> Discounting the presence of atmosphere is something that has always bugged me in sci-fi
> media. Take Star Trek's transporter as an example. You can't just beam a person into a
> space occupied by air molecules without some kind of adverse results.

That's one of the reasons I liked the transporter they had in the movie _Stargate_. Instead of just beaming something from one place to another, what it did was to swap whatever occupied a set volume at one end with whatever occupied an equal volume at the other end.

> Another of my pet peeves is the Flash and his equivalents in other comics empires, such as
> Marvel's Quicksilver. You can't generate enough friction between the soles of your feet
> and the pavement to accelerate from zero to 500mph (or however fast) in a split second,
> even if your body *is* mysteriously able to endure such a rate of motion. Nor would
> there be enough friction to permit the Flash and his ilk to turn tight corners at
> Mach3, etc., etc. I'd like to see a super-fast superhero who had to deal with the limitations
> that normal earthly physics placed on his preternatural abilities.

Why? If normal earthly physics applied, there'd no point in him being a superhero.

Paul