Zombie physics question...?

[naosu]

So feel free to speak up and chip in. I was thinking, you know it would be fun to talk about how zombie physics work. OK so here was what I was thinking;

If zombies are more primal and beast like in their rage and aggression this means their senses are sped up and heightened (for some world's zombies, but for other worlds it might be different). So in this world, if they have souped up aggression AND senses what rank would they place as their primary senses to use?

For example, for humans we use our eyes the most. We place vision before smell (usually, unless the diarrhea or farts are really that bad). We can function without smell but not without vision. We can function without hearing but its harder to not have vision than hearing.

BUT if zombies are sped up,... and also according to how they act in movies, its very possible that zombies use smell more than sight. What do you think? They could be like this, also because if they don't sleep then half the time its dark anyway, which would put smell ahead of vision. So its very possible in a Z Apocalypse that the zombies use no brain hardly, but foremost smell. Then hearing, and then vision last.

Well, curious what you think?

Thanks.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Well now you have multiple types of zombies out there - the Haitian/Voodoo zombie (basically a drugged out person with no reasoning ability and a superhuman endurance and resistance to pain, which also allows them to exert extraordinary strength), the classic animated corpse zombie (slow, mindless, still decaying and will fall apart eventually), the 're-animated' zombie (not as fast as a living creature but stronger, never tires, and about half as intelligent as they were in life), the cannibalistic zombie/ghoul (fast creature that eats flesh to continue its existence), and the 'brain eating zombies' (similar to ghouls but have a "vital organ" that is the only part of them that can be really damaged, usually the brain).

Depending on the lore, zombies may only "see" life forces, may sense heat, may operate only on hearing or smell, or may have all senses as long as the relevant organs haven't rotted off.

 

[Arkus86]

Another point is that zombies need to recognize "friend" from "food" - that is, other zombies from any other living creature, chiefly human.
As they regress more towards pure instinct, smell could play a large role in this, telling them who is infected, and who only vaguely looks like zombie.

 

[MasterY001]

In Korean shows (specifically All of Us Are Dead), they do a much more realistic take on zombies. They're still alive in the technical sense since they need organs and sustenance to function. They have enhanced speed, agility, and durability due to an augmented fight-or-flight instinct, similar to a rabid dog. Even though they infect people through bites, they don't actually eat them. Again, similar to a rabid dog.

Compared to ears and noses, eyes are incredibly fragile. Without sight, Human instinct would be to rely on sound to navigate and smell to identify.

As for magic zombies... I got nothing.

 

[naosu]

In Korean shows (specifically All of Us Are Dead), they do a much more realistic take on zombies. They're still alive in the technical sense since they need organs and sustenance to function. They have enhanced speed, agility, and durability due to an augmented fight-or-flight instinct, similar to a rabid dog. Even though they infect people through bites, they don't actually eat them. Again, similar to a rabid dog.

Compared to ears and noses, eyes are incredibly fragile. Without sight, Human instinct would be to rely on sound to navigate and smell to identify.

As for magic zombies... I got nothing.

:O That one Korean movie that was ... the train zombie plot was REALLY SCARY!

 

[MasterY001]

:O That one Korean movie that was ... the train zombie plot was REALLY SCARY!

No, that was "Train to Busan," different canon. The fat guy was my favorite in that one.

 

[NotaNuffian]

I find it quite sad there isn't any taste based zombies.

Snakes exist. (And yes I know technically snakes smell by lapping the air molecules with their forked tongue and shoving it up their nostrils along with their forked tongue, but I can dream okay?)

 

[beast_regards]

It depends.

The vast majority of the zombie movies portray the zombies like supernaturally capable of spotting humans, even if they logically shouldn't be able to if they relied on the human (or heightened) senses alone.

 

[Viator]

I've always liked the idea of a fungal-based parasite creating human zombies much like the species that takes over ants.

With this idea you could have a zombie mimic human behavior, and even speech, but they would act a little off. Zombies that were just turned would not be able to spread the virus, but would also not really respond to pain as the fungi could dull the receptors. A good head shot could take them out because they still primarily hack the human brain to function.

Late stage zombies would be a real problem as the fungus would grow a separate nervous system throughout the body, not only sustaining but improving the host. They would be faster, smarter, and capable of spreading spores to others via projectile vomiting. A head shot would no longer suffice, because you would have to deal with the whole fungus spread throughout the body. The only positive for humans being the fungal infection would display visible signs on the skin and eyes. But all that really tells you is you're probably screwed if you see one.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

They have more focus on smell and hearing than Sight.

But that doesn't mean they don't have sight at all.

For example, if you point them with flashlight, they'll recognize you and your direction based on your obviously bright, pointed, and moving light.

But they won't attack immobile cars headlight even though they're bright as hell.

Take a reference from Left4Dead and the failed attempt to copy it :

 

[shadowtrap2010]

I think someone probably already pointed out, first what is the type of zombie: biochemical, parasite, magic?
Biochemical is a body change by well chemical, bio is mutation, parasite is virus, bacterial, fungus or bug, magic it magic no explanation needed...
Then from there you can decide how it work,
I'll give some example
For biochemical, the sense could be strengthen but only for a short time as the body is overclock and self damaging while destroying itself imagine you punching the wall it hurt so you tend to hold back a little even if you not intended to do so, but a zombie would just punch full 120% and either the wall broke or it arm sharter... most of the time the arm so if you have a thick metal plate they would just break their own limb.
Parasite: still overclock the body but now it have extra resource from itself by producing material to repair dmg to the host, they last much longer but stronger is debatable energy required would shot up so slow zombie is actually more realistic.
Any powerful zombie need a powersource.
However for parasite the sense come fome what is the parasite, but most likely it wouldn't use the sense from the host, so it could be vibration, heat, or smell, sight is too complicated for zombies.
Most likely vibration or hearing it sense sound and move there!
As heat is not a very good detection as it dissipate fast, and hard to make out, so if the detect Frey by heat they probably already burn themselves to charcoal.
Well just my thought.
Other zombies have their own way to detect and evolved but it required food(energy source) without it zombie will die!

 

[Krilatixuy]

I agree with your assessment. The smell is of the utmost importance because even in the movies, the zombies can usually locate their targets from kilometers away. Though I think their other senses should be weak. Hearing and vision should be nerfed compared to humans because zombies are 'rotten humans' and as you say have no brains.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I agree with your assessment. The smell is of the utmost importance because even in the movies, the zombies can usually locate their targets from kilometers away. Though I think their other senses should be weak. Hearing and vision should be nerfed compared to humans because zombies are 'rotten humans' and as you say have no brains.

And are thus perfectly suited for roles in Politics or modern media...

 

[Tyranomaster]

Since this is about "physics" of zombies, allow me to interject with something almost every zombie show or movie neglects, which is energy. The world of almost every zombie film violates the laws of thermodynamics, more specifically, the first law that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted.

Humans need food to prevent our bodies from decaying and to allow for locomotion. How much food? ~10x our body weight annually. If zombies don't cannibalize, then the zombie apocalypse should only last a few months before all the zombies starve to death and begin to rot. Perhaps a year at most if they're capable of recognizing preserved foods as foods.

If they do cannibalize, however, you get an interesting curve of how long until the zombie threat decays to nearly nothing. The only question is how many people are immune to zombification. Lets assume, for the sake of argument, that the zombies have slower metabolism and are shamblers, and only need to eat 3x their body weight annually. That would meant that one zombie would have to eat three others (or survivors, but there are very few of them comparably) each year to continue their undeath. Which means ~75% reduction in the number of zombies each year. After three years, only 1.5% of the zombies are left. After five ~0.1% of the zombies are left, and after ten years only 0.0001% of the zombies remain. Somewhere along those timelines, you'd expect that only dense inner city areas would still have zombies, because after five years, any location that had only 1000 zombies would have only 1 left, and it would starve after a month or two, reducing the amount to zero. At ten years, only locations with 100,000 zombies would have 1 remaining. So, reasonably, the zombie scourge burns itself out after that point.

Often, people forget just how much work humans do on a global scale to provide enough food to supply the energy needs of the human body. If every person on earth was on a restrictive 2000 calorie diet (2000 kcal ~8.3 MJ ~2.3 kWh), that's still 64 Peta Joules (18.4 Tera Watt-Hours) of energy a day that humans need to just maintain our bodies. That means annually, humans need about 6,700 Tera Watt-Hours of energy to maintain our bodies. For comparison, the total world electrical power consumption in 2022 was ~24,400 Tera Watt-Hours. Yes, we need that much food to live. So when zombies are shambling about not contributing to producing food, remember, the first law of thermodynamics dictates that they all should starve fairly quickly.

 

[JayMark]

I envision my zombies to have vastly lower energy needs. They don't have to maintain body heat, so essentially can go dormant like reptiles when food is scarce. They can drink water, eat plants because no toxin will bother them, and hunt animals. Skin becomes leathery to hold moisture inside. Since their brain is primal, it also consumes less energy than a human brain. So they are essentially immortal hunters with leprosy, but they can still starve or dehydrate eventually.

 

[naosu]

No, that was "Train to Busan," different canon. The fat guy was my favorite in that one.

LOL. Yeah that had some really VIVID scenes! Thanks.

I envision my zombies to have vastly lower energy needs. They don't have to maintain body heat, so essentially can go dormant like reptiles when food is scarce. They can drink water, eat plants because no toxin will bother them, and hunt animals. Skin becomes leathery to hold moisture inside. Since their brain is primal, it also consumes less energy than a human brain. So they are essentially immortal hunters with leprosy, but they can still starve or dehydrate eventually.

Yeah that's interesting. In theory if they use less energy, who knows how long they'd stick around for. They might be there for decades maybe...