Slashdot Mirror
The Feasibility of Star Wars Tech
pwnage writes "Forbes Magazine, not usually the the web's premiere source of all things geekish, has posted an interesting summary of Star Wars technology and its scientific feasibility. As a bonus, they also include a great set of Star Flops, including the infamous Jedi Arena Atari 2600 video 'game.'"
"The combination of medieval chivalry and modern lethal technology is pretty ridiculous," says Wilczek. "In real history, gunpowder--or even good crossbows--pretty much put knights out of business."
And therein lies one of the problems I've always had with Star Wars and Star Trek. Are you telling me that in a world with hand-held weapons that can supposedly level/vaporize small mountains you are going to pull out your bat'leth or lightsaber and duke it out hand to hand? Heck -- forget the hand phasers/blasters -- you could kill them from orbit fairly easily with either SW or ST level technology.
Yeah, yeah, I know, dramatic license and effect. I miss Babylon 5. Wait -- they had the Minbari using melee weapons too. *Sigh*
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Yes, I am sure cutting someone's hand off with a lasersword is much more civilized then shooting them in the chest with a lasergun. I mean come on! It would really suck to get sliced up by a laser sword. Then again, it would cauterize the wound so maybe that's why it was more civilized???
Every great journey begins with the first step.
Is one of the worst things I've ever seen on the web. And they've been doing it for fucking *years*.
Have they ever actually done any usability studies on it?
ObTopic: I always assumed a "real" lightsabre would be something closer to magnetically-bottled plasma, which would explain its ability to deflect other lightsabres.
I liked the first three movies, tolerated the latest three movies, and was annoyed from day one on the hype surrounding the entire Star Wars phenomenon.
It would have been nice to have lived through only one Star Wars flood of commercial crap, but instead we have had to live through decades of Star Wars toys, drink cups, board games, etc.
I'm glad it is nearly over. Now I only have to tolerate the nostalgia periods that will pop up every decade or so.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Ships and weapons make sound in a vacuum in the Star Wars/Star Trek universes. Defying the physical laws of this universe.
Never quite go over this. However, the 1968 movie 2001 space odyssey, got it right!
You're assuming they want you to read the article. They could care less. They care about ad impressions, and flipping from one page to the next automatically cranks them out faster.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
rusty quote...
It kills the enemy. All of the enemy. And allof his family, and all of his oxen, and all of his cattle, and all of his manservents, and all of his maidservents...
The point of WMDs, be they yielded by nations or terrorists, (distinction left to the reader) is that they conquer nothing, because they leave nothing. If there's a good purpose, they demoralize the enemy into surrendering, and prevent further bloodshed. The fearsome thing about the neutron bomb was that it would make nuclear war practical again, which was why Jimmy Carter cancelled it.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The only reason the Jedi were effective with the light saber, was because the damn Storm Troopers couldn't hit the side of a barn with their blasters. Seriously, there's only so many blaster shots a Jedi can deflect at one time. Maybe if he's real good, he can block two shots at once. But if you had three troopers fire at the same time... ON TARGET... then there'd have been many less Jedi around.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
I read the first slide about these, and I loved the comment about how it isn't possible to make light do things without a large gravity source or some thing to redirect it through.
That being the case then... Why does the road or a desert horizon shimmer on a hot day? Heat from the road or the sand is causing the light to shift.
And the whole faster than light travel thing.... Didn't some french researchers prove that warp drive (ala Star Trek style) was possible just a couple years back? Haven't scientists just lately made light travel at speeds faster than light in a lab (in the USA I believe)? If it's impossible, then did all these researchers lie?
I'm thinking that maybe Forbes should get a real science writer that will actually do a bit of research into things before he/she/they start putting things to print.
Further... They said that teleportation (ala Star Trek transporters) were impossible just 10 years ago. Just last year, researchers teleported light particles across a laboratory on multiple occasions. As I recall reading, there were going to start working with more massive particles on larger scales this year.
All I'm saying is that people should really stop and think before they say something is impossible. Flying was supposed to be impossible. Landing on the moon (or even people in space) was supposed to be impossible. Lasers were impossible. Your everyday microwave oven was born from science fiction and most people that work in an office setting have printers, copiers, scanners or even fax machines that all use lasers to do what they do. That bar code scanner at the grocery store uses a laser, so does the one at the fuel station and the scanner that the freindly UPS and FedEx people use.
People keep saying things are impossible, and then 5 or 50 years later someone makes it reality. Writers should think before they start labeling things like that, or they should really be prepared to get laughed right out of town when they are suddenly shown to be quite wrong. I'm not saying that any Star Wars technology is possible today, or even 50 years from today, but someone will make it or something very much like it work one day. I'd rather not be the guy that said (very publicly) that it was impossible.
Things you can say to your dog that you can't say to a girl: "How about a nice bone?"
If Star Wars was based on possible technology it wouldnt be called Sci-FI and it would probably be the most boring space battle movie of the century! Light Saber are unrealistic but it's OK! spaceship making noises in space, IMPOSSSIBLE, but would you want a battle with no sound except the breathing of the spectators in the theather.Explosion with no oxygen , still impossible, who cares.The only thing i dont want them to put in a sci-fi movie IS a totally improbable thing like breathing in space with no helmet on or spacesuit! If you want reality, rent appollo or space odyssey 2001!
And those colonists had no clue about massing fire, or about basic unit discipline, even. The longbows at Crecy, or crossbowmen anywhere, always acted as a massed firing unit, and absolutely slaughtered knights.
A samurai vs. a peasant with an arquebus == a dead peasant. A horde of mounted samurai vs. a disciplined, experienced firing line properly arranged == a lot of dead samurai.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
For example if Annakin and Padme had had access to contraceptive technology Annakin might never have turned to the dark side and billions of lives would have been saved.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Cracks me up that parent & grandparent were modded Interesting & Informative as opposed to Funny. Ok they may not be funny themselves, but the subjects they link to are and to me, anyway, are neither interesting nor informative. And to any Jedi -- uh, I'm just kidding.
These people claiming they can dismiss the feasablity of tech in either the Star Wars or Star Trek universes really have an over-inflated views of their own scientific prowess. As if they could be expected to understand technology that's centuries ahead of ours or that they are completely versed in theoretical physics enough to make these determinations. They should stick to doing what they do best and not pretending to be able to see into the future. We'd do better with a gypsy palm reader making the call.
I have no problem wrapping my mind around the physics and technology behind Star Trek. Because, given enough time, most of what it features could be realized. It's science fiction, but not for long.
:)
The only thing unbelievable about Star Trek, and which requires a huge leap of faith, is that humans got their shit together in less than a hundred years (between Cochran's warp engine and Rick Berman's Enterprise) and began cooperating with one another. Moreover, they don't even need money and all seem to work together for a common cause. To me, that is the real fiction of Star Trek.
There are books and dissertations up the wazoo on the physics and technology, but I've yet to see an explanation as to how humans get along so well with one another.
And just to fan the flames...that's why Star Wars is better
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!