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The Science of One Punch Man’s Ridiculous Strength

Imagine you are the strongest superhero in existence. You are so powerful that you can defeat any opponent with a single punch. Giant rock monsters? Obliterated. Dozens of ape fiends? Instantaneously turned into red mist. What would you do with such strength? If you’re a bald fellow named Saitama, you’d get bored. Really bored. Maybe bored enough to destroy the universe with a punch.

In my latest Because Science, I did it. Enough of you asked and I’m finally looking into by far the most requested show topic — One Punch Man. In honor of the anime finally coming to the States, I’m going through a few famous scenes to figure out exactly how fast and strong Saitama actually is. We can estimate his speed by calculating how quickly you’d have to go to jump from the moon to the Earth in seconds (yeah, he really does that). His strength has been harder to calculate because many who have tried to analyze OPM like this before have mistaken energy for force and vice versa. So I approximate both!

But I also wanted to go beyond what the anime shows. We never see our protagonist’s full potential, so what would be the physical limit of a punch? One that could destroy the universe seems like a good end point.


Check out my last video on why a transporter is the most mind-blowing piece of technology in Star Trek, subscribe to this playlist to stay current with the show, buy a Because Science shirt (you know why), and follow me on Twitter to give me a suggestion for the next episode!

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