"Luke, I told you to do your science homework!"
He's baaaack! Unless you've been living in a galaxy far, far away, you've probably heard that the final installment of Star Wars opened just after midnight on Thursday--28 years after Darth Vader and Co. first flashed across the silver screen. All over America, die-hard fans waited in huge lines to see Episode III: Revenge of the Sith at early morning showings.
We love a science fiction thrill as much as anyone, but we can't help noticing that, in Hollywood, the fiction often gets the better of the science. So, to restore balance to the media force, we're sending some simple science correctives. (Just don't blurt them out during the show!
Today's Knowledge
The Top 5 Science Fiction Foul-Ups
Every science fiction movie has them: stupendous scenes of movie magic that sacrifice science on the altar of special effects. Here are our top 5 science fiction foul-ups--common movie scenes where science takes a holiday so we can get our fix of big-screen thrills.
1. No Ear Plugs Necessary
The Scene: The big impressive spaceship flies across the screen, emitting an equally impressive rumble of powerful engine noise. Or maybe just that really cool TIE fighter howl.
The Problem: These ships are moving in space, which is a vacuum, and sound can't travel in a vacuum. It takes matter to propagate the energy waves that we perceive as sound. So the sound of any ship in space is the sound of silence. (Call it the Garfunkel Effect.)
2. This One's a Dud
The Scene: A deadly firefight in space rages until someone goes down in flames, complete with incredible explosion and massive ball of fire.
The Problem: Most explosions are based on combustion, a chemical reaction that requires oxygen to take place. Of course, there's no oxygen in space. You can't even light a match out there, let alone set off stunning fireworks displays.
3. Think Jellyfish
The Scene: Our heroes enter a seedy space bar, full of strange alien life forms. Yet chances are they've got tables and chairs at which to nurse a beer, because the aliens look, and sit, pretty much like us.
The Problem: Our own little corner of the cosmos sports life in all shapes and sizes. Of the millions of species on Earth, only a small fraction look much like us. The odds that the bar crowd on completely different worlds would evolve to look like we do are pretty slim.
4. Set Phasers on "Slow"
The Scene: Science fiction's chosen weapon is the laser. Phaser, blaster, whatever you want to call it--it's a blast of energy fired from a gun. Whether it's dueling ships or dueling pistols, the bad guys get their due in a blaze of beams flashing across the screen.
The Problem: The energy in these weapons doesn't behave like real energy. Energy travels at the speed of light--far too fast for your eyes to follow it in beautiful blue and red beams.
5. "I'm Going Retro!"
The Scene: Squadrons of starfighters duel in a dogfight that puts Top Gun to shame. Inevitably, somebody gets a bad guy on his tail, desperately declares he "can't shake 'em," and, well, see #2.
The Problem: Spacecraft don't fly like planes. Because space is a vacuum, there's no need to maintain "lift," and no "drag" to slow you down once you get going. A starfighter in a dogfight could easily use retro rockets to spin around in mid-flight and blast the guy behind him, all while "vectoring" in the original direction.
Christopher Call and Michael Himick
May 18, 2005
Want to learn more?
Visit the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame
http://www.sfhomeworld.org/
