Movie: Man of Steel

[shinta|hikari]

That is assuming that the insides of the aliens are much softer than their skin and susceptible to damage by impact, which is obviously untrue like I said because you see them smashing into buildings with no damage.

Your bottle analogy only works because the human brain is really soft and susceptible to damage. Imagine if the brain was as tough as the skull that surrounds it, or at the very least much tougher than the bottle.

In addition, my pillow analogy isn't just about the hardness of the pillow, but also the weight. The steel beam isn't heavy to the aliens. It is light like a pillow, and by consequence should hit like a pillow.

If he used his fist however, it should have (but it didn't for some reason) at least broken skin and bruised muscle considering they are of the same hardness. The only reason I can think of for that not happening is because the aliens' hardness and toughness are much much higher than the power they can exert... that or they cannot afford to make Superman look banged up and/or dirty.

The reason why they ended that fight with a neck break is because nothing on Earth aside from that could have hurt those two. They had to make it alien muscle vs alien muscle in the end. That is why it is odd for Zod who prides himself a born and trained warrior to even think of hurting Kal with a single featherweight steel beam.

EDIT: I also wonder about your kinetic energy equation. Why did you mention speed? If we are talking about the addition of the steel beam, then weight would be its only asset. The speed in this instance is generated by Zod. In fact, the speed of the attack would decrease with the addition of the weight (but this is pointless because the weight added is puny to begin with). Think boxer vs batter, only replace the bat with a baguette.

What I was saying is that the weight of the steel beam itself, even if used with the force of an alien, is negligible to the aliens, and is not worth sacrificing the hardness of their fist.