This is what reallyhappened to Iron Man. (intense music) It was a snap heard round the universe that brought thisiteration of the Marvel's Cinematic Universe to a close. It was the same snap that closed the book on the hero that started it all. But, before we let Iron Man go, what really happened to Tony Stark? What does snapping an InfinityGauntlet actually do to you? (upbeat electronic music) (snaps) Avengers Endgame hasalready made its mark. It has smashed over adozen box office records like a golden sword boomerang thing smashing a shiny vibranium shield from a different timeline, and it stands as a satisfying conclusion to the story arcs of many of our favorite characters, Iron Man included. In Endgame, Tony hasto snap one final time to bring all Thanos's evil plans to an end and the snap itself iswhat ends Tony's life.
What does the InfinityGauntlet snap actually do? And does the movie's implied physics fit with the real world? Can we figure that out? I think so. First of all, what is in a snap? Well, helpfully, in Avengers Endgame, professor Hulk points out that when the Infinity Gauntlet snaps, it releases a tidal waveof radiation, most of it in the gamma ray portion of theelectromagnetic spectrum. Gamma radiation, denotedwith this symbol here, sounds scary and it can be, but gamma radiation is just light, like visible light is light, or radio waves way down here are light. What makes it potentiallydangerous for human beings is that it also has theshortest wave length and the highest energyamong photons of light. And that high energy can doweird stuff to the human body. I need to buy new gloves.
How much gamma ray energy are we really talking about, though? Well, helpfully again,Mr. Stark has an offhand comment in Avengers Endgame where he says the Gauntlet, equipped withall six infinity stones, could power a continent. Hey Friday, why don't you pull up the annual power consumptionfrom North America, please? - [Friday] Sure thing, Science Boy. - You know my name. The problem with apower value like this is that power is defined as aunit of energy per unit of time joules per second, if youdo all the conversions here. So we can only really figureout how much energy is released during a single snap if we all agree on how long a snap takes. How long does a snap take? (snapping) Ah! Hm, maybe about the timeit takes you to blink? Sure, let's say about a tenth of a second is how long a snap takes.
Hey Friday, why don't you hit me up with that sweet multiplication? - [Friday] You can'tjust take 10% of that? - I mean, I could, but you-- Doing the math ourselves and converting, we get around 54 billionjoules worth of energy for a single snap ifall of our assumptions and calculations are correct. Now, if 54 billion joulesworth of gamma radiation sounds bad, that's because it would be. Nuclear bombs and dangerousradiation have been linked in our minds for a long time, but when an atom bomb actually goes off, only a small minority ofthe energy goes into the kinds of radiation thatwe've been talking about. The majority goes into the blast itself and the heat generated. Still, atomic bombs likethe one dropped on Hiroshima during World War IIrelease trillions of joules worth of gamma rayradiation when they explode.
You can see these areasgetting much larger as the distance increases. So the intensity decreasesvery quickly if you get further and further awayfrom the Infinity Gauntlet. So if you could figure out a way to take the Infinity Gauntletand move it to a distance and then snap it fromthere, you would increase your chances of not beingtotally Iron Man-ed. However, with our numbers, you would have to be hundreds ofmeters away from that thing. (snap)(whirring) Finally, we could shield ourselves from the radiation of the snap. The radiation that we'vebeen talking about so far can be frightening, butsome of it can be stopped in its tracks with the right sheilding.
Kind of like I'm stopping the light from bouncing off of my faceand making it to your eyeballs just with a sheet of paper. Wow! The problem with gamma rays isthat a simple sheet of paper would not be enough to stop them. It would be enough to stopalpha particles, for example, and a thin sheet of aluminumwould be able to stop a stream of electrons,but gamma radiation, by its very nature, isextremely penetrating. You would need a wall of lead or water just to reduce yourexposure, and you're still probably not going to stop all of it. Maybe Tony could come upwith some ultra thin material that's a metal that can go into his suit that could stop all that radiation though. If he could then youcould imagine the perfect, non-sacrificial scenario,where Tony has the gauntlet with all the infinity stones on it. And then he uses his Starknanotech to shield himself from the snap, holdingthe gauntlet as far away from him as humanly possible,and then trying to snap as slowly as possible? That would be everything hecould do to reduce his exposure if he still had to havethe gauntlet on his hand. But I guess that justwasn't possible for him.
It just was never goingto be his end game. - [Friday] Ooh, dramatic. - I was trying to belike, emotional and cool. Hey, shut up. You do it. So, what really happened to Iron Man? He heroically exposed himselfto more ionizing radiation than any human in history,in order to finally defeat Thanos and savethe entire universe. And if it really went downthis way, with gamma rays and radiation, not onlywould that radiation close Tony's Story Arc Reactor, it would create a flash of light just like we see in both Infinity War and Endgame. In terms of coming up withan emotionally satisfying and scientificallyaccurate sendoff for Stark, the Avengers assembleda decent explanation. - [Friday] Because science. (upbeat electronic music) - So we mentioned shieldinglast, and if you think back to Endgame, there's aproblem with shielding.
Specifically when the Hulk snaps the Infinity Gauntlet himself,everyone's just standing in the room and they kindof brace for the impact of the snap and Hawkeyejust went kind of like, uh. And Iron Man puts his suit on, puts his shield up andpeople are like, uh. But if it's really gammaradiation, every human, non-shielded by a giant wall in that room would have also... not made it. I would have loved that ending not 3,000. Thank you so much for watching, Bergita.
If you enjoyed this episode follow us here on social media and you can suggest ideas for future episodes, andhey, sometimes I use them. Also, the full The Scienceof Mortal Combat series is now live on our channel. Six episodes, six behindthe scenes episodes, wow it was a lot of fun. You're gonna watch us punch stuff and burn stuff and smash stuff. So give it a, give it asmash that view button. (electronic music)
What does the InfinityGauntlet snap actually do? And does the movie's implied physics fit with the real world? Can we figure that out? I think so. First of all, what is in a snap? Well, helpfully, in Avengers Endgame, professor Hulk points out that when the Infinity Gauntlet snaps, it releases a tidal waveof radiation, most of it in the gamma ray portion of theelectromagnetic spectrum. Gamma radiation, denotedwith this symbol here, sounds scary and it can be, but gamma radiation is just light, like visible light is light, or radio waves way down here are light. What makes it potentiallydangerous for human beings is that it also has theshortest wave length and the highest energyamong photons of light. And that high energy can doweird stuff to the human body. I need to buy new gloves.
How much gamma ray energy are we really talking about, though? Well, helpfully again,Mr. Stark has an offhand comment in Avengers Endgame where he says the Gauntlet, equipped withall six infinity stones, could power a continent. Hey Friday, why don't you pull up the annual power consumptionfrom North America, please? - [Friday] Sure thing, Science Boy. - You know my name. The problem with apower value like this is that power is defined as aunit of energy per unit of time joules per second, if youdo all the conversions here. So we can only really figureout how much energy is released during a single snap if we all agree on how long a snap takes. How long does a snap take? (snapping) Ah! Hm, maybe about the timeit takes you to blink? Sure, let's say about a tenth of a second is how long a snap takes.
Hey Friday, why don't you hit me up with that sweet multiplication? - [Friday] You can'tjust take 10% of that? - I mean, I could, but you-- Doing the math ourselves and converting, we get around 54 billionjoules worth of energy for a single snap ifall of our assumptions and calculations are correct. Now, if 54 billion joulesworth of gamma radiation sounds bad, that's because it would be. Nuclear bombs and dangerousradiation have been linked in our minds for a long time, but when an atom bomb actually goes off, only a small minority ofthe energy goes into the kinds of radiation thatwe've been talking about. The majority goes into the blast itself and the heat generated. Still, atomic bombs likethe one dropped on Hiroshima during World War IIrelease trillions of joules worth of gamma rayradiation when they explode.
You can see these areasgetting much larger as the distance increases. So the intensity decreasesvery quickly if you get further and further awayfrom the Infinity Gauntlet. So if you could figure out a way to take the Infinity Gauntletand move it to a distance and then snap it fromthere, you would increase your chances of not beingtotally Iron Man-ed. However, with our numbers, you would have to be hundreds ofmeters away from that thing. (snap)(whirring) Finally, we could shield ourselves from the radiation of the snap. The radiation that we'vebeen talking about so far can be frightening, butsome of it can be stopped in its tracks with the right sheilding.
Kind of like I'm stopping the light from bouncing off of my faceand making it to your eyeballs just with a sheet of paper. Wow! The problem with gamma rays isthat a simple sheet of paper would not be enough to stop them. It would be enough to stopalpha particles, for example, and a thin sheet of aluminumwould be able to stop a stream of electrons,but gamma radiation, by its very nature, isextremely penetrating. You would need a wall of lead or water just to reduce yourexposure, and you're still probably not going to stop all of it. Maybe Tony could come upwith some ultra thin material that's a metal that can go into his suit that could stop all that radiation though. If he could then youcould imagine the perfect, non-sacrificial scenario,where Tony has the gauntlet with all the infinity stones on it. And then he uses his Starknanotech to shield himself from the snap, holdingthe gauntlet as far away from him as humanly possible,and then trying to snap as slowly as possible? That would be everything hecould do to reduce his exposure if he still had to havethe gauntlet on his hand. But I guess that justwasn't possible for him.
It just was never goingto be his end game. - [Friday] Ooh, dramatic. - I was trying to belike, emotional and cool. Hey, shut up. You do it. So, what really happened to Iron Man? He heroically exposed himselfto more ionizing radiation than any human in history,in order to finally defeat Thanos and savethe entire universe. And if it really went downthis way, with gamma rays and radiation, not onlywould that radiation close Tony's Story Arc Reactor, it would create a flash of light just like we see in both Infinity War and Endgame. In terms of coming up withan emotionally satisfying and scientificallyaccurate sendoff for Stark, the Avengers assembleda decent explanation. - [Friday] Because science. (upbeat electronic music) - So we mentioned shieldinglast, and if you think back to Endgame, there's aproblem with shielding.
Specifically when the Hulk snaps the Infinity Gauntlet himself,everyone's just standing in the room and they kindof brace for the impact of the snap and Hawkeyejust went kind of like, uh. And Iron Man puts his suit on, puts his shield up andpeople are like, uh. But if it's really gammaradiation, every human, non-shielded by a giant wall in that room would have also... not made it. I would have loved that ending not 3,000. Thank you so much for watching, Bergita.
If you enjoyed this episode follow us here on social media and you can suggest ideas for future episodes, andhey, sometimes I use them. Also, the full The Scienceof Mortal Combat series is now live on our channel. Six episodes, six behindthe scenes episodes, wow it was a lot of fun. You're gonna watch us punch stuff and burn stuff and smash stuff. So give it a, give it asmash that view button. (electronic music)
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