Post created by Sharon
Dashiell Robert Parr is a character in the movie The Incredibles. He is the middle child in a family of superheroes and has the power of super speed.
In a scene where he and his sister, Violet, are avoiding evil henchmen in flying bladed vehicles in the jungle, Dash finds himself running straight toward a body of water. Instead of turning to the side and finding a way around the water, he keeps running straight and discovers he is fast enough to run on water.
This is truly a super power because a human with average capabilities would not be able to run across water. Even Usain Bolt has no hope of striding across the top of a liquid surface, and he is the fastest human!
The human body is not designed for walking on water, our feet would have to be the size of boats or we would have to run incredibly fast. An article on outsideonline.com talks about some researchers who studied Basilisk lizards, which slap the water with such a force that an air pocket is created. They determined that humans would have to slap their feet down on the water at 30 meters per second, 3 times faster than Usain Bolt, in order to create the same effect. That is 15 times the force our legs can generate.
Fortunately, Dash has the speed part covered. In The Incredibles video game, it is shown that Dash can run 190 miles per hour. This converts to 84.9 meters per second, almost three times faster than a human would have to go to run on water.
Not only can Dash make his legs move that fast, but he can also withstand the force of his feet hitting the water at that speed.
In order to find the force that his feet exerted on the water, I needed to know Dash's mass. According to a Pixar fandom, Dash weighs 60 pound, or 27.3 kilograms.
Using the equation for kinetic energy:
KE= 1/2 mv^2
I plugged in Dash's mass and velocity and found that the kinetic energy he exerts is 97.93 kJ.
Using the amount of kinetic energy as the value for work, and the average step height of 7.5 inches (19.05 cm) I used the equation:
W= Fd
which can be solved for force:
F= W/d
After plugging in all the values, I found the force to be 5.14 x 10^5 N. It takes 4,000 N of force to break a human femur, so Dash's leg is absorbing a lot more force than an average person is able to.
All of this to say, Dash is a pretty super kid to be able to run with enough speed and force to run on water!
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