I can apparently run a mile in roughly seven minutes and eight seconds, despite the fact that I have asthma.
But is that impressive?
Well, it depends who you ask.
I mean I might be kind of fast to some people, but I'm not the Flash.
But what if I was?
The Flash is a superhero capable of moving at speeds even faster than light.
He gets his powers by tapping into the Speed Force, an extradimensional energy that surrounds and encompasses the multiverse.
If he can siphon enough of it and manipulate it properly, he can basically control the laws of physics to do whatever he wants.
Without damaging himself or the surrounding environment.
And it's a good thing too, because moving at those speeds in real life would be...
Dangerous.
And impossible.
For starters, someone of the Flash's size and weight would burn over 273 trillion calories running at even half the speed of light.
Which means first, he would have to eat four-hundred twenty-one billion Big Macs.
Or drink three-hundred sixty billion milkshakes Which, actually, sounds kind of great.
But what WOULDN'T be great is the nuclear fusion caused by running at such high speeds.
The Flash would be moving so quickly, that the air molecules in his path wouldn't have time to get out of the way.
He would tear apart the surrounding atmosphere, atom by atom.
Destroying himself and annihilating everything within miles in an enormous atomic explosion.
But see, that's why he has the Speed Force.
The Speed Force protects him from all that and from the Flash's perspective He's just having an ordinary jog.
Besides, without all the sci-fi, you just can't get anywhere near the speed of light.
Because Energy is Mass Times the speed of light Squared.
Meaning the more energy you put into moving something, The more mass it gains.
They're the same thing.
And it just makes the object harder and harder to accelerate.
In DC comics, the Flash has demonstrated his ability to ignore E equals MC squared With the Speed Force, if need be.
But he's also displayed an ability to work with it: The Infinite Mass Punch.
By vibrating his fists near the speed of light, he can increase its mass to that of a white dwarf star before hitting an opponent.
A white dwarf can be about 1.4 solar masses.
Greater then the combined mass of our entire solar system.
So it's very powerful.
And theoretically, he can increase the mass even further if he needed to.
But working with physics isn't the coolest part about being the Flash by a longshot.
How fast can he go while bypassing it?
Well, you'll see in this race, the Flash actually manages to outrun the gravitational pull of a black hole, Which even light has never escaped from.
There was also that time he and Superman had a casual dinner and full existential conversation In less time than it took their tripping waitress to spill a cup of coffee.
He evacuated the entire population five-hundred thousand person population of Chongjin, North Korea In point zero, zero, zero, zero one microseconds.
He fought Zoom across every inch of the planet, circling Earth dozens of times at speeds so fast, not even the other superheroes noticed.
He outran the concept of Death itself And he can perceive events that happen in less than an attosecond.
An attosecond is point Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero One
(That's 17 zeroes!) Seconds.
In one second, light can circle the Earth seven-and-a-half times.
In one millionth of a second (microsecond), light can travel the height of Tokyo Tower.
But in one attosecond, light barely has enough time to get from one end of a water molecule to the next.
If you were immortal, living in this timeframe, you would outlive the entire age of the universe in less time than it takes the average person to blink.
But you know what?
That still isn't the fastest the Flash can get.
Do you want to know the number?
The undeniable cap on DC's famous speedster?
Are ya sure?
For that answer, we turn to a title called In this story, it's revealed that a pair of nigh-omnipotent beings known only as the Cosmic Gamblers exist at the edge of the universe.
With their vast power, betting against each other is one of the few things capable of entertaining them And they've been forcing the fastest beings in existence to race through time and space so they can place wagers on the outcome.
To ensure the speedsters give their all, the penalty for losing is destruction of the loser's home planet.
Naturally, Earth gets caught up in the bet because, well that's just our luck.
And the Flash is nominated to represent us.
You would think this is the point where the Flash breaks out his fastest speed ever.
But no.
That comes during a minor pit stop, when he changes the rules on the Cosmic Gamblers.
Knowing they can't turn down a friendly wager, the Flash bets them he can travel back to Earth faster then they can.
One of them tells him that's impossible. They can teleport and you can't move faster than instantaneous transportation.
But the Flash insists on the bet and they accept.
Before the race starts, the Flash contacts Earth and tells everyone there to start running.
Boys. Girls.
Men. Women.
Prison inmates. The Justice League.
Every needs to make as much kinetic energy as they can And when the signal is given, he taps into more of the Speed Force than ever before.
Siphoning all of their kinetic energy, all of his own, every joule he can possibly get.
AND THEN...!
This happens: He moves at a time interval so small, there exists no word to describe it.
For the record, the smallest unit of time that exists is called a Planck Instant.
It's a little difficult to explain, but according to quantum mechanics, this is the smallest amount of time that can exist in our universe.
We can say the universe came into existence when it had an age of one Planck Instant.
And we measure this time period by seeing how long it takes a photon to cross one Planck length: the smallest distance capable of existing in our universe.
But if something managed to cross a distance in a shorter time period than this, We've Broken speed.
Our theories don't work at this velocity. The Flash could be anywhere or everywhere at any time or every time.
The Flash would be traveling so fast that what he's doing isn't even classified as a speed anymore.
He's reached trans-time velocity.
To give you a good idea of what I'm talking about Usain Bolt is the fastest human being on record, reaching speeds just below 28 miles per hour.
Spiderman has reached speeds over 200 miles per hour.
Sonic the Hedgehog's normal running speed is around Mach 5. That's five times the speed of sound.
Rip Van Winkle's magic bullets can travel at least Mach 33.
Quicksilver once crossed the Earth at Mach 640.
Decepticon missiles can go as fast as Mach 1,419.
Mega Rayquaza smashed a meteor at Mach 13,815.
While Beerus and Goku fought at relativistic speed before a few drops of water could fall to the floor.
(here we go)
Sora's Keyblade can shoot beams 3 and a half times the speed of light.
Doctor Fate outraced the Big Bang at 100 times the speed of light.
The warp drive of the USS Enterprise can move over 1,300 times the speed of light.
Iron Man once flew over 111,000 times the speed of light.
The Millennium Falcon moves faster than 9 million times the speed of light.
The Silver Surfer flies at around 32 million times the speed of light.
Superman flew from the edge of the universe at 274 billion times the speed of light.
Green Lanterns can travel at 41 trillion times the speed of light.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann can dodge attacks over 7 quadrillion 861 trillion times the speed of light.
The alien playing Galaxy Marbles at the end of 'Men in Black' must have been moving at least 2 quintillion 932 quadrillion 848 trillion times the speed of light.
And...in this scene, The Flash has to be moving a minimum of
23 tredecillion 759 duodecillion 449 undecillion times faster than light.
The Flash does win, by the way.
Outracing instantaneous travel and saving the Earth.
But after a race like that, even he just wants to slow down.
So slow down. Relax. Enjoy life. Because it's going by pretty fast.
You don't want to miss a single of Planck Instant.
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