For any comic book lover, reading about Marvel superheroes is enjoyable. One professor combined his love for comic books with his love for physics. 

Rhett Allain is a physics professor at the university and used physics to calculate the mass of Luke Cage. 

“The primary reason to calculate Luke’s mass is because I can,” said Allain. “Let me give an example. Why does an artist paint a picture of a flower? Why does a poet write a poem?  It’s their way of appreciating the object. That’s what I do. I’m a big comic book fan and looking forward to the Luke Cage series, so I use my physics skills to do what I do.”

For those who are unaware, Luke Cage is a superhero in the Marvel Universe. His powers include strength, unbreakable skin and like most superheroes, he has a superhero name. Luke Cage is also known as Power Man and is the star of the new Netflix original series “Marvel’s Luke Cage.”

Allain made the choice to calculate his mass after seeing the promo for the series. 

“I’ve been watching the trailers and promo material for ‘Luke Cage,”’ said Allain. “When the image of Luke lifting some guy came up, I realized that was my chance. It’s a great physics problem and it allows me to calculate something that’s fun.” 

Allain used the height of the actor who plays Cage, Mike Colter, to find the mass of his character.

After completing all his calculations, he discovered that Luke Cage is superhuman.

“For any object to stay upright, the center of mass has to be in between the support points,” said Allain. “The only way this can happen for the Luke image is to have a massive Luke Cage. In this case, he would have to be at least 400 pounds. That’s pretty hefty for a normal looking human.”

According to Allain, this is not the first time he has tried to determine a character’s mass.

“Really, this wasn’t a new calculation,” said Allain. “I had already done something similar for Darth Vader lifting up a Rebel in Star Wars IV.”