No Brain, No Pain

Abstract

DENNIS ROGERS is an unassuming guy. He’s on the short side. And though muscular, he doesn’t come across as the kind of towering Venice Beach, musclebound Arnold that you might expect from someone billed as the World’s Strongest Man. Rather he has the kind of avuncular intensity you nd in a great automobile mechanic—a mechanic who happens to be able to lift an engine with one hand while using the ngertips of the other hand to wrench the spark plugs out. Like it’s nothing. Rogers, who has been known to keep two U.S. Air Force ghter planes from blasting away in opposite directions by holding them back with his bare hands, performed at the most recent Gathering for Gardner—a conference that celebrates the interests of one of Scienti c American’s greatest columnists, the late mathemagician Martin Gardner. We asked Rogers about the source of his incredible powers after the show, and we were surprised to learn that he did not know. Bill Amonette of the University of Houston– Clear Lake found that Rogers could recruit an abnormally high number of muscle bers. But was this ability because of a freak genetic mutation? Another possibility, which Rogers thinks is more likely, is the way he processes pain when he strains those muscles. What if, instead of superpowered muscles, Rogers has a normal—though extremely well exercised—body, and his abilities arise because he can withstand more pain than most mere mortals? He claims that he does feel pain and is actuNo Brain, No Pain