Arthur C Clarke’s third law of prediction states that: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So it looks like kitchen table hardware hacking is now sufficiently advanced, because the magic hammer wielded by Marvel’s Thor is now real.
Created by YouTuber named “Sufficiently Advanced” (can you see what he did, there?), The real Mjölnir attempts to recreate the properties of Thor’s fictional hammer, which can only be held by those worthy of the power of Thor.
In the comics and movies, that manifests as a hammer which is infinitely heavy for everyone except the god Thor himself, who can pick it up with ease. Captain America, the nicest guy in comics, can at least wobble it – and one other hero introduced in Marvel Studios’ summer blockbuster surprises even Thor.
The real-world Mjölnir achieves much the same effect. But rather than being powered by the words of the All-Father Odin, it achieves its magic with magnets and a fingerprint scanner.
Place Mjölnir on a metal surface, turn it on, and four 12 volt batteries running through a microwave over transformer activate an electromagnet which is powerful enough that no one without superpowers will be able to turn it off. But if you’re worthy, a simple touch of your thumb to the fingerprint scanner will disable the magnets and let you pick it up with ease. Worthy, in this context, doesn’t mean “good at heart” but “already registered your fingerprint with the scanner”.
It’s not quite the real thing. You can’t throw the hammer at a foe then hold up your hand waiting for it to return to you (yet) and it doesn’t work at all on non-ferrous surfaces. But for pranking unwitting members of the public, it’s pretty effective.
