his power beams are not a form of light or
part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and all evidence suggests that they are
not, then the most likely answer is that his optic beams are a form of exotic
matter.
EXOTIC PARTICLES
Perhaps Cyclops's power is not energy but, in fact, matter-a stream of exotic
particles, perhaps a particle beam of sorts. Another possibility is that his
energy does not fit the criteria for any energy in this universe, it might
originate in an alternate non-Einsteinian universe. In either case, the red
pigmentation of the ray would be a side effect-just as heat is a side effect of
normal energy processes.
That brings us back to those exotic particles
mentioned earlier. Roughly speaking, most matter is composed of atoms, which
are composed of subatomic particles called electrons, protons, and neutrons.
But some matter is not built this way. Such matter is called
"exotic," and has unusual properties, including its subatomic
particles.
Exotic matter gets us into the area of higher physics,
and it is in the area of exotic matter that we get a tantalizing glimpse at
what might be the true source of Cyclops' power.
But first, let's examine how normal subatomic
particles
are constructed and then propose some alternatives. Most subatomic particles
(protons, electrons and neutrons) are composed of quantum particles called
quarks labeled: up, charm, top, down, strange, and bottom. These quantum
particles, which you could call sub-subatomic particles, are glued together
with "messenger particles," called gluons. These come in what
physicists, in their whimsical way, call
different "flavors": red, blue, and green.
We need to back up a little bit and return to the
simple, old-fashioned subatomic level. At this level, the usual arrangement is,
roughly speaking, electrons orbiting a nucleus composed of neutrons and
protons. If you strip away the electron "shells," as they are
sometimes called, then two possible types of matter can be formed. One is what
is called the fourth state of matter: plasma. The first three states of matter
are solid, liquid, and gas.
Plasma occurs with super-heated elements. The only
naturally occurring plasmas on Earth are formed for a few fractions of a second
in the path of a lightning bolt. The fiery flames of helium and hydrogen atoms
burning in the sun are in a plasma state. Cooler plasma elements may exist
between the stars in the cold of interstellar space. In fact, they might be
part of the "dark matter" that theoretically
makes up 90 percent of the universe. Because it is so common, plasma is not,
strictly speaking, exotic matter.
But another form of electron-free matter is more
exotic. It is what makes up a neutron star. Sometimes it is called neutronium.
That is what remains when a star burns out and cools down. It is super-heavy,
ultra-dense matter that theoretically collapses in on itself, and thereby becomes
so heavy that it collapses through the continuum of our universe. This is
called a black hole, and requires about three solar masses. A neutron star
comprised solely of the mass of our sun would not form a black hole. But there
are highly theoretical conditions under which micro-black holes might form.
It appears that on occasion Cyclops optic blast is
composed of a small amount of neutronium particles. If he fired nothing but a
concentrated stream of neutronium particles, they wouldn't tip over that
5,000-gallon tanker truck; they would punch a hole through it. But the idea of
black holes punched through our universe leads us to other ideas, which we will
come back to. First though, let's look at some more possibilities for exotic
matter.
If we go down to the quantum level, we can imagine
matter composed entirely of just one type of quantum instead of the usual brew
of at least four types. Such hypothetical matter could have any sort of
property, including properties that match those of Cyclops' beams. And if we go
down past the quantum level, we can imagine matter composed of only one
"color" of gluon, which also could have just about any property you
can imagine. Such hypothetical exotic matter has never been found, and has
probably not existed since the first few seconds after the Big Bang, so it is
safe to ascribe unusual qualities to its behavior.
His eyes may be acting as a receiving and transmitting
device due to the peculiar property of the exotic matter Cyclops is uniquely
sensitive to. The only regret here is that long ago he had an accident, denying
him the means to control it.
Some theoreticians believe that there might be many
universes and not all of them have the same physical laws as ours. According to
physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, a few seconds after the Big Bang,
several cosmic events happened just by accident. These accidents shaped the
laws of our universe as basically defined by Aristotle with set theory; Newton
and his three laws of Thermodynamics, Einstein with relativity, and Niels Bohr
with quantum physics.
Our universe might be just one of an infinite number
of bubble universes in the larger dimensionality of things. Every black hole
that punches through the fabric of our universe might be opening into an
alternate universe. And in some of those other universes, cause and effect
might work quite differently.
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