Sometimes when we think about science we begin to wonder if the fictional things could be real?
In our silly science segments we will look to study some of these.
Up first is the ever impressive Superman. The Man of Steel has some truly awe inspiring abilities. On-demand flight, super strength and Laser eyes! in the comics Superman gets his strength from the energy of the Sun. In our first Silly Science article we study whether Clarke Kent’s extraordinary powers could be powered by photosynthesis.
When analysing results in science we often look for something called ‘correlation’. This is a term that we give for a relationship or connection between two things. Finding and defining these relationships can be very useful to understand the way our world works.
However we can often fall into a trap, assuming that if there is a correlation, then that MUST mean one thing causes the other. Sometimes this is the case, for example there is a correlation between time spent driving a car and likelihood of a motor accident. Of course the more time you spend in a car, the higher the chance you may end up in a motor accident. This isn’t always the case though. Rather amusingly, there is a strong correlation between number of pirates and global average temperature (as number of pirates decrease, temperature rises). Now we can instantly tell this seems nonsense and is probably just a coincidence but other examples could be less clear.
To explain this further, the fantastic Youtuber’s at MinutePhysics produced this video which we thought we’d share!
