Super Speed, How Does It Even?

[tilmoph]

Honestly, the question of whether speedsters think in super speed isn't even the least plausible part of their powers. How the hell they generate the force to run that fast without ever leaving the ground is far more puzzling to me. See, I can actually buy someone like Superman running fast more than the Flash since at least Superman can use his flight to hold him to the ground. But then there's the question of how you ever manage to apply that force to the ground without breaking it/completely overcoming the friction of the ground and making the entire endeavour pointless anyway.

For the Flash, at least last time I even half-understood what the hell was going on in comics, it's all Speed Force. Basically, Speed Force is all possible movement or motion, and the Flashes control it to achieve super speed, plus speed steal and speed boost and basically anything else involving speed or motion if the writers remembered or felt like it. So they don't leave the ground because the cancel the forces that would cause them to leave the ground. They don't crack the ground because they don't let the energy move into the ground to crack it.

Guess this applies to OP's question as well; since the Flashes are just tapping into the Speed Force to do things, they can avoid the whole "super-slow world" problem by just not doing that. But that seems to fluctuate based on how aware a given Flash is of the Speed Force and the nature of his powers.

 

[DefunctTheory]

As others have said, this is simply too wide of a question to ask. Its impossible to answer without a specific character and, more important, a specific continuity. The Flash, for example, has had writers in the comic verse that write him as super fast all the time, yet in the Justice League cartoon (Which to many is the character codifier for much of DC, regardless of what hard core comic fans say) heavily implies on multiple occasions that the Flash is simply as fast as he is at that moment - If he's standing still in a conference room, he's like us, and if he's running twice the speed of sound, then that's how fast he is physically and mentally. The most obvious indication being the Flash's nightmare in which everyone else is frozen, and he remarks that he can't slow down.

Of course, this is probably one of the least controversial things about speedsters. One has to ask how a speedster running at fractional light speed in an atmosphere doesn't destroy himself and everything else in a giant ball of fusion, or why the Flash is only occasionally pointed out as being infinitely more powerful then any other being in the universe, since 'complete mastery of kinetic energy' makes being a solar powered fly boy seems like child's play (Though, like many things, this is actually touched on in JL. Man, I love that show.).

 

[Zalmoxis]

It's like so many things in comic books.

Ever wonder why a super villain who is a super genius builds all sorts of super money-stealing contraptions, when he could just patent his inventions and get more money than he could ever possibly steal anyway?

 

[TranshumanistG]

You can choose to sprint and talk fast if you want to no? Then I would imagine it works the same for the imaginary fast dudes, they just have a bigger range.

Depends on how it's portrayed. It's one thing to sprint fast, it's another to react as well. It's also different to be able to apply the same speed to everything. The Flash has been portrayed being able to absorb big amount of information in short amount of time, by, say, reading really fast. Get the world champion in sprinting and see if they are also the fastest reader. See if they are also able to type the fastest on a computer or other speed related stuff. Or, inversely, get a champion in speed chess and see if they are also the fastest runner.

Since this doesn't actually hold true, the explanation behind speedsters should be something different.

That's the thing that bugs me whenever I watch the new TV series and see him do stuff like look through an entire roomful of documents in search of a lead in a couple of seconds. That's not just speed, it's a lot mentally and physically taxing work. Anyone who's ever tried cramming will understand me. Or maybe his fast metabolism also allow the brain to recharge faster?

OT: Required Secondary Superpowers [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RequiredSecondaryPowers]