{"id":152537,"date":"2016-01-24T14:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-01-24T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=152537"},"modified":"2016-01-24T12:07:20","modified_gmt":"2016-01-24T10:07:20","slug":"152537","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/science\/152537-152537.html","title":{"rendered":"Star Wars: science fact vs fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a month since the release of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt2488496\/\">Star Wars: The Force Awakens<\/a>, and for pedants there\u2019s much to find <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com.au\/entry\/neil-degrasse-tyson-fact-check-star-wars_56785a95e4b0b958f65778e6\">wrong with the Star Wars movies<\/a>. Laser beams moving slower than 300,000 kilometres per second, and that sort of thing.<\/p>\n<p>To be honest, I can live with those inaccuracies. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starwars.com\/\">Star Wars<\/a> is a fantasy with spaceships instead of dragons, and isn\u2019t supposed to be as scientifically accurate as, say, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt3659388\/\">The Martian<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0062622\/\">2001: A Space Odyssey<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But could more science be slipped into science fiction, including the Star Wars movies, without spoiling the fun? Let\u2019s go <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxforddictionaries.com\/definition\/english\/off-world\">off world<\/a> and see if it could happen.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Dogfights in outer space<\/h3>\n<p>A staple of science fiction is combat between spacecraft flying through outer space. Unsurprisingly, these fights of fancy are often reminiscent of combat on Earth.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8Iu_xVKdxbo\" width=\"630\" height=\"473\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In Star Wars, the spacecraft fly around like fighter planes, with engines pushing them along the direction of travel and with speeds that appear to be hundreds of kilometres per hour.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ytDEBDMKNMo\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But spacecraft orbiting just above our atmosphere travel at almost eight kilometres every single second (about 28,800kph).<\/p>\n<p>And because of the vacuum of space, they can orient themselves arbitrarily. If you want to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/mission_pages\/shuttle\/launch\/landing101.html\">slow your spaceship<\/a>, just turn around, \u201cfly backwards\u201d and fire your engines.<\/p>\n<p>What would combat between two orbiting spacecraft be like? Well, head on two spaceships would approach each other at almost 16 kilometres per second! Fast, but not exactly cinematic.<\/p>\n<p>If the combatants wanted to execute turns (and had unlimited fuel), they would fire rockets at 90 degrees to the direction of travel. It would be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/results?search_query=circle+work\">circle work<\/a> in outer space.<\/p>\n<p>Executing a 180 degree turn would take some time at these speeds. Even if you executed a crushing 10G turn, it would take four minutes to turn around.<\/p>\n<p>Time enough for a snack and some social media updates. Perhaps that explains why movie directors prefer speeds and manoeuvres harking back to the Battle of Britain.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yBFMNVfmsEU\" width=\"630\" height=\"473\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Under pressure<\/h3>\n<p>The 1979 movie <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0078748\/\">Alien<\/a> was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0078748\/taglines\">famously advertised<\/a> with the tagline \u201cin space no one can hear you scream\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Audible sound waves cannot travel through a vacuum, and yet many science fiction movies feature sound effects in the vacuum of space.<\/p>\n<p>This is particularly true for the more fantastical movies, such as Star Wars and Star Trek, whereas more realistic ones tend to avoid this.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FXy_DO6IZOA\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>One thing that science fiction gets partially right is explosive decompression. Atmospheric pressure is 101 kiloPascals or 14.7 pounds per square inch.<\/p>\n<p>Blow open the hatch to your spacecraft and you will briefly have a big force pushing you out the door. But the power of such forces is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4yG2h1aDB6k\">often grossly exaggerated<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt3659388\/\">Martian<\/a> movie (spoiler alert), astronaut <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/character\/ch0484069\/\">Mark Watney<\/a> is propelled with vast force from air leaking out of a small hole in his space suit.<\/p>\n<p>If this was the way air pressure worked, slicing your bike tire open would launch you metres into the air. Fortunately, that doesn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n<p>If a kilogram of air was expelled from an astronaut\u2019s space suit at 200 kilometres per hour, an astronaut with a mass of 200 kilograms (that\u2019s including the <a href=\"http:\/\/history.nasa.gov\/spacesuits.pdf\">space suit<\/a>) would be accelerated to just one kilometre per hour.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Watney wouldn\u2019t \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/character\/ch0484069\/quotes\">get to fly around like Iron Man<\/a>\u201d, as he said in the movie, but would move at closer to a <a href=\"http:\/\/hypertextbook.com\/facts\/AngieYee.shtml\">snail\u2019s pace<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps it is understandable that this is one of the relatively few areas where The Martian sacrifices scientific accuracy for drama.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Technobabble<\/h3>\n<p>It isn\u2019t hard to find errors in the technical dialogue of science fiction movies. A<\/p>\n<p>fter the release of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt2488496\/\">Star Wars: The Force Awakens<\/a>, American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson took to Twitter to complain that the latest Star Wars was using <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/explainer-light-years-and-units-for-the-stars-16995\">parsecs<\/a> as units of time instead of distance.<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt2488496\/quotes?item=qt2720889\">Star Wars error<\/a> is decades old \u2013 it was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0076759\/quotes?item=qt0440685\">Han Solo\u2019s gaff<\/a> in the original Star Wars \u2013 and I suspect the J J Abrams was deliberately trolling nerds by repeating it.<\/p>\n<p>Technical dialogue in movies is often a series of scientific words thrown together to quickly convey something that feels technical.<\/p>\n<p>We need to invert the neutrino quantum metric scanner, or some such nonsense.<\/p>\n<p>That said, it\u2019s served its purpose. When <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0076759\/quotes?item=qt0440685\">Han Solo says<\/a> of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starwars.com\/databank\/millennium-falcon\">Millennium Falcon<\/a> \u201cIt\u2019s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs\u201d, the audience knows he\u2019s bragging about his ship\u2019s speed.<\/p>\n<p>Real technical discussion often takes far longer and is far less accessible than movie dialogue. In the minute following the real-life <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/mission_pages\/apollo\/missions\/apollo13.html#.VpxaRVN95Vo\">Apollo 13 explosion<\/a> in 1970, the astronauts exchanged <a href=\"http:\/\/history.nasa.gov\/Timeline\/apollo13chron.html\">these words with mission control<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>55:55:20 Swigert: \u201cOkay, Houston, we\u2019ve had a problem here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>55:55:28 Lousma: \u201cThis is Houston. Say again please.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>55:55:35 Lovell: \u201cHouston, we\u2019ve had a problem. We\u2019ve had a main B bus undervolt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>55:55:42 Lousma: \u201cRoger. Main B undervolt.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><audio preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\" data-duration=\"178\" data-image=\"\" data-title=\"Houston, we've had a problem here.\" data-size=\"2859815\" data-source=\"Wikimedia\/NASA\" data-source-url=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Apollo13-wehaveaproblem.ogg\" data-license=\"CC BY\" data-license-url=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\"><source src=\"https:\/\/62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com\/audio\/301\/apollo13-wehaveaproblem.mp3\" type=\"audio\/mpeg\" \/><\/audio><\/p>\n<div class=\"audio-player-caption\">Houston, we\u2019ve had a problem here.<br \/>\n<span class=\"attribution\"><a class=\"source\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Apollo13-wehaveaproblem.ogg\" rel=\"nofollow\">Wikimedia\/NASA<\/a>, <a class=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY<\/a><span class=\"download\">2.73 MB <a href=\"https:\/\/62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com\/audio\/301\/apollo13-wehaveaproblem.mp3\" target=\"_blank\">(download)<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<p>Certainly one gets the sense that something is wrong, but this surprisingly calm exchange doesn\u2019t convey the lethal gravity of the situation.<\/p>\n<p>The 1995 movie of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0112384\/\">Apollo 13<\/a> portrays these events with a little more drama; the astronauts are not as calm and time is compressed.<\/p>\n<p>Actor Bill Paxton\u2019s line \u201cWe have a wicked shimmy up here\u201d was added to the movie dialogue, which is not technical and further conveys to the audience that something is really amiss.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kAmsi05P9Uw\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A more common compromise in science fiction movies is exposition. Mark Watney in the The Martian does a lot of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt3659388\/quotes?item=qt2641012\">thinking out loud<\/a> that falls into this category:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If I want water, I\u2019ll have to make it from scratch. Fortunately, I know the recipe: Take hydrogen. Add oxygen. Burn.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Would a real astronaut say this out loud? Perhaps not. But is it scientifically accurate? Well, yes it is.<\/p>\n<p>Are we willing to accept such compromises when watching science fiction? I guess it depends on how captivating the movie is and how pedantic we are.<\/p>\n<p>I can suspend my scientific disbelief when watching movies such as Star Wars: A New Hope. But don\u2019t get me started on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starwars.com\/news\/so-what-the-heck-are-midi-chlorians\">midi-chlorians<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/character\/ch0000006\/quotes\">dialogue<\/a> from the first of the Star Wars prequels <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0120915\/\">The Phantom Menace<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/michael-j-i-brown-113\">Michael J. I. Brown<\/a>, Associate professor, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/monash-university\">Monash University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article was originally published on <a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a>. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/science-fact-vs-fiction-in-star-wars-and-other-sci-fi-movies-relax-and-enjoy-the-entertainment-52977\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on movies<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/152319-top-10-most-pirated-movies-this-week.html\">Top 10 most pirated movies this week<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a month since the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and for pedants there\u2019s much to find wrong with the Star Wars movies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340972,"featured_media":150071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31750],"tags":[35,9565,11439],"class_list":["post-152537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-headline","tag-science","tag-star-wars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340972"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152539,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152537\/revisions\/152539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}