But you do need to be superhuman, of course.
This is just me sort of trying to defeat this trend by proving that you do not need to be supersonic to dodge a bullet, something I've already proven. Though, that thread is a little long, I'll put the most crucial statement up here first.
If we assume that point blank range is 10 feet and an AK-47's muzzle velocity is 2350 ft/s, then a bullet will take 4.25 ms to hit. In order to dodge a bullet shot at your center of mass, that you would need to move half your bodies width (1 ft for estimation) in this time. 1ft/4.25ms gives 235ft/s or 160mph. This is approximately the take off speed of a airliner.
To compound the problem you are starting from stopped which means you need to accelerate up to speed. To cover the same distance in the same time with an average speed of 235 ft/s and constant acceleration would mean final speed would need to be 470ft/s (coincidentally the speed of the fastest nerve impulse). 470ft/s in 4.25ms give an acceleration of 110600 ft/s2 or 3437g.
Thus you need to be able to accelerate at at least 3437 time as fast as you would fall. Good new, the bullet doesn't kill you. Bad news, you are already dead (and so is your mechanical watch).
Basically, this just says that if are to dodge a mach 2 bullet from ten feet away, you must move 160 miles per hour and pull 3437 Gs. That's a lot of acceleration force, mind you. Imagine feeling 3437 times your weight at the point of impact. A human can survive perhaps 100 Gs, induced in a car crash for a very limited amount of time.
G-Force table courtesy of wikipedia.
Typical examples of g-force
Main article: Orders of magnitude (acceleration)
| Example | g-force* |
|---|---|
| The gyro rotors in Gravity Probe B and the free-floating proof masses in the TRIAD I navigation satellite[20] | 0 g |
| A ride in the Vomit Comet | ≈ 0 g |
| Standing on the Moon at its equator | 0.1654 g |
| Standing on the Earth at sea level–standard | 1 g |
| Saturn V moon rocket just after launch | 1.14 g |
| Bugatti Veyron from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.4 s | 1.55 g† |
| Space Shuttle, maximum during launch and reentry | 3 g |
| Gravitron amusement ride | 2.5-3 g |
| High-g roller coasters[9]:340 | 3.5–6.3 g |
| Top Fueldrag racing world record of 4.4 s over 1/4 mile | 4.2 g |
| First World War Aircraft Sopwith Camel, Fokker D.VII, Fokker Dr.1, SPAD S.XIII, Nieuport 17 in a steep dive or back or front looping. | 4.5–7 g |
| Formula One car, maximum under heavy braking | 5.4 g |
| Formula One car, peak lateral in turns[21] | 5–6 g |
| Luge, maximum expected at the Whistler Sliding Centre | 5.2 g |
| Standard, full aerobatics certified glider | +7/−5 g |
| Apollo 16 on reentry[22] | 7.19 g |
| Typical max. turn in an aerobatic plane or fighter jet | 9–12 g |
| Typical to max. turn in Alpine ski racing | 5–12 g |
| Death or serious injury likely[citation needed] | > 25 g |
| Maximum for human on a rocket sled | 46.2 g |
| Sprint missile | 100 g |
| Brief human exposure survived in crash[23][24] | > 100 g |
| Highest recorded g-force ever survived (Kenny Bräck, 2003)[25][better source needed][26][better source needed] | 214 g |
| Space gun with a barrel length of 1 km and a muzzle velocity of 6 km/s, as proposed by Quicklaunch (assuming constant acceleration) | 1,800 g |
| Shock capability of mechanical wrist watches[27] | > 5,000 g |
| V8 Formula One engine, maximum piston acceleration [28] | 8,600 g |
| Rating of electronics built into military artillery shells[29] | 15,500 g |
| 9×19mm Parabellum handgun bullet (average along the length of the barrel)[30][better source needed] | 60,000 g |
| 9 × 19 Parabellum handgun bullet, peak[31][better source needed] | 190,000 g |
| Analytical ultracentrifuge spinning at 60,000 rpm, at the bottom of the analysis cell (7.2 cm)[32] | 300,000 g |
| Mean acceleration of a proton in the Large Hadron Collider[33] | 190,000,000 g |
| Acceleration from a wakefield plasma accelerator[34] | 8.9×1020 g |
* Including contribution from resistance to gravity.
† Directed 40 degrees from horizontal.
Dodging a sniper bullet....
....Is pretty impressive. But isn't actually indicator of supersonic speed when fired from miles away.
I don't need research to figure this out. The fastest of sniper bullets can clock in at around 4000 feet per second or 2727.273 miles per hour, around mach 3.5.
So, let's assume the sniper is 1 mile away. Speed equals distance over time. The man is one mile away. 5280 feet(1 mile)/4000 FPS=1.31 seconds before the bullet hits you
Not to lowball snipers, but if someone knew the bullet was coming, a regular human could get out of dodge of that. Indeed, there was actually an attempt to make an invention that enabled people to dodge sniper bullets.
Of course, this is a ways off and it naturally got canceled. But again, 1.31 seconds is quite a long time. You can't hear a bullet being fired at you because it is faster than sound. So theoretically, if you saw the lightspeed muzzle flash, a regular person can dodge a bullet from a great distance. (Too bad most snipers have suppressors to mask the flash.)
The point....
I felt like making a thread for this because I believe some characters should be reevaluated as to whether or not they are truly supersonic or not. Certain characters have many leads and indicators that they are no faster than sound but they dodge bullets long after they are fired from only a few feet away. And them being supersonic can fly in the face of everything that character is presented as.
So, thoughts?
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