How Black Panther’s suit work?
Marvel mentioned that Black Panther’s suit made out of a fictional element called, “Vibranium.” The only fact we knew about Vibranium is that it has the ability absorb and redirect kinetic energy. But how can Vibranium absorbed and redirect kinetic energy?
Let’s say someone is shooting at Black Panther. Now, the bullet that came out of the gun is moving and it has some momentum. So, the mass of the bullet is moving at a certain velocity in a certain direction. What’s more? The bullet is in motion and loaded with energy; we describe energy in motion as, “Kinetic Energy(or KE).”
When the bullet impact the suit the energy has to go somewhere as the law of conservation of energy stated, “the total energy of an isolated system remains constant, it is said to be conserved over time and energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed from one form to another.” So where do all of the energy go? First, let’s look at what type of collision between the bullet and the suit.
For elastic collision, the kinetic energy is conserved but for the inelastic collision, “kinetic energy is not conserved due to the action of internal friction.” In our real world, there is no elastic collision (at least within our human sight). So, the collision between the bullet and the suit must be an inelastic collision.
So what happened during the collision? Well, the suit would bend or deformed even on a microscopic scale and it would take energy to transform into another form of energy to do this. In our world, “It takes energy to physically change or deform some material and most of that energy is lost through internal friction or that material’s atoms.” What if Vibranium could absorb and store KE in the deformation. Let’s take a peek at a spring. If we would push the spring, it will be compressed in some distance. To compress the spring it would take some energy and where does the energy go? The energy would be stored in the compressed spring as elastic potential energy. What if Black Panther’s suit is made out of billions of billions of billions of billions of molecular springs using Vibranium’s atom. Every impact the Black Panther experienced, the springs would absorb all of the kinetic energy and store it as elastic potential energy.
Anyway, one thing that we didn’t consider is the reaction of the object that Black Panther applies the force to. In Newton’s third law of motion, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” So if Black Panther would apply some force to the car then he would have the same amount of force that applies to him. Take a look at this clip.
Even though the energy is not conserved, but the momentum is conserved. So the Black Panther would have some momentum toward him.
All of the above is possible in our physical world or at least in the near future but one thing that we unable to explain is, How can Black Panther release the energy at once? Could he have some button to press? This is the part where we uncertain about.
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGeCiCU7wUI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A8A_CP5NMM
https://www.inverse.com/article/15931-what-s-the-closest-real-world-material-to-vibranium
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/Lesson-4/Newton-s-Third-Law