James Kakalios: Finally, Science Explains Why No One Can Lift Thor’s Hammer

James Kakalios writes: These are exciting days for physics, with several recent experimental observations providing important information on some of the most important mysteries of nature. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has found the Higgs boson, the last missing particle in the Standard Model, advancing our understanding of the origin of the mass of fundamental particles. The discovery by astrophysicists that the expansion of the universe is accelerating implies that 75% of the universe is composed of “dark energy.” And a recent trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron suggests an explanation for the long-standing open question: can the Hulk lift Thor’s hammer?

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The scene in question aired Oct. 28 during an episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC. In this clip, the Avengers are relaxing in their street clothes in Tony Stark’s penthouse apartment, and are discussing the “enchantment” on Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, which stipulates that it can only be lifted by those “deemed worthy,” and whoever does so will “possess the power of Thor.” Thor places his hammer on a coffee table (actually, as shown below, it is resting partially on some books on the table), and various heroes attempt to pick up the hammer, to no avail. Thor then hefts the hammer and casually flips it into the air.

YouTube/Screengrab

And thus one proposal for why the hammer is unliftable is put to rest. Astrophysicist and Director of the Hayden Planetarium, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, has speculated that, if Mjolnir is composed of neutron star matter, the densest material in the universe outside of a black hole, then it would weigh as much as three hundred billion elephants.

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Water has a density of one gram per cubic centimeter, and lead has a density of eleven grams per cubic centimeter, but they pale compared to neutron star matter, which has a density of one hundred million million grams per cubic centimeter. In this case Mjolnir would weigh roughly twelve thousand trillion pounds. I know Tony Stark is rich, but even if he could buy a coffee table that could support such a weight, I can’t imagine any book, even an impenetrable physics text, that could bear up under this force. No, we must look elsewhere for an explanation as to why only Thor (and a few select others—more on this in a moment) can raise Mjolnir. Read the rest of this entry »