The Krypton Principle

Science Fridays

      I see that I have a wide variety of readers from several countries.  I will therefore lay some groundwork rules concerning science before continuing with today's story.
      1.  True science is based upon observable fact.  Filling in gaps is nothing more than just supposition - in other words, technical guessing.
      2.  A hypothesis is an educated guess, usually based upon available data.  In layman's terms it is part of the scientific process where one says, "I have an idea."
      3.  A theory is a well tested hypothesis, or a hypothesis that has been calculated as far as possible with all available data.  Layman's terms again; it is a well tested guess, but still in all it is only a guess.
      4.  A scientific law is a theory that has been proven correct.  It must always show the exact same result with absolutely zero variability no matter how many times it is tested.  A simple example is the law of gravity.  no matter how many times you let go of an apple or a pencil it will drop.  The 2nd law of thermodynamics is another example.  It states that all things move from a state of order to a state of disorder.  Hot water and cold water both poured into the same tank will become luke warm.  Things do not naturally improve, but rather will degrade over time, and orderly arrangements do not arise out of chaos, but rather orderly arrangements become chaos. 
      Make it a point to keep these basic things in mind whenever you read a scientific report.

      Nuff said on that.

      This story is a sort of follow up on last week's Science Friday.  Astronomers get excited whenever they think they find evidence of an extra-solar planet.  If you were to look through the earlier entries in the archive of NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day web site, you would see that as late as 2003 any extra-solar planet they thought they had found could not really be confirmed.  As of today there are several that they are fairly certain of.

 Artist's Rendition - this is not a real photo!

      One of the planets that has them very excited orbits Gliese 581.  Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star, about 1/3 the size of our sun.  They think there are anywhere from three to six planets orbiting the star.  Being much smaller in mass its planets' orbits are also much smaller.  Their orbits average from 3 days to 66 days.  Having years that short would make buying birthday presents and holiday gifts very expensive.  That would be doubly so on the planet they feel would be in the habitable zone.  Its orbit is only 36 days.  That means a 50 year old on Earth would be 600 years old on Gliese 581g.  One would be 66 years old there in only 5.5 Earth years.  Now that's an early retirement!  If I went there right now I could retire early, like now, and get centuries worth of back pay on on my Social Security and pension - many years before I'd qualify for it here (I gotta get that hyperspace travel figured out). 
      There's something I should warn you about though before you try to go there yourself.  These planets are huge - like jovial planet size huge.  We are talking like the size of Neptune, Uranus, and bigger.  I read someone's report about it and they said how awesome that would be, because there would be so much room to expand, before they would ever have to think about overpopulation.  Excuse me.  Expansion isn't something they should be concerned about, but rather compression.  At between 3.5 and 13.5 times the mass of Earth, gravity there would really suck (truly, not literally).  It would suck you down to the surface fast and hard.  It might even crush you.  The air would be so thick that it would be hard to breathe.  Forget getting out of breath walking up the hills of Duluth, MN, Seattle, or San Fransisco.  You'd get out of breath walking down the hills on any of the Gliese 581 planets.
   

      But then comes the Krypton principle.  According to the Superman story, the reason he and anyone else from his planet seemed so strong on Earth is because they got so strong on Krypton fighting their massive gravity.  Even their bones had to be stronger in order to cope with it.  So then, when they came here they were like superheroes.  It's the same as when our Earthlings went to the moon.  They could jump higher than any white man had ever jumped before and could kick a soccer ball the length of several football fields.  I wonder how far they could hit a golf ball, or a slapshot.  How far could Happy Gilmore do either?
      The Krypton Principle is just a theory though, at best, and is more like a crazy hypothesis.  They left out a few Laws that negate their theory.  With the average adult western male weighing in at about 180 lbs. (in their prime) on Gliese 581 planets that same man would weigh anywhere from just under 600 lbs. up to 2,430 lbs.  Just you try walking with that much weight on your bod.  Because of this the scientific law of "It Just Can't Be Done" negates the Krypton Hypothesis.  The "It just Can't Be Done" law can be illustrated like this: When I used to raise cattle, every spring when the calves were born I used to hear the same stale joke in the guise of advice.  "Right now you can lift the calves.  If you just go out there everyday and lift the calf, by the time they're full grown you'll be able to lift a full grown cow or bull.", they would tell me.  The reality, of course, is that you will eventually reach the point that "It Just Can't Be Done."  The calf will grow faster than your strength and even if your muscles grow stronger your bones, joints, and ligaments would not be able to bear the weight of the calf in a short time.  It just can't be done.
      So the real kryptonite for a dweller of Krypton would be Krypton itself.  If the right atoms accidentally got thrown into each other at a chance of 1 to 10 to the umpteen billionth power again and again, and some kind of self replicating things got accidentally made, in order to exist at all on a Gliese 581 planet, they'd have to be built like a bridge (I've heard of someone being "built like a brick outhouse" but never heard the phrase "she's built like a bridge" and I hope I never do).  
      There is something else I should say to the potential traveler to Gliese 581.  It has never been actually seen.  What they have seen is barely perceptible wobbles to the star.  From this they deduce that there must be a few planets out there (see numbers 1 - 4 above). They make all these guesses about the star system based on the interpretation of wobbles.  Maybe the star is just really old, or has an "injury from the war" that keeps kicking up, or maybe the star is just drunk. 
      So in short, we don't really know if these planets really exist, as there is no real proof.  This idea is merely a hypothesis (a guess), and a theory (a studied guess) at best.  Survival on the planet's surface would be extremely exhausting, if not impossible.  Going there and registering your age would be great for being able to retire early, but you'd go broke buying birthday presents.