The other day, an article in the Lantern criticized “The X-Files” for being scientifically inaccurate. I would like to offer a few more examples of inaccuracies in science fiction.The popular “Star Wars” trilogy is full of scientific shortcomings. Time after time Han Solo and the gang are being chased by Darth Vader and his evil cohorts and narrowly escape the Empire’s forces by making a “jump to light speed.” As Han pulls a small lever the light from surrounding stars stretches around the Millennium Falcon and the passengers are safe.Unfortunately, according to Einstein’s widely-accepted special theory of relativity objects with mass cannot travel at the speed of light. They can approach the maximum speed c ( 3.00 x 10^8 m/s ), but only objects like the massless photon can actually travel at this speed.Another shortcoming of the “Star Wars” series is its failure to recognize that time is not constant as if there were some grandfather clock that keeps time for the whole universe. No, instead time is also relative and while the Falcon cruises at speeds near that of light, the time experienced by the Empire’s Death Star would be far greater than that experienced by the beings aboard the Falcon. In fact, if they spent enough time making these jumps to light speed, they would return to find Darth Vader and the crew aboard the Death Star to have apparently aged much more quickly then they had.The movie “Contact” provides us with another example of Hollywood screenwriters not taking enough basic physics classes. As Jodie Foster drops through what appears to be a giant mass of energy, she is transported to a distant galaxy via wormholes in outer space.She is shown being hurled through space at amazingly fast speeds. At points, her face becomes distorted as though to suggest she too is traveling near the speed of light. After meeting with the alien life forms, she in transported back to Earth and shown falling into the a net bellow the device that had transported her. She looks up with a confused look on her face and asks “how long was I gone?” To her amazement, the scientists on Earth saw her drop straight through the structure. As far as they could tell, she had gone nowhere.As interesting as it is, this too is not scientifically accurate. Jodie Foster was traveling at a very quick rate away from the Earth and while she experienced being away for eighteen hours, the scientists on Earth would have experienced her being absent for a greater time, as explained in Einstein’s special theory of relativity.And finally, who could forget the ’80s classic “Back to the Future.” Michael J. Fox bolts back and forth through time in his modified Delorian thanks to Professor Brown’s invention, the Flux Capacitor. Unfortunately, even though many of us spend time wishing we could go back in time to correct our mistakes, time travel just isn’t possible.The rate at which time passes can be adjusted through relative velocities as explained in, you guessed it, Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Stretch it or shrink it all you want, you can’t go back in time.All of these movies did amazingly well at the box office, and the first two experienced much critical acclaim, not because of their scientific accuracy, but because of their ingenuity and their ability to challenge our imagination. I would suggest taking television shows like “The X-Files” as exactly what they are – science fiction. If these movies and television programs adhered to all the laws of physics they wouldn’t be science fiction, they would be science fact, and they would be a lot less entertaining.
Andrew Hall, a junior electrical and computer engineering major from Fremont, Ohio, has been abducted and probed by aliens more times than he can count.
