The Science of Star Wars

anonymous lion writes "National Geographic has an interesting interview with a couple of scientists on the scientific reality of Star Wars. For example, related to the cohabitation of humans and Gungans on NabooSeth Shostak states, "So maybe it's possible to share, as long as neither species has the technology to obliterate, enslave, or merely cook and eat each other.""

Comments

Cohabitation

[Anonymous Coward]

related to the cohabitation of humans and Gungans on NabooSeth Shostak states, "So maybe it's possible to share, as long as neither species has the technology to obliterate, enslave, or merely cook and eat each other.""

Doesn't that qualify more as "The Sociology of Star Wars"?

Re:Cohabitation

[GuyMannDude]

related to the cohabitation of humans and Gungans on NabooSeth Shostak states, "So maybe it's possible to share, as long as neither species has the technology to obliterate, enslave, or merely cook and eat each other."

Doesn't that qualify more as "The Sociology of Star Wars"?

Yeah, it does seem as though the authors are making the assumption that all species are going to beat the crap out of each other. I realize that competition for resources is common among many species here on earth but we all come from a common ancestor if you look far enough back. Does this need for conquest really have to be the same for all life everywhere? If one species really had a superior advantage over another, does it necessarily follow that they will try to dominate them? I think it's at least possible that some species will learn to share resources with other creatures on their planet right away.

GMD

Re:Cohabitation

[nomadic]

Unless the resources required for two life forms is remarkably different

Like if, for example, one species lives on dry land and the other lives far below the surface of the ocean, you mean?

Re:Cohabitation

[Presidential]

The Nabooians (naboos?) are human.

I believe the proper plural for the people of Naboo is "Nabooniks."

This is a far cry more dignified than the residents of Tatooine, which are referred to as "Tatooweenies."

Genocide

[Shihar]

Look, normally I am against genocide, but if I found a pile of gungans on my planet... nuke the fuckers.

Re:Genocide

[SnprBoB86]

Now why would you want to go and waste a perfectly good nuke on a pile of Gungans?

Instead, send Jarjar back there with a megaphone... instant mass suicide.

Fighters make sound in a vacuum.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all you need to know about the "science" of Star Wars.

Re:Fighters make sound in a vacuum.

[NanoGator]

"Fighters make sound in a vacuum."

Yeah, and an orchestra lead by John Williams follows everybody around. I can't believe how unrealistic incidental music makes a movie. Oh, and don't get me started on looping of dialog!! Those guys shouldn't be futzing around with the sound like that, it's not realistic! I'm a purist that demands that scifi movies be like somebody is carrying around a small camcorder around documenting everything so it's as real as possible! MOD ME UP!!

Re:Fighters make sound in a vacuum.

[murr]

Yes, I think the next Star Wars movie should be Dogma 95 conformant.

Re:Fighters make sound in a vacuum.

[Minna Kirai]

Fighters make sound in a vacuum.

Wrong. The space between stars in Star Wars is not a vacuum. There is evidently some background gas suffusing all of it, although probably not breathable.

Evidence:
1. Vehicles are audible even far from a planet's surface.

2. When the Falcon landed in a "cave" inside a smallish asteroid (1 km radius), Han Solo got out and wandered around without a pressurized space-suit.

3. Small fighter-ships in space combat manuver as if they were airplanes, slicing through a medium which imposes a maximum speed to their movement, rather than being able to accelerate indefinately (until stopped by lightspeed or fuel exhaustion).

Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed?

[TrentL]

Something I never understood: in the first movie, the Death Star blows up Alderaan. Then at the end, the Death Star is moving in on Yavin. How did the Death Star get to the Yazin system? Are we to assume that it can movie around at light speed?

Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed?

[cocoamix]

Since it had no visible engines and no solar sails, we can only surmise that they launched it from a giant baseball-pitching machine.

Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed?

[Marko DeBeeste]

My favorite part was when they arrive at the rebel base and somebody says "Leia, thank God you're alive. When Alderan was destroyed, we feared the worst."
No, everythings fine, just a couple of billion people incinerated.

Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed?

[hehman]

No, don't be silly. They built the Death Star in orbit around Alderaan.

As for how they got to Yavin, it was conveniently the next planet out in the same solar system. Questionable planning by rebels, putting their secret base in the same system as the Death Star.

The rest of the galaxy, of course, was kept in line by knowing that they were at risk of being blown up in a few hundred thousand years if they didn't behave.

Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed?

[jd]

I covered this in a class I taught, once. The way that I chose to look at it was this - every technology (known or unknown) has built-in constraints.

You can travel fast, in space, but at the price that you're going to be subject to more intense radiation. So, the faster you go, the more effort you need to put in to shielding (by whatever means), which means more mass, which means more energy is needed, which means a larger percentage of the vehicle is going to need to hold engines and fuel. Which means that if you plan on having enough oxygen and supplies to go round, you're going to have less range.

This means that, for any given technology, speed is going to be pitted against range. With chemical rockets and lead shielding, the limits are going to be fairly low, as the effectiveness of the rockets isn't great but the mass of the shields is. With antimatter and some sort of shielding based on QM exclusion, your limits are much higher, but they'll still be there.

You can travel slowly, not get so much radiation, but would need a much larger vessel to do so. In order to maintain the integrity of anything large enough, against little things such as gravity wells or even the inertia when you want to make a turn at the lights, you need more infrastructure, which means more maintenance, which means more of your resources are spent on keeping together than going anywhere.

Now, we've got a minimum constraint - go too slowly, and you won't get there at all. Again, more advanced technology will make for better materials and all that, so this is a moving target, but they'll still have a lower limit.

A similar problem is faced with wormholes, assuming they can be made navigable. You need exotic matter of equal or greater mass than the vehicle planning on travelling. The more massive the vessel, the more exotic matter you need. Unless you're travelling from a fixed station (a-la the book version of "Contact"). you've got to lug around a generator capable of sustaining enough exotic matter that the wormhole doesn't spontaneously collapse along its entire length. And exotic matter doesn't last long - about 10^-30 seconds - so you need to be able to generate an awful lot of it, for long enough to do the travelling.

My proposition, then, was that any given type of technology MIGHT be able to travel between the stars, but that there would be upper and lower limits on how far or how fast. Below some level of achievement in a given technology, the bounds cannot be satisfied - the minimum would be greater than the maximum, so there is no value that will work.

However, there's an upper limit to what any technology can do, too. Antimatter can't supply more energy than the mass-equivalent posesses, no matter how good the conversion, for example. So, some technologies may NEVER be good enough to be used.

My proposition to the class was a simple one. Working from the idea of limits, is it possible to prove that a technology must (or, indeed, cannot, through a non-existance proof) exist that can satisfy all of the constraints?

In other words, is it possible to show that no technology - even technologies we know nothing about - could ever be sufficient to travel between the stars? Or is it possible to imagine such a technology, and perhaps even have some idea as to what properties that technology would need to have to make such travel possible?

The class seemed divided on this, but the answer seemed to be that it was unlikely that such travel was possible. The problem with the limits seemed to be unsolvable, although we couldn't find any obvious way of proving that by reasoning alone.

I suspect the reason aliens AREN'T here (or, if they are, at least not common) is that the difficulties are great enough as to put it beyond the reaches of any but the most advanced, assuming even they can. And by being so difficult, there would be really no interest in visiting a star u

wtfhatta?

[Amouth]

did i miss something.. i ... i though starwars was about making money..

Re:ha ha, yeah right

[king-manic]

We can't even get on with others that have diffent skin and cultures than us, let alone genes...
Lets say the republic is 10,000 years old (as is alluded to in the movies). Thats mean they've had 10,000 years to turn Us and them to just Us. Culture shares a large part in that, The europeans went from backward thridworld area continually warring with itself to a fairly unified entity in less then 1000 years. It's not hard to imagine, given 10,000 years the various races of the republic would start identifying themselves as a hetrogenous whole rather then a group of distinct peoples.

The scientific breakthrough of our times

[Shoggoth of Maul]

The secret's out, people. Now everyone knows that Star Wars is not actually "hard" science fiction!

At least they didn't do a study or anything.

it isn't so much the science as the plot holes

[Anonymous Coward]

So Obi and Qui Gon find Anakin infested with force bacteria. Qui Gon says he's make a good Jedi. Yoda says hell no he's to freaking old. The kid is what? four.
Well, spoiler coming, turns out that wasn't the best idea. As Yoda predicted he went to the dark, a bunch Jedis got it in scenes reminiscent of the original Godfather.
Somehow Obi makes it. Hooks up with Luke eighteen years later and says, basically, screw it four years old may be too old to be a Jedi but eighteen is no problem. No freakin way a half assed jedi could get turned to the dark side and make things even efffin worse. I'll train Luke.

Fake science I can live with, clear jedi incompetence is a bit harder.

Technological developement

[king-manic]

Human civilization is approx. 4000 years old. In that time we have pretty much closed the technology gap of the vairous tribes of humanity. We can all forge metal, we can all make things move via petroleum based products, we can kill each other with projectiles ect...

In 10,000 the technology gap of a community of star systems that communicate with each other woudl also close. So it's not such a huge issue. Technology doesn't have to spread directly, even the rumor of something being possible can send other cultures into a frenzy to find out how. The stories marco polo brought back from china were more useful then the inventions and products he brought back. It sent europe into a frenzy into trying to mimic these items.

In the proccess of trying to mimic these products they derived their own innovations and advanced further. Over 10,000 this would equilize the technologies of the various intelligent life forms. As for the robots, perhaps innovation in robot designed leveled off long ago and even 100 year old droid are useful. Or AI requires some rare material that is now in short supply so even old droids must be maintained.

But it already happend!

[espergreen]

In a galaxy far, far away a long time ago.

You can't argue with history. noobs

C3PO

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

In the future there will be homosexual robots

Re:C3PO

[BiggerIsBetter]

In the future there will be homosexual robots

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Wait a second!

[lheal]

Are they trying to imply that Star Wars wasn't real?

I suppose they didn't really have light sabers, either?

What next, Darth Vader's voice was dubbed?

I'd better lie down a while.

Cool article, but a few issues.

[illtron]

They make a few good points, but they're missing some of the Star Wars facts. A few that come to mind:

1. Yoda knew Luke was coming. It wasn't coincidence that he lost control of his fighter and landed in Yoda's back yard. That was the Force. They mention that it might be the case, but aren't sure. Well, it is.

2. There's very little or no liquid water on Tatooine, which they say. But they neglect the fact that this is obvious. Uncle Owen runs a moisture farm, which collects water vapor through a series of vaporators spread across the desert. They grow crops underground in tunnels.

3. Chemists correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the molecular weight determine where oxygen might occur in an atmosphere? If Tibanna, a gas used in heavy blasters in the Star Wars galaxy, weighs more than oxygen, isn't it very possible that there would be oxygen above it? Maybe it's something that's common in the upper atmosphere (we see mining pods floating around), but is breathable in its natural form, sort of like how nitrogen makes up a good part of our breathable atmosphere?

4. They totally copped out on Coruscant. They worry too much about the location. I'd figure that all this intense development on Coruscant might have started long before anybody decided it would be the seat of galactic government. Sure they risk a lot by being there, but you don't want to make the trash on the other side of the outer rim fly all the way across the galaxy, do you? Location, location, location!

5. I don't think Hoth is right in the asteroid field. The Falcon had to fly for a while before they got to it, and eventually (it seems conceivable that the trip took weeks) made it to Bespin. Even at sublight speeds, space vessels in the Star Wars galaxy have got to be pretty fast. All kinds of junk from space makes its way to Earth's atmosphere every day, and it hasn't stopped us from developing civilization. I don't see why the occasional small meteorite would stop animals from living on Hoth.

It seems that for a couple of scientific types, those guys didn't really ask enough of the right questions. That's all I've got.

Cognitive gaps are more signficant

[GuyMannDude]

I agree with king-manic that technological gulfs, while huge, could be reduced significantly through interstellar trade. What is more signficant -- and I never see mentioned in these types of discussions -- are the huge gulfs in intelligence and mental abilities. There are going to be species out there that are vastly more intelligent or have incredible memories. In the movies and TV shows, all aliens have pretty much the same brainpower. That's just unrealistic.

Consider the following scenario: a race of technologically advanced reptiles are being attacked by intelligent insects from another world. The insects are more intelligent than the reptiles and have the same level of technological development. The reptiles are fucked unless they can get some help. They approach a world called Earth that contains intelligent bipedial mammals named humans. These mammals show promise but are relatively young and do not have sophisticated technology. They also are highly unpredictable and warlike. Knowing the risks, the reptiles make an offer: if the humans agree to enter the war by serving as tactical officers onboard their warships, the reptiles will provide the humans with advances in medicine, communications, power generation, and warp drive. Humans, eager for a chance to obtain technologies necessary to solve problems on their planet, leap at the chance. The highly-logical insects are used to the methodical, logical battleplans of the reptiles and are baffled by the unconventional tactics of the humans. They are quickly and easily defeated. Fearing they have created a monster, the reptiles quickly sever ties with the humans but not before they have transfered a signficant amount of technological know-how. Within a few decades, humans become a threat to the very reptiles who kick-started their space exploration.

Technology gaps are easily solved. Huge gaps in cognitive function are what make long-duration star wars unlikely.

GMD

Oh man, this is just dumb!

[mbrother]

As much as the next scientist, I like to find ways to conduct outreach and bring science to the public. But I have my limits, and Star Wars is about as far from science as you can get. There are plenty of other, better vehicles. We may as well do the "science" of Sex and the City or the "science" of American Idol. Really.

Lucas and/or some non-scientific Hollywood writer types made some shit up that they thought would fly. It's just dumb for scientists to sit around and come up with justifications for it after the fact when so much of it is so dumb to start with. It doesn't serve the cause of education.

The gungan intifada...

[dominion]

After the last star wars movie, my friends and I spent twenty minutes outside of the theater arguing whether Naboo was an apartheid state.

The only conclusion we came to is that we're total geeks, and we needed to stop before anybody noticed.

Re:Already been done before...

[defy god]

LAWKI (Life As We Know It)

WDPUAWTAGTWOTWPA?

(why do people use acronyms when they are going to write out the whole phrase anyway?