Could you make a machine that “flew” like Thor’s hammer in the comics?

Such machines already exist, in a sense, say our readers - but an immortal being might also be using effects science has yet to understand

12 July 2023

HCNBCF THOR: THE DARK WORLD, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, 2013. ph: Jay Maidment/?Walt Disney Studios/courtesy Everett Collection — Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

In the comics, Thor spins his hammer very fast and hurls it into the air, allowing him to be pulled into flight. Could you make a machine that “flew” using such a principle?

Alex McDowell
London, UK

When we jump, our legs propel our upper body upwards and it pulls our legs up with it. Hence our legs are, briefly, pulled into flight.

Cyrano de Bergerac proposed, in A Voyage to the Moon (published in 1656), sitting on an iron plate and repeatedly throwing magnets up, so they would pull the plate up, and then catching them.

Thor and Cyrano’s…