Saturday, October 07, 2006 / 2:59 AM
Daredevil
Matt Murdoch was the son of a boxer, ‘Battling Jack’ Murdoch, who grew up in New York. When Matt saved a blind man from being hit by a truck, some of the radioactive waste inside the truck spilled into Matt’s eyes, blinding him permanently.
Matt’s other senses became much more acute, and he developed a radar sense that allowed him to see the world around him. He also found that he could hear another person’s heartbeat, smell the faintest odour or even ‘read’ a newspaper just by touching the print.
After training as a lawyer at Columbia University, Matthew set up practice in New York. But after facing many injustices in the courtroom, Matt took on the identity of Daredevil and fought the criminals that he couldn’t bring to justice by legal means.
A.K.A.
Matthew Murdock
History
Blinded by radioactive burst
Superpowers
* Special sonar sensor* Heightened sense of hearing, smell & touch* Intuitive sense for danger* Phenomenal athlete
Equipment
Special cane that turns into fighting baton or grappling hook
Arch enemy
Kingpin
Weakness
Cannot see
Love interests
Elektra, Karen Page
Seeing with sound
Daredevil’s acute hearing allows him to tell when suspects are lying, just by listening to their heartbeat (see Wonder Woman for more about lie detection). But his most amazing ability is the ‘radar sense’, which allows him to see the world in great detail, even though he is blind.
Animals like dolphins and bats use sonar to construct an image of their surroundings, a skill called ‘echolocation’. They send out a high-pitched sound, and listen for the echo as it bounces off an object.
From the echo they can gather an incredible about of information:
the longer it takes for the echo to return, the further away the object
if the sound is muffled, this reveals what the object is made of
if the sound returns at a different pitch, this shows how fast the object is moving
Pitch-shifting
This change in pitch is called a 'Doppler shift'. You can hear this effect every time a police siren goes past. As the car approaches, the sound waves get pushed together before they reach your ears, making them sound higher in pitch. When the car goes past you, the sound waves get pulled apart as the siren recedes, giving the sound a lower pitch.
Radar - air traffic control
Radar versus sonar
Radar works in exactly the same way as sonar, but uses radio waves instead of sound waves. Sound can only travel over short distances before it becomes extremely faint, and so echoes are often difficult to detect.
But radio waves can travel over great distances, and faint signals are easy to amplify, making detection easier. They are reflected best by metal objects, such as aeroplanes, but also work on large buildings. This is why they are used in airtraffic control.
Can our senses change?After becoming blind, Daredevil's other senses became stronger. But could this happen in real life?
The human brain can actually adapt itself to be as efficient as possible. Scientists have found that if the part of the brain responsible for seeing, called the visual cortex, is not being used very much, it can take on other tasks.
In blind people, the area takes over processing information from the other senses, particularly hearing. This may be one reason why blind people are good at telling where objects or people are in a room just by listening to their breathing, or the echoes produced by a voice.
Some research has suggested that the specific functions of parts of our brains are only determined as those brain cells begin to be used. So the visual cortex may in fact start out as a general ‘sensory information processing centre’, which can then be adapted to sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/superheroes/daredevil.shtml