r/AskPhysics • u/Ipodawan • 20m ago
What's the difference in energy usage for means of displacement?
So I've been doing some experiments and research for fun. Its about a scene in Spider-Man: Homecoming, when he lifts the ferry. A really important part of this- or rather, part of the entire point, is knowing how much energy it would take to do that!
An average ferry is around 6,000 metric tons.
I assumed that he moved the ferry 10 meters, just because it was easy calculations.
I calculated that moving 6k tons 10 meters takes 35,870,459 newtons of force. And in joules, thats 358,704,592,000 joules or something.
Now, i wanted to know how hot that would be on a human body, which i know is near impossible without actual experimentation, but i just put it into a calculator which assumed the weight was used in <10 seconds.
And it spat out 200million degrees Celsius?? Thats hotter than the core of the sun.
But that isnt the main thing that i have. A problem with. If it takes that much force to move a ferry, then...how do they exist at all? I assumed my calculations were WAY off due to a few reasons:
Time it takes to move
Method of moving
Material of the thing doing the moving
AND THE ENVIRONMENT!
I did rough, unsimulated calculations. In real life, Ferries arent being pushed/pulled with direct force, or by millions of tiny fibers of protein, they move with the power focusing on turning turbines that weigh MUCH less, and propel the ferry with the force of water. Not to mention, it isnt being moved in seconds, it takes 10s of minutes to HOURS to move a distance some decent athlete could probably run in minutes(thats an exaggeration, i have no idea how fast ferries are)
Is that where my calculations are off? What else did i miss? Thank you!