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.'"

Comments

Regarding Lightsabers

[Shakrai]

"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*

Re:Regarding Lightsabers

[Mad_Rain]

Yeah, and I suppose that to save the Armed Forces money, they should stop supplying the soldiers knives. It's not like they would actually use them for, say, hand to hand combat or something, when the y have guns and tanks and stuff.

Re:Regarding Lightsabers

[Shky]

A good Jedi can deflect a blaster shot back at the attacker. That's why they use them. Normal people couldn't block bullets with swords, nor could they stop a bullet with another bullet. That's what makes the Jedi in Star Wars cool -- they can defend against anything, as they are defenders, not attackers.

(Someone nerdier than me can feel free to correct me if I missed something)

Re:Regarding Lightsabers

[Sycraft-fu]

Well knives are essentially dead for combat. The main reason we issue our soliders knives is for utility work, anything from cutting food to cutting up a shirt to use as an emergency tourniquet. The only reason one would use a knife in combat is if you were totally out of ammo and support.

Now in the case of the Bat'leth seems much less feasable given it's size. I mean a good knife isn't going to be over 12 inches total. That's easy to carry, and easy to use for non-combat operations. A bigass curved sword really isn't, you can't do much fine work with it and it's big enough to be a significant problem to carry.

Re:Regarding Lightsabers

[Knara]

Setting aside the issues raised by the loose conglomeration of plot elements that is Star Wars, you're missing a few points about the Jedi. The Jedi are an elite order with superhuman powers. They enjoy the endorsement of government during the Old Republic, and conduct themselves more or less as a royal order. They are not the front-line soldiers or mainline military forces. You'll note that those forces have rather elaborate technology in relation to exactly what you mentioned above.

Since the Jedi have superhuman reflexes (possibly due to premonition skills if Qui-Gon's explanation in Episode 1 is to be accepted), hand-to-hand combat is commonly decided in their favor vs. a small number of armed opponents. However, as will likely be seen in Episode 3, the Jedi fall when systematically hunted down by large forces. When they no longer enjoy backing by the ruling powers, they are reduced essentially to the Star Wars version of ronin (rogue samurai), who are deadly in single combat, and influential in reputation (and in the case of the Jedi, powerful in the supernatural skills they learn), but aren't a formidable military force.

(as for the Minbari, a similar thing is the case; the Rangers were not front-line troops, but rather couriers, clandestine agents, later diplomatic representatives, etc; the "Warriors" had suitably high-tech weapons)

Re:Regarding Lightsabers

[Anonymous Coward]

conventional weapons would be entirely ineffective against them (something Lucas has demonstrated time and time again), and hand-to-hand fighting would be their most effective weapon against you.
How do you kill a jedi with blaster fire? Shoot 3 or more blaster shots at them. Most jedi use a single saber so they could block two at the same time but not 3+. For jedi with more than 1 saber just shoot 2n+1 bolts at them. Or just toss a bomb next to them. I don't understand why they don't have hand grenades in the future.

Re:Regarding Lightsabers

[bckrispi]

Before Lucas went with this whole ridiculous "mitochondria" nonsense...

You know, I never really understood the whole "Midichlorian Bashing" nonsense that prequel haters continuously spout. All it does is give a name and a little elaboration on what we already knew from the OT:

Obi-Wan: It is an energy field created by all living things

Yoda: Life creates it, makes it grow.

Qui-Gon: Midi-chlorians are a microcopic lifeform that reside within all living cells... Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the Force.

Noone bitched or moaned when Both Yoda and Obi-wan mention a link between Life and the Force. But as soon as Qui-gon gives a name to that link, all the fair-weather-fans start rioting in the streets.

Glad It Is Nearly Over

[geomon]

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.

Sounds in outer space

[Emperor Shaddam IV]

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!

It's not a bug, it's a feature

[Tassach]

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.

Vulcan, from "Baron Munchausen"

[dpilot]

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.

Come on!

[Tenebrious1]

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.

Last I checked....

[Buzzwang]

...light sabers were powered by a plasma power cell in the hilt. The 'blade' is composed entirely of plasma, with the frequency of the electronics controlling the plasma dictating the blade color. The plasma is ejected around the edge of the opening of the weapon, and some kind of electromagnetic field bends it back in on itself and pulls the plasma back down and into the center of the opening on the weapon. A big loop basically. As I recall, we already have the technology (on a room size scale anyway) to control and redirect plasma flows without mechanical controls. I would assume that a further improved technology (say 200 years or so) would shrink that down to something a person could hold in a hand, much like computers have shrunk in size over the last 80 years.

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.

We're way ahead on some things...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

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.