Can You Build Your Own ‘Iron Man’ Suit?

So what would it take to build your own Iron Man suit? Given enough money and access to scientific equipment, could you become a superhero?

The good people over at The Chicago Tribune posed exactly those questions to James Kakalios, a University of Minnesota physics professor. Kakalios weighed in on the likelihood of building various elements of Iron Man’s armor, including jet boots, cybernetic helmet and, of course, repulsor rays:

It’s that power thing again. If you want to send lightning bolts — or laser beams, more likely — shooting out of your palms, you have to carry along a power source big enough to generate them. To make a beam "powerful enough to melt a fist-size hole through a half-inch steel plate," Kakalios says, "would require an energy pulse of over 2 gigawatts of power, greater than the output of a nuclear power plant."

The verdict? Well, let’s just say that you might want to hold off on making any superpowered arch-enemies for a while.

Read the full article over at The Chicago Tribune website.