Humans are also weirdly vulnerable to piercing attacks. When you punch someone in the face, it doesn’t break the skin. When you poke them with a needle, they bleed. That’s just how surface pressure works.
It doesn’t matter how durable Viltrumite skin is, it’s still just matter and has to obey the laws of momentum. Hence why intense energy (like the nuke beam) does basically nothing while unexpected physical strikes are able to move them relatively easily. Sharp things just move nearby atoms in different directions, so it’s an issue of physical intermolecular bond strength rather than say, compressive strength or thermal conductivity.
Humans can’t karate chop each other’s entrails out.
Viltrumites are weirdly vulnerable to pointy things to a far greater degree than you’d expect from something of their durability. Anything of their durability, really.
This isn’t “human poked by other human with needle”, more “human’s skin is cut by the pressure of an ant walking on it”. If it was just a pressure thing then Nolan could’ve used his Lucan disembowelling strength to just give him skull fractures with every punch. Fingers aren’t knives or needles, and if you want to cut inches deep into flesh with them then you need a far higher amount of force than the owner of that flesh could generate with their own body.
Everything else I pretty much agree with, but the specific extent that Viltrumites are easily killed with pointy object vs brick is definitely not at all comparable to humans because poking actual literal holes in one another’s torso with our fingers isn’t a thing we can do in combat ever.
Sharp things just move nearby atoms in different directions, so it’s an issue of intermolecular bond strength rather than say, compressive strength or thermal conductivity.
Humans are not able to cut each other’s entrails out because we can’t apply enough force. My entire point is that the Viltrumites are ludicrously strong, but there’s an upper limit to how resistant skin can be to pointy things, so their strength outpaces their defense.
Do you mean tensile or shear strength?
No, I mean compressive strength. Blunt force strikes compress the target.
Humans are not able to cut each other’s entrails out because we can’t apply enough force. My entire point is that the Viltrumites are ludicrously strong, but there’s an upper limit to how resistant skin can be to pointy things, so their strength outpaces their defense.
What do you think this upper limit is exactly?
There’s an upper limit to how resistant bone can be to forceful things too but Viltrumites just ignore that by a factor of several million times. If their skin wasn’t already stronger than is possible for skin to be then they’d be blasting holes in each other by throwing punches anyway.
No, I mean compressive strength. Blunt force strikes compress the target.
No I’m asking about when you said intermolecular bond strength, because the only reason that should be relevant is if you’re trying to break apart the molecules that make their body up and turn chunks of them into elemental matter.
Ice has a higher intermolecular bond strength than iron but is still much easier to shoot holes in or cut open.
Humans are also weirdly vulnerable to piercing attacks. When you punch someone in the face, it doesn’t break the skin. When you poke them with a needle, they bleed. That’s just how surface pressure works.
It doesn’t matter how durable Viltrumite skin is, it’s still just matter and has to obey the laws of momentum. Hence why intense energy (like the nuke beam) does basically nothing while unexpected physical strikes are able to move them relatively easily. Sharp things just move nearby atoms in different directions, so it’s an issue of physical intermolecular bond strength rather than say, compressive strength or thermal conductivity.
Humans can’t karate chop each other’s entrails out.
Viltrumites are weirdly vulnerable to pointy things to a far greater degree than you’d expect from something of their durability. Anything of their durability, really.
This isn’t “human poked by other human with needle”, more “human’s skin is cut by the pressure of an ant walking on it”. If it was just a pressure thing then Nolan could’ve used his Lucan disembowelling strength to just give him skull fractures with every punch. Fingers aren’t knives or needles, and if you want to cut inches deep into flesh with them then you need a far higher amount of force than the owner of that flesh could generate with their own body.
Everything else I pretty much agree with, but the specific extent that Viltrumites are easily killed with pointy object vs brick is definitely not at all comparable to humans because poking actual literal holes in one another’s torso with our fingers isn’t a thing we can do in combat ever.
Do you mean tensile or shear strength?
They can’t move their limbs at super speed or have super strength either.
Humans are not able to cut each other’s entrails out because we can’t apply enough force. My entire point is that the Viltrumites are ludicrously strong, but there’s an upper limit to how resistant skin can be to pointy things, so their strength outpaces their defense.
No, I mean compressive strength. Blunt force strikes compress the target.
What do you think this upper limit is exactly?
There’s an upper limit to how resistant bone can be to forceful things too but Viltrumites just ignore that by a factor of several million times. If their skin wasn’t already stronger than is possible for skin to be then they’d be blasting holes in each other by throwing punches anyway.
No I’m asking about when you said intermolecular bond strength, because the only reason that should be relevant is if you’re trying to break apart the molecules that make their body up and turn chunks of them into elemental matter.
Ice has a higher intermolecular bond strength than iron but is still much easier to shoot holes in or cut open.