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Welcome to The SciFi Podcast, a wretched hive of scum and villainy a bi-weekly podcast focused on in-depth discussion of all things Science Fiction. The SciFi Podcast features three hosts—Mattroid, Solo, and Station!—and frequent guests. Each episode we look at a science fiction theme or franchise and take the discussion where no show has gone before.
This episode we bring back our real life friend and a real life physicist, Brian “The Brain” Patchett, to get his insights on the use of science (and pseudo-science) in the Star Wars saga. Brian teases lightsabers and gives us a full rundown on speeders, blasters, warp drives, deflector shields, The Death Star and more.
We also officially welcome Brain into the fold, updating his status from “special guest” to “contributor” … but contributing what, exactly? Well, besides guesting on great podcasts like this that will melt YOUR brain, OUR Brain writes incredibly-interesting essays for the site about the real science behind filmic fiction. If you haven’t read his “Brain Blogs” you are truly doing yourself a disservice. The most applicable to this week’s episode is his most recent essay, “Laser vs. Plasma, Sword Battle of Doom!,” or as Matt says “All About Lightsabers,” but they are all great.
Theme music courtesy of I Hear Sirens, featuring Matt on bass and Liz on keyboard. Hear more of I Hear Sirens ethereal, instrumental, post-rock at BandCamp. Podcast production and artwork SpaceWolf.
Fun and applicable video, “The Physics of Space Battles” http://bit.ly/1Ab7ekb
This is great. It totally reminds me of watching pbs as a kid, and wishing it was better. Ha
HAHA! That video is both awesome in it’s science power and awful in it’s production! I like that the opening header is “It’s OK to be smart.” what does that say about kids perception of intelligence…
Awesome article that (as far as I can discern) backs up Brain’s blaster hypothesis from this episode, “How Obsessive Fans Built a Better Han Solo Blaster” http://fireballed.org/linked/2012/12/13/solo-blaster/
That’s pretty great! If you follow Adam Savage’s podcasts or the Tested videos on youtube you can see a bunch of cool replica processes including the DL-44 and another one of Harrison’s weapons from Blade Runner.
That book that I referenced at the end of the show. You can buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1NQvleq I’m gonna!
In cart
I hope Brain continues to slowly receive promotions over time including really absurd titles like ‘Elite contributor (class III)’ or ‘Junior junior host’.
Hahaha! So good.
It does come off that way, but definitely not the intent.
If I had to guess what Matt’s thinking, I think he just wanted to find a way to make Brain an official member of the team, even though he’ll continue doing thecexsct same thing–mostly writing science essays for the blog and saving his immense talents for those audio recordings where it really counts.
I also just keep thinking of Matt as Michael from The Office with all of the “assistant to the regional manager” discussion, but he’d have to be giving “Junior, junior host” to someone more deserving of that title, like Andy.
Well, I know one thing: Spacewolf is no longer “hottest in the office.”
my handsomeness precedes me…
It’s partially an inside joke and partially me wanting to make him an official member of the team in some fashion. Given his outstanding contributions yet lack of official hosting duties, “contributor” seems like the most applicable title.
Don’t worry. Several more episodes and he’ll be bumped up to “special consultant in charge of powerful science thoughts”.
I like that idea…
Without getting my ruler out, the orbital height of that Death Star in the header pic looks a bit too close for comfort…
I suppose it could have a really high orbital velocity…but still.
Well YEAH…duh.
Hey! We forgot some other cool science from Return of the Jedi!
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html
Damn. Good find.
A couple of questions I have from listening to the podcast:
– Okay, the Death Star. It’s not possible for it to blow up a planet the size of Alderaan. Okay, cool. What would be more realistic if you did have a Death Star firing at a planet of that size? Would it destroy half of the planet? Maybe create a giant crater? Maybe only cause a single person to receive a tiny burn? I realize you can’t give me a definitive answer, but even just a general gauge of the sort of damage would be fine.
– Something I’ve always wondered about warp drive and warp speed (Presuming they’re actually the same thing). What happens with the obstacles that’s in the way? If the warp drive only basically capable of being used if there isn’t anything in the way or is the crinkling of space means you don’t technically cover all of that space, thus you don’t need to worry about any objects in the way?
Awesome questions!
Let’s say the Death Star has only the power of one Sun, roughly 2,250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules, that is still a LOT of power. In order to say what I’m going to say next I also need to assign a cross section to the plasma beam from the Death Star, let’s say the final beam is 10 meters (30-ish feet) across and fires for exactly one second. That means that the beam is roughly 2,000,000,000,000 degrees Kelvin. You’re going to have a huge portion of the atmosphere and the rocky surface at ground zero that vaporizes instantly leaving a crater about one tenth the size of the planet. The material beneath is superheated magma that causes the tectonic plates to shift causing planet wide Alderaanquakes and magma eruptions that would most likely destroy any major structure on the surface. So basically everyone dies anyway, without the destruction of the entire planet.
The key element in the Star Wars universe involving warp drive is the navicomputer. Warp drive means that the device is capable of warping space such that the distances change from point to point. You’re still flying through space where “things” are, it’s just warped in a way to help you get to your destination faster. And a warped asteroid will destroy your ship just as easily as a regular one. One of the key features to the Millennium Falcon that Lucas has talked about in interviews from the early 80’s, is it’s ability to calculate navigational pathways through space that are more effective than other ships can do. So it must have some sort of space scanner as well as detailed galactic maps that allow it to plot the shortest and safest route through the warp to the destination.
Knowing the Death Star would have still utterly destroyed all of mankind on Alderaan does make me feel better about the inability of destroying the planet. Would it be any more possible to destroy the planet if they fired once a day (Or however long it takes to re-energize after previously creating 2,500… Joules of power) for as many days as needed? Or would the ability to destroy the planet wouldn’t increase by firing multiple times, instead only further messing up the lands and further destroying any trace of buildings and the like?
So when you use the warp drive, you’re not actually going in one straight line, but instead making a lot of tiny adjustments so you can weave past objects? What about other objects that you can’t account for? Whenever I think about warp drive, I picture an airplane hitting a bird because the damn bird got in the way when the pilots hadn’t expected to deal with such an obstacle. Granted, you can’t have the Millennium Falcon collide with another ship in the middle of using the warp drive as that would prematurely end the movie due to the lack of heroes, but that would be a concern of using a warp drive, correct?
1) Yeah, multiple shots would keep vaporizing chunks away until no planet was left. I’m not sure how long the DS takes to recharge, there’s never any indication that it does…so if the bolt lasted about 10 seconds continuously it might be enough to vaporize everything to the molecular level. Make sure you check out the link I posted a little further up about the Ewok genocide, you might like to see what happened when the DSII exploded in Jedi…
2) My assumption is that you are basically going in a straight line in warp, but the ship would have to have some form of forward scanner so that it could avoid the seagulls that might pop up here and there. One unpredictable asteroid could end it all! BUT, one thing we haven’t really talked about is that when the Falcon (or any of the SW ships with a hyperdrive) makes the jump to light speed it uses the warp drive to shorten space as well as opening a hyper-dimensional pathway through that space. In science the use of the term “hyper-” just means “extra”. So a hyper-dimensional path is a pathway through four dimensional space, instead of three. In four dimensional space it is possible to go around something while still going in a straight line, (algebraic topology if you’re interested in the topic), so by combining the two it should be possible for the navicomputer to plot a straight-line path that avoids all known objects, to account for the unknown we can only assume that there is some form of forward scanner that helps it avoid the objects not on the holocron star charts on board. This is likely why they drop out of hyperspace into an asteroid field that used to be Alderaan. The navicomputer would have the ability to avoid all of the rocky pieces while in hyperspace, but as soon as you drop out there’s nothing but deadly asteroids all around you.
I thought this makes a good companion piece to our discussion.
From The History Channel:
“Star Wars Tech is a documentary about the technical aspects of Star Wars, from Darth Vader’s robotic limbs to the Lightsaber to how an X-wing compares to modern jets.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWID33zZlMY
cool! i’m glad they talked to real scientists on this show, the topics are dealt with in a very accurate way, no hand-wavy magic. good stuff.
I broke the podcast down into a few parts due to everything going on with Thanksgiving, but I finished it today. Hats off to the episode. It’s a Star Wars themed episode without having to just review the previous movies like I imagine so many other podcasts are already doing including Weekly Movie Podcast. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that unless you tell people to buy Episodes 1 & 2)
The end of the show also reminded me of how much I loathe the Sci-Fi Channel changing it’s name to Syfy. If Mattroid ever changes the name of this podcast to The Syfy Podcast, I will personally light a flaming bag of Wookie poop on his doorstep.
Won’t ever happen. That was super disappointing to see when they made the change.
I guess I’ll have to find some other reason to justify leaving a flaming bag of Wookie poo on your porch. 🙁
Personally, I don’t know why they didn’t just come up with an entirely different name if they wanted to rebrand just as The Nashville Network evolved into Spike TV. Syfy channel? Blah.
If you need a reason, here you go:
I loooooove “You’ve Got Mail.”
Eeeeew.
Ehhh…everyone has at least one chick flick that they are ashamed to admit to loving.
If I’m going to go to the trouble of finding a Wookie, following him around until he does his business, and then transport that smelly load to your doorstep, I need a better reason. Something truly heinous like…being a Nazi, beating up old people for kicks, or you put mustard on your hot dog.
Mustard on everything.
Mustard is gross, yo.
But it IS what goes on hot dogs.
Ugh. You’re gross too.
This is true, but there are many ways to have a hot dog. I like mixing it up between mayo, ketchup, avocado, cheese, mustard, a combination of them… or all of the above 🙂
Sure, you can put whatever you want on a hot dog.
But mustard is what you put on a hot dog.
Well, Josh loves Upstream Color beyond reasonable doubt… so there’s your Wookiee poop reason for him 😉
You’ve Got Mail is the greatest chick flick ever made.
THANK you.
The last five minutes is a little hokey, but it’s a movie I could watch on repeat. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are awesome in it.
I don’t care that the end gets sappy; I love it. It’s pretty witty and Hanks is the bomb. Plus, it was the last part of the “adorable” Meg Ryan era. Now she’s yucksville.
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Oh boy, I can’t wait to check this episode out!
This episode was pretty good (even though I had to skip over large chunks of potentially spoilery stuff). If nothing else, it made me glad for not being a scientist because, as cool as the science behind Star Wars is, I think it would make me enjoy the movies less knowing how completely unrealistic it all is. I’m much happier thinking lightsabers could be a real thing.
You just have to be able to turn off your brain! that’s what I do, I actively don’t think about science when I’m watching the movie. Unless it’s The Martian, then it ruins it.
I will say this: whenever I start from a standing stop or get a little spirited with my driving, I think of Brain, TSFP, inertial dampening, and the Millennium Falcon.
So much fun having Strong Mind Culprit Assistant Emperor Brain on the show.
Spoilers related to … The Martian? Sorry about that. Or spoilers for the original trilogy. You really need to get those watched, if so.
THE FORCE AWAKENS. Again, I don’t know if there were any spoilers in there because I immediately skipped ahead once my jedi sense told me some bit of news or info on the new movie could potentially pop out, like during the lightsaber discussion.
I’m not upset or blaming you guys for anything. I don’t expect anyone else to abide by my crazy strict unsullied policy.
We are pretty open about spoilers most of the time; with EpVII there is only so much we know to be spoilers and I think we were okay about it.
I think there was only one spoiler during the lightsaber section, but it’s a meaningless spoiler that has nothing to do with the plot as far as I can completely guess. Unless I’m super lucky and guessed a major plot point…hmmmm…
I didn’t mean to make a big thing about potential spoilers for VII. Honestly, I’m probably the only person listening to the podcast who actually skipped ahead a few times for fear of hearing “something” having to do with VII.
Such a cry baby!
I know, right?
#sadface
Mattroid – I feel partially responsible for the dejection in your voice whenever you refer to Star Wars as fantasy. Sorry, bro.
Kudos for getting quadrilogy right, though.
And congratulations to Sal for snatching that quadrology *hiss*
You are fault! You make I much sorrow! (It’s actually Spacewolf’s fault)
No way! That was Solo who you are fighting with on this topic. I wasn’t even really on that episode.
Let’s just blame Jay of the Dead.
This is fair and logical; Jason is at fault.
Is that your Chappie impersonation? (just shooting from the hip here since I haven’t seen Chappie; I imagine that’s how he/it? might talk, though)
No, but Station! does a great Chappie impersonation.
You should watch Chappie.
Double down.
Double dog with mustard down?
Wait, you watched The Gallows… but you skipped Chappie? I don’t know about you anymore, Dino…
The summer was a much easier time for me to get to the movies. It’s as simple as that.
chappie was crazy weird but good. i liked it a little more than the other ai movie ex machina.
Brain, I think you do a much better job at explaining this sciencing stuff:
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/startalk/videos/the-physics-of-lightsabers/
Brain, what do you make of this?
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/startalk/videos/millenium-falcon-or-starship-enterprise-fan-questions/
NdGT is right in so far as the Enterprise is a more tangible and “real” starship with great staff and weaponry, but he’s wrong in that you always pick the Millenium Falcon when you’re asked that question, always.
To me it’s like asking which vehicle is better: a Porsche 911 or a Lexus suv.
Very different, with different intentions, capabilities and pluses/minuses.
In a way, a more accurate comparison would be Enterprise vs Star Destroyer.
I thought NdGT explained it in a very pseudo-science kind of way. Instead of going through the steps of why one ship is better than the other, he went the common sense route. Even I could’ve done that. Perhaps because it was such a short video, he had to create a very short answer and that’s what he came up with?
Mattroid, you’re such a nerd haha. I love how you defended your beloved ships. But come on, you can’t be on both sides. Either you’re a Trekkie or you’re with The Force.
And by nerd I mean a lovely human being.
just saw this post…..watching now….
I’m surprised that neither NdGT or BC mentioned plasma, an Astrophysicist and a Particle Physicist would both have ample dealings with plasma interactions. And by Cox saying it’s ultrahigh energy photons he’s basically saying “well if you had a battery that could power the sun in your lightsaber, it would work” I would expect more from men of their learning.
Static warp shell!
Tachyon pulse array!
Inverted dialysis conundrum!
If I use TNG problem solving speak or style of speak in my everyday life, I get more done. People ask my opinion. I get free meals. I become the captain of the commuter train. I call everyone number one and I can almost always fee myself becoming one with the Borg.
I’m not going to lie…it’s an adventure.
I also get pissy and storm off to my ready room when I realize how difficult it is for me to spell things accurately or completely with my iPhone.
Until people like Brain can my my thumbs less fat or keyboards infinitely more intuitive and accurate, I officially declare war on smartphone keyboards. They’re like Skynet, but really they are more like Skype, because that’s what autocorrected “Skynet” eight times.
Is this why you cry while rollerblading? You’re trying to forget about that mean iPhone making your thumbs feel fat by rollerblading, but the tears just won’t stop coming.
Considering that iOS has an adaptive learning keyboard, I’m guessing he’s toting an Android phone.
[pushes up glasses and wipes nose with dirty handkerchief]
[after pushing up glasses, realizes that he said his iPhone in original post]
#nevermind
In my experience, this “adaptive” technology is just as bad/good in both android and iOS devices. It depends more on where your finger actually lands. My guess is that iOS users have better hand-eye coordination. But I’m not scientist. Brain, thoughts?
crying while roller blading?
Time travel in the Star Wars universe! (or Why Han Solo is Older Than Obi-Wan Kenobi)
http://nerdist.com/physics-explains-why-han-solo-is-older-than-obi-wan-kenobi/
Because Science!
awesome but totally not cannon
It’s ok. I actually have no respect for canon vs non-canon. I accept everything I knew before. They can’t just come along and wipe out history, I don’t accept it.
They can and they (kind of) did.
I understand how you feel, but I’m not able to be as free with my picking and choosing now, as far as Star Wars is concerned.
Can we all agree to stop talking about JarJar Binks being a Sith lord? He was a mistake, plain and simple. George Lucas should’ve been wearing a brain condom when he thought that one up.
Just wait until Jar Jar Binks is revealed to be Kylo Ren.
#BestrevealEVER
jar jar is the most annoying charcter next to padme
Sharing this because I love you…
The 34 Modern Marvel Movies Ranked From Worst to Best! >> http://screencrush.com/ranking-marvel-movies/
Interesting that it breaks away from just the MCU into “all” modern Marvel comics movies.
The only downside is that it’s a bit of an old list, being posted back in May 2013. So there’s several omissions.
Speaking of Marvel, I saw the trailer for Deadpool before Krampus today and it actually made me really want to see it. A bit of a big deal since I’ve seen a grand total of uh…zero MCU movies.
The nice thing about Deadpool is that it looks like it’ll be different from other superhero movies.
Thought I’d let Matt and the rest of the TSFP crew know that I received my prize of the Alien “Quadrology” Blu-Ray today. Looking forward to especially checking out Aliens again for the first time in HD quality.
Thanks a lot for the great gift and the nifty envelope artwork.
http://i.imgur.com/QKUtbIL.jpg
(The aforementioned envelope artwork)
The little alien dude in the center concerns me with how indifferent he looks while watching the Death Star blow something up. That’s some straight up sociopathic behavior!
HEY! So on this episode I mentioned that there was a sci-fi book where two astronauts turn off their mics and touch helmets to talk. That book is The Mote in God’s Eye. It’s great! Everyone should check it out, I’m re-reading it now.