Few people get excited about the sciences. Yet in viewing "Star Wars," many can find enjoyment in writers' and actors' use - and misuse - of the laws of science to make the unreal seem true.
But perhaps most fantastic about "Star Wars" events is that slowly but surely scientists worldwide are making the impossible possible. Barely half a century ago, outer space travel, supersonic airplanes and weapons of mass destruction were but a myth. So it isn't difficult to envision a future of cruising around the galaxy faster than the speed of light, running our own galactic Death Star space station or owning an official C-3PO to pick locks for us.
"Nothing's impossible," University physics Professor Fred Bechetti warned. "Improbable, yes. Impossible, never."
LSA senior Bryan Mendez, a physics/astrophysics/music triple major and admitted sci-fi buff, feels that part of the greatness of "Star Wars" is that it avoids getting bogged down in science.
But an impressed physics Professor Emeritus Robert Lewis admitted: "The people who write these movies are very savvy. They use the vocabulary of science in a very creative way. It's not all true, but it's a very clever extension of truth."
But mistakes are still made.
"In 'Star Wars' all of the explosions are noisy," noted Elizabeth Smith, a University graduate student studying condensed matter physics. "But there are no shock waves in space. So explosions don't make noise."
Mendez remembered that, in "Star Wars," exploding ships would stop in mid-space. "But the masses from the ships should continue to move at the same velocity in the same direction as the ship was before it exploded."
Sophomore Rober Bochenek, a physics/astronomy/philosophy triple major said that "when something burns in 'Star Wars' the fire is red. But there's no oxygen in space for that to occur."
As for the biological aspects of the "Star Wars" trilogy, Astronomy Professor Richard Sears noted that the possibility of life on other planets is good.
"We have found some massive planets outside of this solar system in the past couple of years, but we've found nothing terrestrial like Earth," he said. "But we are certainly getting closer to that."
Still, Bochenek questioned the humanoid features of the different "Star Wars" creatures.
"Virtually all of them have the two-eyes, two-ears, two-nose-atop-a-single head feature of human-like creatures," Bochenek said. "From an old, far-away galaxy I'd expect a little more variation."
Mendez marveled at how the different creatures speak different languages, yet understand each other. He noted that Chewbacca can't speak English, and his human friends don't grunt, but they still communicate well.
Some of the "Star Wars" mistakes are a tad more in-depth. Mendez recounts the Cantina scene, where Han Solo brags that his ship can make a run in 12 parsecs. Problem? Parsecs is a measure of distance, not time.
But, Mendez said that this may turn out to not be a mistake after all. In an area of physics known as special relativity (first proposed by Albert Einstein), if an object moves at a fast-enough velocity, the distance between that object and another is actually shortened.
But Han Solo is no relativity genius.
"Yeah, the 'Star Trek' writers probably screwed up," Mendez said. "But even if they did, it's interesting how even their mistakes can be explained with real science."
And therein lies the beauty of science. If science-fiction excitement comes from misconstruing scientific facts, then the actual sciences must be even more exciting if they can prove that the mistakes are not wrong.
"Physics itself is strange enough that we don't even really need sci-fi," Dr. Lewis said. "Why do we have to make up some sort of artificial science when the real stuff is itself so startling?"
Science buffs everywhere would agree. Astronomers: Visionaries searching for that which lies beyond our world. Physicists: Those who bring the vast, immutable laws of matter, electricity and magnetism under the control of mankind. Chemists: Lords of the molecule, forever probing the basis of matter interactions. Biologists: Masters of life and death, their characteristics and their variations. Engineers: The practical scientists bringing lofty theory to rest upon a plane of user-friendliness. Mathematicians: Gatekeepers of the necessary language of science - numbers, functions and sets are their domain.
With friends like them, who needs sci-fi?
One of the Imperial Storm Troopers rides a huge beast of burden in a new scene from "Star Wars: The Special Edition."