"It made the Kessle run in less than Twelve Parsecs"

No they're not. Stop saying that.

You're an engineer, it shouldn't be difficult for you to work things out from the films. Force, mass, and energy formulas all work out right.

In fact, there are a number of sites where engineers like yourself have done just that.

WHAT?!?!!? nothing works out perfectly unless you ignore einstein's theory of relativity. might i add that reaching the speed of light would take infinite energy as your ship gained infinite mass. read my earlier post for more explanation on how nothing in star wars follows einstien's proven theory of relativity. i say proven because although its called a theory its been proven that light travels the same speed from all frames of reference. its also been proven by flying planes with atomic clocks onboard in opposite directions around the earth that motion alters time. (the atomic clocks ended up a few billionths of a second off from each other perfectly in line with calculations.)

 

No they're not. Stop saying that

I mean in how many things are portayed in the film.

i.e noise in space, fire in space, the artificial gravity on the Invisible Hand.

Things like this are always portrayed inaccurtately in movies, that is all.

 

Nothing in SW goes at the speed of light. Well, except light I suppose.
Hyperspace is a wormhole phenomenon, or a sub-dimention. Nothing is violated.
Your conventional engineering skills can be put to use on all of the same things you do daily. Bridge design, or road construction, or whatever you focus on.

And the ToR doesn't account for quarks, black holes, or strings either. It acknowledges the possibility, but ignores them because they don't conform.

As a side note: The clock thing has always bugged me. It's an invalid experiment. There's no way to eliminate all of the outside influences, and account for all the variables. It's an uncontrolled experiment that at best, shows the possiblity of a speed effect.
It could also show the effect of random cosmic rays on atomic clocks at high altitude. There's no control, so there's no way to know.

 

it is controlled because an atomic clock runs on atomic vibrations which are perfectly governed by quantum mechanics which cannot be offset any other way.

nothing goes past light speed eh?

HAN SOLO: she makes .5 past light speed

whose watching the braille now

anyway, traveling 36 light years at near the speed of light would totally screw up han's relation in time to everyone he knew

 

it is controlled because an atomic clock runs on atomic vibrations which are perfectly governed by quantum mechanics which cannot be offset any other way.

Yes, your assumption would be my point. What are the effects of unknown cosmic rays on an attomic clock with minimal atmospheric influence due to altitude?
The answer is, of course, unknown. ie, an uncontrollable variable exists.
And we may as well let this particular point go, you've obviously made up you mind, and I can't see any way for you to convince me.


Han's point five comment is in relation to hyperspace. This is obvious to anyone, since the jump to hyperspace is constantly refered to as "going to lightspeed".

 

Han's point five comment is in relation to hyperspace. This is obvious to anyone, since the jump to hyperspace is constantly refered to as "going to lightspeed".

this still makes no sense becuase hyperspace is not a speed. you can't go .5 past hyperspace. and the other point still remains that han travelled 36 light years and still knew jabba the hutt afterwards who was sitting still at home on tatooine. if you believe in relativity there would be a HUGE time gap between them afterwards. if you don't believe in relativity then han would've had to start the kessel run when he was one or two years old, or more likely, before he was born. and relativity is also proven by the fact that light hits earth at the exact same speed coming from all regions of space from bodies that are all travelling at massively different speeds away from us.

 

Obviously the SW ships are able to traverse the galaxy, without the adverse Relativity effects.

Therefore, hyperspace must be either a sub-universe, or a wormhole form of travel, neither of which are subject to those effects.

You need to let go of the whole "lightspeed" thing. And who doesn't believe in the ToR?

 

The Lucas explanation sounds like he got caught out and had to cover things up quickly.

SW doesn't work to physics as we know them. Relativity effects are proven, they're even used in pretty mundane technology. GPS wouldn't work to the accuracy it does if they weren't taken into account. However, hyperspace is pure conjecture, it's not even a theory. You can talk about spacewarps/wormholes and super string theory all you want, but even if they existed, there's no way of knowing if we could ever use them as a basis for any technology.

We're a long way away from artificial gravity that would work as it does on the spaceships in SW. A false gravity can be created by spinning a space station or in a spaceship along the direction of thrust if you can keep blasting continuously, but the gravity in SW is perpendicular to the main direction of travel.

Even if the sounds in space were somehow simulated by the ship computer to ease navigation, you can't see laser beams in space, as there's nothing there to diffract a part of the light so that it hits your eyes instead of the target. It takes a pretty smoky room to see a laser pointer in atmosphere! Don't get me started on the dogfights... The fighters do look cool, but the fights were modeled on aircraft working in atmosphere, with air resistance and gravity as factors. Out in space neither is relevant, so the twists and turns are impossible, or at least very wasteful when it comes to fuel.

I love SW and the space battles are amazing to watch, and a lot of fun. But don't pretend they follow real physics as we know it, please.

 

Real life explanation: "Parsec", with that "sec" at the end, sounded to Lucas like a unit of time, so he erroneously put it in as one. OR:

In-universe/other real-life explanation: It's quite intentional, and it's designed to show that Han is just full of a lot of hot air and trying to impress what he thinks are a couple of hicks. Obi-Wan's little eye-roll supports this. I like this explanation best, intentional or not.

EU/other in-universe explanation: as detailed above in the thread.

 

Well clearly few works of fiction set in and around space come anything close to scientific "reality". That's not at issue.

What I do see as a contestable point is the degree to which this was a glaring mistake on Lucas' part, or was something we misapprehended due to our familiarity with some of the conventions of science fiction (which Lucas doesn't observe).

I for one wholly believe Lucas' Epsidoe IV commentary on the subject, and don't see it as a "retroactive" descriptoin to cover up the fact that a parsec is obviously a measure of distance, and Han seems to be using it as an indication of speed. It's immediately apparent that STAR WARS uses a different approach to navigation than most space-based fiction. One of the things that I thought was a cool "innovation" at the time I first saw STAR WARS was this idea Han puts forward that you have to be very careful how you plot your navigation course usine Hyperspace, because you can pop out of Hyperspace in the middle of a planet or other celestial body and just be destroyed instantly. This very much suggests that maps play a much bigger role in getting across the galaxy, and, as Lucas points out, that a tremendous speed advantage is to be had by finding the shortest route through an area. As Han's line has remained constant throughout all the "updates" to the original films, I think Lucas' view on all this is pretty much certain. In other words, it made sense to me the first time I saw it, and it still make sense to me now.

 

I just need to say that anyone that thinks star wars conforms to our physics laws, apparently has a greater understanding of physics than anyone else currently alive.

 

read my earlier post for more explanation on how nothing in star wars follows einstien's proven theory of relativity.

Uh, a theory by definition, is NOT proven. If it was, it would not be a theory. It would be a fact. It would be Einstein's LAW of relativity.

I'm no "engineer," but anyone who payed attention in HS science class should know that.

Finally, can someone confirm the distance of a Parsec. I thought it was 12 light years, but earlier in the thread, someone said it was 3 light years.

 

^ when you read my first post, you should've realized that i knew much much more than you on the subject, however i suppose i much explain why you misunderstood what you think you learned in high school.

Uh, a theory by definition, is NOT proven. If it was, it would not be a theory. It would be a fact. It would be Einstein's LAW of relativity.

I'm no "engineer," but anyone who payed attention in HS science class should know that

this is only somewhat true. a theory is not proven true, however, it is an explanation of a law or laws.

here's what i said before.

nothing in star wars follows einstien's proven theory of relativity. i say proven because although its called a theory its been proven that light travels the same speed from all frames of reference.

it is proven that the speed of light is a constant usually called "c." there is not a single respected physicist in the world today who would say that is not true. einstien's theory is just his explanation which is why it is called a theory. einstien's relativity has two postulates. that the speed of light is a constant, and that the laws of physics appear the same to all frames of reference. the "theory" part is his explanation.

if you still think i didn't pay attention in high school here is a comparative explanation. imagine the LAW of gravity. it is a law of nature until you put someone's name in front of it. Newton's THEORY of gravity. Einstein's THEORY of gravity. both are different explanations of the LAW of gravity. yes ive heard of Bohr's law and Ohm's law and many other laws that are named after people but if you look at their explanation it would be called a THEORY. really when you come right down to it, scientists can't really explain what matter is or what energy is. therefore we can't really call any explanation a law because we don't even understand the essence of everything. we know the laws and what they do but the theories answer the question why.


PARSEC
parsec stands for parallax second. parallax is the measure of how a star appears to shift as the earth revolves around the sun. a second is a unit measuring angle (1/3600 of a degree). the furthest distance the earth travels from itself is over a 6-month peroid. so a parsec is the distance a star would need to be from the earth in order to shift one second of an arc over a 6-month period.


i also agree that Lucas probably said parsec thinking it was a unit of time and then had to cover it up with a new explanantion.

 

I still GL used the word bacause is sounded cool.

 

Uh, a theory by definition, is NOT proven. If it was, it would not be a theory. It would be a fact. It would be Einstein's LAW of relativity.

Wrong. A theory, in scientific parlance, is an accepted set of ideas. Nothing in science is absolutely proven, but a theory is as close as it gets, and for all intents and purposes is fact. The Theory of Relativity, besides making theoretical sense, has been verified in many experiments, including the aforementioned GPS problem, the lifespan of muons, the angle of aberration, the bending of light by large celestial objects, etc. It has been proven as much as anything in science can be.

 

not to mention that it is made up LAW and the THEORY is the explanation like i already said, and a parsec is 3.2 light years

Obviously the SW ships are able to traverse the galaxy, without the adverse Relativity effects.

Therefore, hyperspace must be either a sub-universe, or a wormhole form of travel, neither of which are subject to those effects.


relativity is in effect everywhere in which values of matter and energy are defined. the only place in the universe where relativity does not work is in a singularity where mass and/or energy density is infinity. using relativity, you would always be either dividing or multiplying by infinity which means all results would be infinite or zero. relativity holds true anywhere in which matter and energy can exist as we know it (therefore anywhere a starship can fly through whether it is a wormhole or sub-universe or whatever). the only possibility is that in the sub-universe they travel throuhg the constant "c" is much higher than it would be in our own universe. if light traveled faster in that universe then the effects of relativity would not be as great, however it would have to be unbeleivably fast. remember that han traveled 36 light years. so he would still need to travel well over our speed of light in order to do that in a reasonable amount of time. i would say the only way it would be possible would be if hyperspace was a sub-universe in which the speed of light was infinite. then there would still be relativity, however, it would not matter because no matter how fast you travelled you would always be travelling at 0% the speed of light.

 

I have to correct myself up there. The theory of relativity was formulated by Einstein after results like the Lorentz transformations had already been discovered. The results were already known, and Einstein's achievement is discovering with a reason as to why they were taking place.

So, yeah, to basically repeat what GS said: Einstein's theory of relativity is an explanation of a known fact, that time and space are not constant in all frames of reference. In turn, his theory is extremely well supported, which is why we can call it a theory, since it makes its own verifiable predictions.

 

nothing in star wars follows einstien's proven theory of relativity. i say proven because although its called a theory its been proven that light travels the same speed from all frames of reference.

If you can't understand my confusion as to your true meaning based on the actual sentence you wrote then I don't know what else to say to you. It sure sounded as if you were saying the whole theory of relativity was a proven fact. While I'm no engineer or astrophysicist, I'm pretty sure this isn't the case.