The Science of Star Wars 538
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.""
Cohabitation (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't that qualify more as "The Sociology of Star Wars"?
Re:Cohabitation (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
Survival will be the primary goal of any form of life, and survival will require consumption of resources.
Unless the resources required for two life forms is remarkably different or there is a truly symbiotic relationship, it is quite likely that the two forms of life will be fighting with each other for resources. It may not even be intentional, but survival would require a fight at least at a very abstract level (deer and zebras sharing the same grasslands). And when you introduce complex factors into the equation, you can be rest assured that there will be a need for survival as you move up the food chain.
If you do not kill, you will be killed - this is a very likely scenario, and if sentience is to evolve, it would need safe and secure surivival first and foremost.
Learning to share resources is possible in only one scenario - symbiosis. Otherwise, it is quite unlikely given the nature of life, at least as we know it.
Re:Cohabitation (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
What I find extremely odd is that the Gungans breathed atmosphere, yet lived underwater in a seemingly unnatural (i.e. gungan-made) underwater city. Are they just the evolution of a penal colony?
Re:Cohabitation (Score:4, Informative)
OBI-WAN : You and the Naboo form a symbiont circle. What happens to one of you will affect the other. You must understand this.
I think that clears up that question. :)
The gungans were ocean-dwelling amphibians. The naboo were urban humans. It stands to reason that there would be a demarcation of the resources that they consumed. Their differences appeared to be totally social. The Naboo didn't trust the Gungans because they kept a standing army. And the Gungans thought the Naboo thought themselves superior.
Re:Cohabitation (Score:3, Informative)
I think if you just plopped down the Naboo and the Gungans in their pictured state of technological development, with all their gadgets and what-not, they could probably get along.
If we're talking about co-evolution, it seems rather unlikely, unless -- like other /.ers have said -- they consumed extremely different resources and inhabited incompatible / inaccessible areas of
Re:Cohabitation (Score:3, Funny)
Jarjar didn't seem too evolved !
Re:Cohabitation (Score:2, Insightful)
Strangely enough he couldn't eat with manners at the table but he can keep his foolishness under wraps for the 5 seconds he's in a funeral parade in RotS.
Re:Cohabitation (Score:3, Interesting)
This begs the question whether all the "humans" in the SW universe are the same species. Unless you're a rabid creationist, the answer must be yes, and so the Naboo were colonists sometime in the not too distant (in evolutionary terms at least) past. The Gungans may b
Re:Cohabitation (Score:3, Insightful)
You are only a bigot if you are intolerant, not if you disagree. I can disagree with modern Christianity all I want and not be a bigot. When I become unwilling to listen to differing opinions, then I'd be a bigot.
Re:Cohabitation (Score:4, Funny)
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."
Re:Cohabitation (Score:2, Informative)
Star Wars is Philosophy & Star Trek is Tech (Score:4, Insightful)
Heck, the next-to-last episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise" actually had a zoomed-in camera shot of a Carl Sagan memorial on mars.
By contrast, the gem of "Stars Wars" is not the technology but, rather, is the philosophy: the battle between good and evil. One of the themes of that battle is that good will triumph if you stick to your ideals. In the original trilogy, the Force was available to all, and Obi Wan Kenobi even offered to teach the Force to Han Solo, but the swashbuckler was too arrogant to accept the offer.
Notice how "Star Wars" I and II rather sucked after Lucas tried to inject all that technology into the movies. First and foremost is that concept of midichlorians (which turned the notion of Jedi into some sort of snobbish club into which you are born -- if you inherit midichlorians in your blood). Then, Lucas packs every scene with speedsters (air-borne cars), special effects, etc. All that technology just smothered what little philosophy was there.
300 years from now, the original "Star Wars" trilogy will still be watched by our descendents. The philosophy of "Star Wars" has made it timeless.
I cannot say the same for "Star Trek" or the "Star Wars" prequels.
Re:Star Wars is Philosophy & Star Trek is Tech (Score:3, Insightful)
Star Trek has at least as much philosophy if not more. plus it's a far more focused on how we should live our lives.
Star Trek was the first program to have an interracial kiss and showed a ship full of different races working together.
in Star Wars the hero was an aryan brat, the only black guy was Judas, the baddies had a french accent, all wrapped up with a philosophy about as deep as the lyrics to a Britney Spears song.
Re:Star Wars is Philosophy & Star Trek is Tech (Score:3, Insightful)
People have great potential. They can choose to use it for good, but it's hard work. It's easy to use it for evil. But even if, because you're weak and vulnerable to human emotion, you do use it for evil - huge, Hitler-dwarfing, child-butchering, planet destroying, evil - you can make up for it so long as you eventually realise you were wrong, and ask the forgiveness of
Absurd plot holes (Score:3, Interesting)
And Leia, Obi-wan puts her where she'll become a princess, because her mother was a queen. Fer crying out loud, a princess is a princess only because she can document her lineage and everyone will know it! Way to hide her, Obi-wan!
Re:Absurd plot holes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Absurd plot holes (Score:4, Interesting)
> figured out Leia was his daughter when he captured her
You might as well argue that Yoda, hanging out in Papatine's office in Episode II, should have been able to notice that Palpatine was the Sith Lord. As Mace and Yoda said in Episode II, the Jedi were blind to the Dark Side. Maybe the deal is the dark side and the light side (being "opposite" sides of the Force) cannot see the other without knowing for sure where they should look, and one cannot sense someone with the Force until one has actually met the person.
That would explain why the Jedi would have to have a physical blood test to search for Force-sensitive individuals (Episode I). But once they know who that individual is, they can find them easily (e.g., Yoda finding Obi-Wan and Anakin in Episode II, foreseeing they were in danger from Dooku; Palpatine finding Vader in Episode III foreseeing he was in danger from Obi-Wan; Vader sensing Obi-Wan in Episode IV, etc).
In Episode VI, Vader says that Luke is on the moon of Endor, while Palpatine says that he didn't sense it -- and he questions Vader's "sight". Vader knew that Luke was his son and he had met him before (in Episode V). Vader couldn't "call to" Luke in Episode V until he actually met him; that's why he had to torture Leia, Han, and Chewbacca in Episode V to draw Luke to him.
So until Vader knew that Leia was his daughter (learning this from Luke in Episode VI), he wouldn't have known about it even with her standing right in front of him.
Genocide (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Genocide (Score:5, Funny)
Instead, send Jarjar back there with a megaphone... instant mass suicide.
Re:Genocide (Score:2)
Don't waste the nukes. I'd personally enjoy the slow, public execution of Jar Jar and his most irritating brethren.
Re:Better option (Score:4, Informative)
Already been done before... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Already been done before... (Score:4, Interesting)
Betts: This is the one planet I have the most trouble buying. There are, of course, examples of gas giants surrounded by moons. We have that in our own solar system. But a "band of habitable atmosphere"?
Assuming we take that to mean temperature and oxygen without there being anything noxious or dangerous, that's certainly beyond our current expectations or measurements. Making this particularly tricky, molecular oxygen that we breathe does not occur easily in a planetary environment. Almost all the oxygen on Earth comes from life.
Shostak: I don't know what Tibanna gas might be. Gas-giant planets seem to be swathed in ammonia, methane, and other vapors that, frankly, are neither rare nor particularly valuable. They are useful for cleaning the bathroom or cooking dinner, of course.
Two major possibilities spring immediately to mind.
1) Life either evolved or was seeded to the gas giant. In this case, Tibanna gas may well be a biomolecule of significance that has built up in huge quantities over the years on the gas giant. An oxygen-rich layer is quite easily explained in such a case, obviously, assuming that photosynthesis is occurring in the upper layers.
2) The gas giant has a small amount of residual brown dwarf-activity going on in the core - Dt-Dt fusion, that is. As solar wind can ionise water and split it into hydrogen and oxygen (leaving a tenuous oxygen atmosphere around at least two gas giant moons), having your own low-scale fusion in the deep core should do plenty to split up water in the planet. How quickly it would recombine, of course, is beyond me - and you couldn't have too much energy being produced, or the colony would be fried even in the outer fringes of the atmosphere. A small, old brown dwarf could possibly pull it off (an average-sized, young dwarf will be about 1000K at 1atm), although I don't have the numbers on me.
In either case, Tibanna gas could be He3. In the second situation, it's all the more likely: Dt-Dt fusion can directly produce He3, or can produce tritium which decays to He3.
Personally, I have the most trouble buying Hoth. Regularly bombarded, and yet has complex animal life? Not a sign of greenery, and yet has a dense oxygen atmosphere and animals? I have trouble with that one, unless there's some sort of massive subsurface biome there.
Re:Already been done before... (Score:4, Insightful)
WDPUAWTAGTWOTWPA?
(why do people use acronyms when they are going to write out the whole phrase anyway?
Fighters make sound in a vacuum. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fighters make sound in a vacuum. (Score:5, Funny)
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. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fighters make sound in a vacuum. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's just an elementary safety precaution, which follows from the other rules. War zones are rather dangerous for cameramen, especially if you're trying to shoot your own script instead of following along with friendly troops.
Since Dogme doesn't allow construction of sets or otherwise shooting in a faked location, the only way to film a warzone would be to BE in a warzone, which is just too dangerous. In the unlikely event you are actually brave enoug
Re:Fighters make sound in a vacuum. (Score:2)
Sound in a vacuum? Simple way to explain it away - shipboard computers would construct audio cues so you can hear where ships are, where weaponsfire is coming from, etc.
The Force, though? Eh. Fantasy. Bash that.
Re:Fighters make sound in a vacuum. (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:2)
I think the more important question is: can anything move at the speed of light (besides light, obviously)? This has strong connections with time travel, among other things.
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:4, Interesting)
1) They're trying to conceal themselves from us. Of course, the questions of A) How, and B) Why immediately come up. They're furthered by the questions of "if one species is concealing itself, why are the others as well?", "how are they blocking all life-indicating radio signals/etc from us that originated hundreds, thousands, or millions of light years away?", etc. In short, it's possible, but raises questions.
2) We're the first. Yeay for us - we'll be the evil aliens invading the planets of others to colonize or strip them of their resources (until one of them uploads a macintosh virus into our computer). Of course, the odds against this seems quite extreme.
3) FTL is, sadly, impossible, and all other signs of life (radio, light, death stars blowing up planets, etc) are either taking too long to get to us, or are too weak to be received by the time that they reach us.
4) Life is extremely rare, and we're freaks of the universe. May raise questions about the existance of a deity (or not).
All of these are pretty big issues with a lot of questions associated with them. I'd love to know the answer, although all possibilities are a bit disturbing to me.
P.S. - I don't want to post AC (and am trying first as a different IP, about to give up), but I get this:
Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 19 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Assume nothing. It's all but spelled out in the movie. "Move the station", "hey, where'd that come from?" and all the rest.
Practically speaking, what use is a planet-destroying weapon that can't move between planets to destroy?
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:5, Funny)
No, everythings fine, just a couple of billion people incinerated.
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:2, Informative)
If you watch Ep. IV, you do get the hin
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:5, Funny)
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? (Score:3, Funny)
It is obvious that there are still people who treat it as the center of the Universe.
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps it takes a couple of hours to recharge/calibrate its hypermatter reactor before it can fire off a second shot.
Maybe this is why the second Death Star is deemed "More powerful than the first". A faster recharge rate allowing what we see in ROTJ, where two large Rebel cruisers are destroyed by the superlaser within minutes of each other.
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:2)
Re:Can the Death Star travel at lightspeed? (Score:2)
The sad part is (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The sad part is (Score:2)
-N
Re:The sad part is (Score:4, Informative)
Luke skywalkers cave house is an example of the kind of homes you find in southern Tunisia, I forget the name of the town.
Those Jedi robes are worn by a lot of people because of the cold nights in the area.
Lucas recycled most of this into the movie, because it was already there and therefore cheap.
Re:The sad part is (Score:4, Informative)
Here's a great slideshow: http://ianandwendy.com/OtherTrips/Tunisia/Tatooin
(Pops up in a new window). Note the Jedi robe in the second to last photo. Hopefully we don't melt poor Ian and Wendy's webserver.
wtfhatta? (Score:5, Funny)
It's still science, sort of (Score:3, Insightful)
Clueless (Score:3, Insightful)
> technology to obliterate, enslave, or merely cook and eat each other.
What a crock. Forget the tech and look to morals and clue for the answer. How many countries on THIS planet have the tech to "obliterate, enslave or cook" most of the rest of the population? Obviously it isn't a techological limit. And besides, those Gungans appeared to have a fair bit of tech themselves.
Re:Clueless (Score:3, Insightful)
And he was teleological as all hell. So what if an underwater species would come somewhat late to fire? They could build considerable technological prowess on
Re:Clueless (Score:3, Insightful)
> happened to have well-armed starfighters at their disposal.
Only kind of pacifists that survive long. If you would have peace, know war. Heck, even the 'peaceloving' French have a carrier battle group rusting away at harbor.
Re:Clueless (Score:2)
(Ok. I just made that up)
The scientific breakthrough of our times (Score:4, Insightful)
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. [slashdot.org]
the book (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/031
In short, there's no science in the movies at all. None. And everyone should know that.
it isn't so much the science as the plot holes (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:it isn't so much the science as the plot holes (Score:2)
But I think it was a bigger problem that Yoda "much fear in him saw". And this was because of his experiences with getting drawn away and eventually losing his mother.
So, if Luke was older, but harmonious then maybe...
My god. I'm debating how things work in George Lucas fantasy universe.
Re:it isn't so much the science as the plot holes (Score:3, Interesting)
**minor spoiler**
Notice how fear of loosing Padme is THE reason he falls victum to Palpatine manipulations. Anakin is trully fuds biggest victum. It's even possible Yoda and the other masters got some hint of this through thier views of the future.
Mycroft
Re:it isn't so much the science as the plot holes (Score:3, Interesting)
Luke spent many months on Dagobah (in essentially non-stop training with Master Yoda), and even more time tracking down what happened to Han.
If you read the books there are a few years (I've heard 5 quoted often) between episodes V and VII. I haven't read to many of them but this seems a pretty clear element to all the ones that mention it.
Also it's pretty clear Yoda stuck to the core elements and didn't cover much else such as Jedi history, obscure p
Re:it isn't so much the science as the plot holes (Score:3)
> Note's/Reader's Digest Condensed version. Anakin and Obi
> Wan took 10 years before they took the test to become a Jedi
> Knight. It took Luke a couple of days, and a fight with the old
> man.
It's probably a couple of months. When Han says that Bespin is pretty far, but he thinks they can make it, maybe that means that they can limp along to Bespin in a couple of weeks (with rations and whatnot on board).
Luke probably did get the Clif
Technological developement (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Cognitive gaps are more signficant (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Cognitive gaps are more signficant (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a fair point, but it's surprisingly difficult to avoid. Sub-human intelligences are just dumb/goofy/difficult to take seriously. And superhuman intelligences: well, it's logically impossible for somebody to write a story about a person who's smarter than the writer. (That is, it's entirely poss
Re:Technological developement (Score:2)
A better (and possibly even more plausible) idea is that since droids are sentient beings, destroying one is closer to murder than scrapping (e.g.) an inanimate microwave oven. Destroying them for no good reason might be frowned upon or outright illegal. The droids could also be given enough
Re:Technological developement (Score:3, Informative)
Human civilization is approx. 4000 years old.
Actually, more like 5,000 years old. You see, Egypt had kings and starting a writing system in the Predynastic era, which is a century or so before around 3,000 BC, making it 5,000 years old at least.
The Pyramids were build around 2450 BC, during the Old Kingdom.
Manetho traces the list of kings, and that has been corroborated by the Palermo stone. Read more on this great site [ancient-egypt.org], which is still incomplete. Here is the early Dynastic period [ancient-egypt.org], and Dynasty 1 [ancient-egypt.org]
How a scientist would describe "the Force" (Score:2, Funny)
Check out the The Force Skeptics Page [netcom.com]:
But it already happend! (Score:5, Funny)
You can't argue with history. noobs
when a species becomes advanced enough... (Score:2)
We know today there are things we did hundreds and even thousands of years ago that we have found better deceptive ways of dealing with instead of in brute force conflict. like duping teh Aerican public about WMD in iraq...
Anyways we are still babies in comparison to any
Re:when a species becomes advanced enough... (Score:2)
Isn't it entirely possible that an alien species might have a strong urge to explore, but the thought of war might never have even occurred to them?
They might be vegeterians and never had a need for hunting anyway.
So, they might arrive at planet earth and not have as much as a sling shot.
I'm not saying that it is likely, but I can't prove that it wouldn't be the case. But it isn't very likely that we'll get visitors
C3PO (Score:5, Funny)
Re:C3PO (Score:5, Funny)
In the future there will be homosexual robots
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Re:C3PO (Score:4, Insightful)
Science of Star Wars? (Score:2)
That article should not have been named the Science of Star Wars. I should have been named the climate and science of the worlds of star wars.
Wait a second! (Score:5, Funny)
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.
A pity (Score:2)
I was hoping for a more scientific foundation, but it's easy for some people to confuse the two I suppose.
Cool article, but a few issues. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Except theyre herbivores... (Score:3, Informative)
Hmmm.... must be Tuesday..... (Score:2)
what science? (Score:2)
And people manually driving fighter ships or aiming guns at other ships (double you tee eff they have no computers?). And old robots cracking codes in seconds in order to open some door. And tiny planes size of cessna refuelling some chemical and able to land/takeoff on a planet. And ubiquity of oxygen. And some 'force shields' around ships and abundance of them around compounds.
SW and science/common sense don't
Wrong. (Score:3, Interesting)
The other is stating that an advanced civilization would shun planets for artificial habitats. For an astronomer, he seems unfamiliar with the fact that the universe is largely cold, empty space with nasty hazards and such. Why would a race automaticly want to go live in space?
Also a TV Special (Score:3, Informative)
There was also a National Geographic 'Science of Star Wars' TV special on (I think) Discovery HD. It was basically a 3-hour infomercial with no useful information, at least not for anyone who makes any reasonable effort to keep current in tech.
Humans??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
Science of Star Wars Muesum Exhibit!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Oh man, this is just dumb! (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
a 1, anda 2, anda 3... (Score:3)
1) It's fiction. And a movie. 20 minutes of silent space battle would be boring. It works in Firefly because it's not 30% of the screen time. Maybe they have little AIs in the spaceships that make Surround Sound representations of the events around the ship to aid in navigation. Who knows?
2) What's with the sociology? Repulsorlifts! Lightsabers! Blasters! FTL! That's what we want.
3) It's become amusing how rapidly the "we don't know that yet so it's impossible" crowd jumps out. Sure, it may be the case that we eventually conclude that none of these "effects" are possible in the real world. But what kind of a world can be made in a place where people never research antigravity or FTL or "force fields" 'cause it's all just presumed to be "impossible?"
The "anti-explorers," we'll call them.
Fuck "...humans and Gungans on NabooSeth..." (Score:3, Informative)
Re:ha ha, yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:ha ha, yeah right (Score:2)
Re:ha ha, yeah right (Score:3, Funny)
Papa the John? (Score:2)
Re:No Continuity in their Argument (Score:2, Insightful)
It does happen in the Star Wars galaxy. The Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk shares its system with Trandosha, home of the reptilian Trandoshans. Trandoshans make a hobby out of killing Wookiees and wearing their fur.
So it can go either way, but to take it as a given that one species will kill the other one for the hell of it is kind of dumb...
Re:No Continuity in their Argument (Score:2)
I have to agree, but I try not to think about the fact that I'm taking a fake universe this serious. Luckily I'm here at
Re:Question: My dog's semen is bitter. (Score:2, Funny)
Oh, sorry. I thought that you said, "What can I do to make the Internet better".
Re:Wookies on Endor (Score:3, Funny)