flickering pictures

Ever wondered why Mario can jump many, many times his own height? Or why he can then fall safely back to the earth at a speed that would crush the eyeballs out of a regular mortal’s head? So did this guy over at the Physics Factbook:

Gravity is [the] force which is responsible for keeping us on the ground. It is also the force that prohibits us from jumping 50 feet in the air. However, in Mario’s world, gravity does not quite work that way. Mario is able to jump 5 times his height and fall with accelerations that would be deadly to humans.

We will find Mario’s acceleration due to gravity by using the formula

s = s0 + v0t + ½ at2

where s is the distance he falls, s0 is his initial distance, which is 0, v0 is his initial vertical velocity, which is also 0, a is his acceleration due to gravity, and t is the time it takes for him to fall. When we solve this formula for a, we get

a = 2s / t2

In a nutshell, he concludes that of all the Super Mario games, Super Mario Bros. 2 is the most unrealistic: Mario apparently falls at a stunning 11 g’s, while the average human loses consciousness around five g’s and finest pilots lose black out at nine.

With that puzzler solved, we can finally move on to the mystery of why Koopa keeps leaving all those power-ups all over his kingdom. I mean, doesn’t he know all those mushrooms and tanooki suits can only contribute to his untimely demise? And what’s with the wave after wave of mindless goombas, when he’s got legions of other perfectly good baddies just waiting in the wings? If he just signed up all those ghost dudes for some Toastmasters training to help them get over their shyness or whatever, our intrepid plumbers wouldn’t stand a chance.

Thanks, B!

• plug this post
  
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati