Wonder Woman has many superpowers: reflexes, superhuman strength, superhuman speed, and durability. Reflexes refers to the ability to react quickly, superhuman strength is when you are physically stronger than the maximum strength that humans and animals can achieve, superhuman speed is about the ability to move faster that what is possible in our real world, and durability is the ability of be able to use for a long time without getting damaged. Examining the movie and the comics, the durability of Wonder Woman’s unbreakable bracelets have the ability to deflect bullets. This depends on how quickly she reacts to those bullets, and how those bracelets ensure that not a lot of momentum gets passed to Wonder Woman.
Since momentum is always conserved, the total momentum of the bullet and Wonder Woman before the collision must be equivalent to the total momentum of them after the collision. As the bullet hits her, small portion of bullet’s velocity gets transferred to her, which cause her to move back just a little bit. Then, the bullet will bounce off of her bracelet at smaller velocity than its initial velocity because its final velocity has to combined with Wonder Woman’s velocity to be equal to their total momentum before the crash. Even though Wonder Woman receives small recoil velocity, we can not really see her bounce off like the bullet because that velocity is very tiny.
The explanation of the law of conservation of momentum does make sense, and it is realistic. To make momentum conserved, the bullet has to bounce back with smaller velocity, and Woman Woman will get some velocity from the bullet to move back as well. However, superhuman speed, superhuman strength, reflexes, and durability are seemed as impossible to achieve in our real world. Are there any human that can move faster or physically stronger than the maximum strength and speed that any organism in our planet can do? Additionally, we have not found any material that can used to create objects that resist damage. Also, Wonder Woman’s reaction time has to be small in order to deflect a bullet. There was a scene in the movie that the shooter is 5 meter away from her and that means her reaction time is approximately .01 second, which is incredibly small for our humans to have. In order to make “reflexes” superpower more physically realistic, the movies and the comics should let the shooter fires the gun from further distance. By doing this, it allows Wonder Woman to have greater reaction time to those bullets.
Works Cited
Allain, Rhett. “The Physics of Bullets Vs. Wonder Woman’s Bracelets.” Wired, Conde Nast, 8 June 2017, www.wired.com/2017/06/physics-bullets-versus-wonder-womans-bracelets/.
Gemmill, Allie. “Wonder Woman’s Got Some Serious Superpowers.” Bustle, Bustle, 20 Mar. 2018, www.bustle.com/p/what-are-wonder-womans-powers-the-superhero-has-more-than-a-golden-lasso-60024.
Nerdist. “The Secret of Wonder Woman’s Bullet Blocking! (Because Science w/ Kyle Hill).” YouTube, YouTube, 23 Nov. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiYW_EGzcuw.
Photo Source: http://gomerblog.com/2017/10/wonder-woman-bracelets/