Putting Star Wars to the MythBusters Test

DangerTenor writes "The cast of the show MythBusters chat about their pasts with ILM, talk about some Star Wars myths (Can you avoid freezing to death in a blizzard overnight by gutting a dead animal like a tauntaun and getting into its carcass?) and why R2-D2 is the perfect sidekick." Not as cool as our interview, but pretty neat.

Water cores

[slavemowgli]

Could you pilot a submarine through a planet's core?

"If it were possible to have a water core at the center of a planet, then perhaps, but the pressures would be significant," Imahara explains. "That would have to be some submarine."

"Would the inside of a planet be water?" Savage asks. "I don't think so."

Indeed, the pressure *would* be significant, and the water would either be in a solid or supercritical liquid phase - it'd be pretty unlikely that you'd find it possible to drive a submarine through it in either case, though, even if the submarine itself would be constructed to withstand the pressure and temperature at the core.

Of course, IANAP, though, so YMMV.

Animal Guts

[AviLazar]

Yea they do stink, a lot (ever hit a deer, your car will stink for at least a year)....But, an animal of that size (essentially an animal that is big enough to act as a mount for a human) would probably retain enough warmth to keep a person (inside of it...yuck) at a decent temperature for 4-5 hours.

My favorite ...

[WankersRevenge]

Could you survive a 50-foot fall into a snow bank like Luke Skywalker did?

"It's plausible, depending on the exact conditions," Imahara explains. "You could survive, but you'd be pretty badly hurt. Let's just say you probably wouldn't be jumping up on a tauntaun and riding to the next outpost, if you know what I mean."

*cough*cough* ;) [boston.com]

Re:Sounds like a social occasion

[Fallingcow]

The tauntaun was already dead.

It is easy to drop 50 feet and be fine...

[geekoid]

assuming you can use The Force.

Re:That Tauntaun thing...

[TekPolitik]

We kill them for food, but usually we don't do it for entertainment.

They do in Spain

Re:Don't read if you love Star Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

Hard to see the Dark Side is.

This might take a while

[glwtta]

Can laser beams travel so slowly that you can see their progress?

Can mobs of various primitive, semi-sentient beings repeatedly defeat large imperial armies (presumably with state of the art training and equipment), by throwing random objects at them?

Can ships exploding in space not only make a lot of noise, but also not annihilate other ships in close proximity?

Can you really cover the same distance in varying numbers of parallax seconds?

Can all religion be explained with symbiotic micro-organisms?

Re:A 50 footer?

[Detritus]

A cop once told me that's why many drunk drivers escape bad accidents with minor injuries, while the sober occupants of the other car are killed or severely injured.

Re:Sounds like a social occasion

[susano_otter]

I assume, for the sake of argument, that the Tauntaun was more-or-less suited to the ice planet envirnment. If it had been out in the elements long enough to die, then Han probably (and reasonably!) figured that Luke had been out in the elements too long already. Thus, his first priority was to put several layers of insulating Tauntaun fat, flesh, and innards between Luke and the elements. Especially since the core of the Tauntaun's torso would be the last thing to cool off, and Luke would stay warmer longer the closer he was to it.

Star Wars people are not human

[elstumpo]

In their experiments, did they consider that the characters in Star Wars are not human beings, but members of an alien race with unspecified physiologies?

Re:That Tauntaun thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a little tip mate. All large mammals are very similar in basic construction. This is due to a little thing called evolution. They all have the same pain neurotransmitters and physiological structures to sense pain. This means that there is a rather high likelyhood that when you shoot an arrow into an Elk the feeling the elk gets when the arrow pierces it's flesh is pretty damn similar to shooting an arrow into a HUMAN. Think about that for a second you fucken moron. All biological studies suggest that the Elk could feel pain in an extremely similar fashion and intensity to a HUMAN. This is scientifically backed knowledge not some hippy emotional bullshit. Would you shoot a human with an arrow and let them die over a 12 hour period? Have some compassion and empathy for fucks sake. Goddamn.

Re:This might take a while

[Forbman]

Can mobs of various primitive, semi-sentient beings repeatedly defeat large imperial armies (presumably with state of the art training and equipment), by throwing random objects at them?

Well, if they're motivated enough. Look at how well it's working in Iraq...

A Fighting Chance

[CustomDesigned]

Normally, the bull would be butchered out of sight and made into steaks and hamburgers. Hopefully, the butcher tries to make this relatively painless for the bull. However, at a bull fight, while the bull usually dies a more painful death, it is also more exciting - and there is a small but significant chance that he can gore the bull fighter first.

Questions for you as a Spaniard:

• What happens to the bull when it wins? Do they kill it anyway, or does it get to go out to pasture or something?
• What happens to the bull when it loses? Does it get eaten, or thrown away.

While I would rather skip the bullfight also, my ethical sense says that a winning bull should go to pasture (like a few lucky turkeys here in the States that get a "pardon" from the President every year), and that a losing bull should get eaten rather than wasted - as pet food if health regulations won't allow it for human consumption.

Re:That Tauntaun thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely the intuitive thing to believe is that getting an arrow forced through your internal organs has a good chance of causing a hell of a lot of pain. Taking 12 hours to die from having an arrow piercing your internal organs seems like it has a reasonable chance of causing prolonged and intense suffering.

Re:That Tauntaun thing...

[Himring]

While bow hunting you often have to track an animal the next morning because a bow wont kill it right away.

I grew up deer hunting with my dad. Any bad shot from a bow and arrow or a gun will cause you to need to track the animal. It's not the weapon per se, it's the shot, where you hit it, etc. A gut shot will most likely cause the animal to live for some time and enable it to run far from the site -- no matter what the weapon. A chest shot, the lungs or especially the heart, will usually drop it within yards of where it was hit. My dad actually kept in a spare freezer several hearts wherein there was the distinctive "X" from the razor tipped arrow where he made those excellent shots. But, one thing that amazed me is the sheer will to live of these animals. I've seen deer run a dozen yards with even a shot through the heart -- not always. They are powerful creatures far tougher than humans. It always made me realize how frail and weak we truly are. In our natural state we would surely die in the wilderness. We have no hair for warmth, we can't really defend ourselves against an animal even half our size and our nails and teeth are fairly unimpressive. Anyhow....

I do not hunt anymore, and have no desire to kill anything. I have contemplated going hunting, doing all the things my dad taught me to find and locate prey, and then using a camera. I am not against hunters. I believe in conservation even though, as my sig shows, someone thought I want to kill baby seals....

I digress. My dad was an old-world kinda guy, and always taught me to respect the wilderness. He showed me how logging was destroying the forests where we hunted -- as a matter of fact, the mountain where generations of the men in my family hunted is now bare. We hiked and explored much of the mountains in the area -- the Appalachians. People really don't realize what logging companies are doing. My dad always respected the animals and after each kill would discuss with me how Native Americans respected their prey and apologized to it as a brother. He would kiss each deer on the nose afterwards -- yea, maybe campy, but that's how he was. He was a true survivalist/outdoorsman. Me? I prefer my cable tv, computer and sweats....

K, digressing for real, and I apologize for all of this off topic drivel....

Re:Light Sabre Jacuzzi

[virg_mattes]

Well, assuming that the lightsaber radiates enough heat to melt a door (as seen in the "Negotiations" scene of The Phantom Menace, you'd have several problems. First, containment. What holds the hot water? The surrounding ice? That would melt too, and your "Jacuzzi" would lose its shape. Second, temperature differential. To melt the snow/heat the water, you'd need to plunge the lightsaber into it, which would create a super-hotspot in the water. Sure, you could stir it around, but you'd risk scalding to the extreme. Third, steam. Plunging a lightsaber that can melt metal into a snowbank would result in a steam jet that could potentially cook your goose before you could get out of its way.

So, no go.

Virg

Re:Midichlorians and Anakin's conception

[MsGeek]

I believe this is precisely what they were insinuating.

I don't necessarily *like* it, but it does seem to be what they were insinuating.