Bruce Banner isn’t the only scientist who could crush you with one mighty squeeze. These days, the Hulk’s superhuman strength is matched by researchers who squish all kinds of stuff in superscience experiments.
The goal isn’t to save the world from baddies, but to explore new frontiers in the nature of matter. After all, most material in the universe exists at bone-crushing pressures. Think massive stars and planetary cores — realms no comic book fan or other Earth dweller has ever seen.
Deep within the planet, rock experiences pressures more than 1 million times as great as the “1 atmosphere” that ordinary humans live under at sea level. Pressures at the centers of ultradense neutron stars are some trillion quadrillion times greater. Under such extreme conditions, atoms themselves begin to buckle.