Physics Students Discover How to Replicate Street Fighter's Hadouken

roseofbattle

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Apr 18, 2011
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Physics Students Discover How to Replicate Street Fighter's Hadouken

The key to executing a Hadouken in real life is beating the current record for fastest dodgeball throw.

Students of the University of Leicester's Department of Physics and Astronomy investigated just how average humans like ourselves could create a Hadouken-type fireball, a special attack used by certain Street Fighter characters. The students, A. Toohie, J. McGuire, and A. Pohl, discovered a way - unfortunately, their conclusion indicated their method is currently impossible to execute.

The students' method included soaking a dodgeball in gasoline and throwing it fast enough for it to so that the viscous drag forces would ignite the fuel. In order for the fuel to ignite, a person would have to throw the gasoline-soaked dodgeball at 93 miles per hour. The current fastest dodgeball throwers can throw a dodgeball around 66 miles per hour. Even if someone could throw a dodgeball at 93 mph, the students concluded even this wouldn't be enough.

"Even if we assume the player could still throw as fast with a gasoline-soaked dodgeball as with a normal dodgeball," the students concluded in their paper, which was published in the Journal of Physics Special Topics, "they would not be able to attain this autoignition velocity even momentarily, and as such could certainly not maintain it for any length of time, as would be required for the ball to ignite."

It may be impossible for a human to throw a dodgeball with the required velocity, but mechanical launching methods could provide a solution. Perhaps we were not meant to master the Hadouken.

Source: io9 [https://physics.le.ac.uk/journals/index.php/pst/article/view/667/467]


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Barbas

ExQQxv1D1ns
Oct 28, 2013
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Well then, I say we get the US Navy on it - fire that thing out of a massive gun. Money well-spent.
 

C.TYR

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Dec 30, 2013
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Why is the picture from xTekken, tho?
If you're gonna talk about street fighter hadouken, at least get a picture from a good game.
 

Tortilla the Hun

Decidedly on the Fence
May 7, 2011
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Barbas said:
Well then, I say we get the US Navy on it - fire that thing out of a massive gun. Money well-spent.
Now, even though it won't be a thing, I want to see Naval Dodgeball become a thing.

I'm in shambles...

LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME!

More on topic, I'd really like to see the guys at Mythbusters get on this.
 

Sigmund Av Volsung

Hella noided
Dec 11, 2009
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Not so much a Hadouken as it is a fireball, but still, kind of neat.

I enjoy the idea of phycisists and students spending their down time validating ideas from fictional works.
 

SKBPinkie

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Oct 6, 2013
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Oh man, bullying is gonna get a lot rougher.

Also, this is not really a Hadouken. Ryu just seems to create a fireball from nothing (God knows how), whereas this is basically an inflammable dodgeball.

*pushes nerd glasses up*
 

fluxy100

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May 22, 2010
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roseofbattle said:
Physics Students Discover How to Replicate Street Fighter's Hadouken




In order for the fuel to ignite, a person would have to throw the gasoline-soaked dodgeball at 93 miles per hour. Even if someone could throw a dodgeball at 93 mph, the students concluded even this wouldn't be enough.

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Wait so to make it work you have to throw at 93 mph, BUT throwing at 93 mph isn't enough to make it work? I'm confused
 

omega 616

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May 1, 2009
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So this news story is "university says "you can't do a hadouken"" well no shit! What next? Local college says "sun walk impossible, even at night"?

What they did wasn't even a hadouken, it was stupid teens trying to be sciencey. Just take the science away and cover a basketball in a flammable liquid, light it and throw it ... that would be a better way of doing it anyway!
 

Grimh

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Feb 11, 2009
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Even then that's not really a fireball, just a ball on fire, kind of an important distinction.
Still an interesting fact though.
 

Scrythe

Premium Gasoline
Jun 23, 2009
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1) Obtain a pitching machine
2) Rig it to launch at 100mph
3) Soak a bucket full of baseballs in gasoline
4) Get the hell off my lawn

While I would question the legality of throwing fire accelerant at people (no pun intended), improvised weaponry on it's own is surprisingly legal in the US. Also, flamethrowers.

Having said that, this is impractical as hell, on top of being dangerous and irresponsible.

I really want to see this on Mythbusters now.

Barbas said:
Well then, I say we get the US Navy on it - fire that thing out of a massive gun. Money well-spent.
Baseballs and fire.

America!
 

Jodan

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Mar 18, 2009
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MY GOD! the potential for this reaserch is endless....
i hope these were not graduate students.
seemslike somthingone could figure out with a set of data and some not so complex math.
 

Chris Ingersoll

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Jun 21, 2013
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Barbas said:
Well then, I say we get the US Navy on it - fire that thing out of a massive gun. Money well-spent.
Or the Mythbusters. If they can fire a ping-pong ball at super-sonic speeds [http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/mythbusters-supersonic-ping-pong-videos.htm] I'm sure they can get this puppy to auto-ignite.

EDIT: Better link.
 

Fasckira

Dice Tart
Oct 22, 2009
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I was looking forward to seeing a video of some student hadoukening the shit out of his lab partner or something.

SKBPinkie said:
Ryu just seems to create a fireball from nothing (God knows how)
The anime explains it as him focusing his "chi" or life force to a point. Starts off just being able to blow out a candle before it progresses into a ball of pain.
 

Callate

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Dec 5, 2008
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"Round One..."
"Wait, wait. Ryu, before we fight, what's in the bag?"
"...Nothing..."
"Wait. Is that full of gasoline-soaked dodgeballs?"
"...No..."
"Oh come on. That's got to be against some kind of rules...!"