Tag Archives: lightsaber

The science in Star Wars according to the American Chemical Society

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has produced a video in its Reactions series, which focuses on Stars Wars science from the middle part of the series (episodes 4, 5, & 6) or what some might consider the classic, ‘first’ episodes. From a Dec. 15, 2015 news ACS news release on EurekAlert,

Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens hits movie screens this week with its intense plot, edge-of-your-seat action scenes and, of course, lots of lightsabers. But is it actually possible to create a real-life lightsaber or build a functioning Death Star laser? To answer these questions and more, Reactions explores the science behind the Star Wars franchise.

Here’s the video,

You’ll notice the ‘parsec’ situation is not explained. In Star Wars they reference the term parsec as a unit of time (in the first episode produced which is now no. 4, Star Wars: A New Hope). But, a ‘parsec’ is a unit of distance. Here’s Kyle Hill writing about the ‘parsec’ situation in a Feb. 12, 2013 article for Wired (Note: A link has been removed),

You’ll hear any reputable Star Wars fan point it out eventually: Han Solo’s famous boast that the Millennium Falcon “made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs” may have sounded impressive, but from an astronomical perspective, it made no sense. A parsec is a unit of distance, not time, so why would Solo use it to explain how quickly his ship could travel?

There are two stories going on here. The first is that Solo’s famous line of dialog was simply a mistake of terminology. The second — the one I choose believe [sic] — is far more interesting, because it means that when Obi-Wan sat down across from the wryly smiling Han Solo in that cramped cantina, he met a time-traveling smuggler born at least 40 years before the events of The Phantom Menace [episode 1, which was produced after the classic episodes, effectively the ‘first’ episode is a prequel] ever took place.

I understand the new movie, episode 7 is quite good but haven’t had a chance to see it yet. If you get there before I do, please let me know if it’s as good as the reviews suggest and what you think of the science.