How exactly strong is Videl?

[Saiga]

Yeah, this is true, but my feeling is if you do that, you have to dismiss similar scenes of Goku. Blooma shooting him after finding out about her panties is clearly a gag scene.

With maybe only a few exceptions (and I can't even think of any off the top of my head), I have a hard time personally seeing "gag manga" as an excuse for anything in Dragon Ball simply because there's very little in DB that's rooted in real world logic by consequence of its characters being unnaturally strong both in comedy and in drama. I mean, it almost seems ridiculous when you think about it. "Oh, Kuririn not having a nose is so silly. It's just gag manga logic, so you can't count that. Now someone blasting a hole through a planet with a magic beam coming out of their hands? That's totally plausible and realistic!"

Well, unless you're into totally insane theories you kind of have to dismiss Satan surviving Cell's attack as a gag.

[Gaffer Tape]

Not really. One of the characters (Piccolo, I believe) states that Cell wouldn't dirty himself killing Satan. So even the author is trying to justify what could be construed as simply gag logic.

[Saiga]

Not really. One of the characters (Piccolo, I believe) states that Cell wouldn't dirty himself killing Satan. So even the author is trying to justify what could be construed as simply gag logic.

Even if Cell is only using .001% of his power or less... Satan goes flying into a mountain side and is still able to move after that. The same guy who can't beat a real life martial artist.

[Gaffer Tape]

He's also the guy who can break through a dozen tiles with his hand. And if Cell wants to hold back enough power to keep from killing him, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd be able. Again, this is Dragon Ball. Magic hand beams tear through the earth. Nothing in the series is more ridiculous or unbelievable than anything else.

[Saiga]

He's also the guy who can break through a dozen tiles with his hand. And if Cell wants to hold back enough power to keep from killing him, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd be able. Again, this is Dragon Ball. Magic hand beams tear through the earth. Nothing in the series is more ridiculous or unbelievable than anything else.

Well it makes Toriyama's statement unbelievable doesn't it? If that scene is taken seriously, Satan has a feat NO real life human could hope to achieve. And I know Cell could most likely hold back power from killing him, I just don't see why he'd do that when that would take more effort than just killing him.

[Gaffer Tape]

But he's not a real life human. No one in Dragon Ball is or is the equivalent of a real life human. Hell, nearly EVERY human character in this series has mastered feats no "real" human could hope to achieve. Namu can leap high into the air. Kuririn can make a spinning cutting disc out of his life energy. Muten Roshi can buff himself up to three times his usual size. Chaozu... looks like that. I'm not saying gag manga logic doesn't exist in the series, but it's interwoven into the physics of the series. There are far too many instances of it to simply dismiss them all as somehow not counting, especially when they are commented on after the fact, and doubly especially when they make up major plot points. This isn't the equivalent of a Family Guy cutaway. This is how their world works. I think it's just people who prefer to think of their Dragon Ball as a serious action drama who object to this (they're also people who generally do not like the first story arc at all). That's not a dig at anybody. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. That's just my own personal observation. But like I said, it's my opinion that it's no less implausible than any of the powers that are presented in a "serious" context and certainly not things that can't co-exist in the same universe.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

The same guy who can't beat a real life martial artist.

What makes you believe this?

[Saiga]

The same guy who can't beat a real life martial artist.

What makes you believe this?

This:

Q4. How strong is Mister Satan?
A. I think he's plenty strong. But...I don't get the feeling that he's as strong as Bob Sapp (laughs).

From here.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Oh yes, I've seen this... but who is Bob Sapp?

[Saiga]

Oh yes, I've seen this... but who is Bob Sapp?

An American martial artist/wrestler/kick boxer who is fairly well known in Japan. So that's why I was comparing him to a real martial artist.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Is that guy so weak that he can't beat a real martial artist?

[Saiga]

Is that guy so weak that he can't beat a real martial artist?

Sapp isn't weak, he was the real martial artist that I was comparing Satan to. I didn't mean to imply that Satan could beat any real martial artist, just that there was a martial artist he would lose to, which means he shouldn't be strong enough to survive his collision with the cliff face.

[Bussani]

Toriyama's reply sounds like a joke to me, not unlike saying, "Sure, Kuririn's strong--but he's no Chuck Norris!"

I imagine several people will now disagree and tell me that I can't pick and choose which replies are tongue-in-cheek and which aren't, or something along those lines.

[rereboy]

The same guy who can't beat a real life martial artist.

What makes you believe this?

This:

Q4. How strong is Mister Satan?
A. I think he's plenty strong. But...I don't get the feeling that he's as strong as Bob Sapp (laughs).

From here.

That was a joke. It even states the laughs.

Anyway, Pilaf, May and Soba survived being thrown out of a plane in the Piccolo Daimao saga. This and Mr. Satan flying into the mountain are all comical exaggerations. These characters aren't supposed to be strong enough to survive something like this in the real world but for the sake of comical relief the manga allows itself to exaggerate, even though they aren't superhuman.

We either go with that or we assume that gravity and physics don't work the same way as in the real world and they survived because of it.

[Rocketman]

Since it's pretty much impossible to have a planet with 10x Earth's gravity, it may in fact be better to think of their Earth as a small planet, more like our Mars.

Have to run the numbers on that...

[dario03]

Since it's pretty much impossible to have a planet with 10x Earth's gravity, it may in fact be better to think of their Earth as a small planet, more like our Mars.

Have to run the numbers on that...

What is the theoretical maximum gravity for a rocky/metal planet? I've heard the theoretical maximum mass is ~14 times but I don't know how dense the planet can be. And then this just confused me since it sounds like a rock/metal planet but is much more massive than 14xearth, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COROT-3b which by some classifications is a planet and is only the size of Jupitar but over 21 times as massive which makes it denser than lead and has over 50 times the gravity of Earth (assuming the guy that posted the gravity part on wiki is right)

[Bussani]

What is the theoretical maximum gravity for a rocky/metal planet?

The article itself has an interesting note about that:

However, some models of planet formation predict that planets with masses up to 25–30 Jupiter masses can form via core accretion.

So I guess it's something that's still being debated. Planets with masses more than about twelve times that of Jupiter hadn't been seen before, which was what made COROT-3b so surprising.

only the size of Jupitar but over 21 times as massive which makes it denser than lead and has over 50 times the gravity of Earth (assuming the guy that posted the gravity part on wiki is right)

If the size is the same as Jupiter's and the mass is 21.66 times that of Jupiter's, then yeah, it'd be close to 55 times the gravity we experience on Earth.

Surface Gravity = Gravitational Constant * Mass / Radius²

[Rocketman]

What is the theoretical maximum gravity for a rocky/metal planet?

There is none, though at some point the gravity will go so high that light can no longer escape and a black hole forms.

The problem is that you need a lot of mass and density to get gravity that high. I ran the numbers some time ago, and the absolute smallest a naturally-occuring planet could be and have 10x Earth's gravity is....90,000 kilometers, if it's made of solid iron. That's a ball of iron seven times larger than the Earth.

[Saiga]

There is none, though at some point the gravity will go so high that light can no longer escape and a black hole forms.

The problem is that you need a lot of mass and density to get gravity that high. I ran the numbers some time ago, and the absolute smallest a naturally-occuring planet could be and have 10x Earth's gravity is....90,000 kilometers, if it's made of solid iron. That's a ball of iron seven times larger than the Earth.

So if it takes ~140 to destroy a moon and ~14000 to destroy Earth, how much to destroy that hypothetical planet?

[Bussani]

There is none, though at some point the gravity will go so high that light can no longer escape and a black hole forms.

The problem is that you need a lot of mass and density to get gravity that high. I ran the numbers some time ago, and the absolute smallest a naturally-occuring planet could be and have 10x Earth's gravity is....90,000 kilometers, if it's made of solid iron. That's a ball of iron seven times larger than the Earth.

So if it takes ~140 to destroy a moon and ~14000 to destroy Earth, how much to destroy that hypothetical planet?

Using the logic Rocketman used to come up with those values, just under 7,000,000. If you use real life math then the number is quite a bit higher. I said over 5,000,000,000 in the other thread, but I must have confused the diameter with the radius, because it's actually more like 11,000,000,000!