2. Dr Martin Hendry Dept of Physics and Astronomy University of Glasgow

4. Reach for the Stars Dr Martin Hendry Dept of Physics and Astronomy University of Glasgow

5. Current list of ‘Reach for the Stars’ lectures The Physics of Star Wars Telescopes: from Galileo to Hubble Empire of the Sun The Life and Death of Stars Getting the Measure of the Universe Overwhelmingly Large Telescopes Five Millennia of Scottish Astronomy A History of Astronomy in Glasgow Crescent Moon Rising Stargazers of Ancient Mexico The Search Beyond the Sun Death of the Dinosaurs What if the Moon Didn’t Exist? Putting the Iron in Irn Bru Why Are We Here? Light in Lumps or Ripples Einstein’s Universe E.T. Life: Is There Anybody Out There? Life in the Universe In the Beginning Cosmology: the Final Frontier The Realm of the Nebulae Dark Energy Echoes of the Big Bang A Recipe for Galaxy Formation Hubble Vision The Runaway Universe From Quarks to Quasars The Future of the Universe Cosmology in the Third Millennium Rocket Science Deep Impacts To Infinity and Beyond Exploring the Sky Further information from: martin@astro.gla.ac.uk

6. 9 th Dr Martin Hendry University of Glasgow

7. Glasgow University Open Day 20 th Sept 1999 The Physics of Star Wars

8. Trinity School, Carlisle 20 th March 2000 The Physics of Star Wars

9. The 2nd International Philosophy, Science & Theology Festival Odyssey 2001 Grafton NSW Dr Martin Hendry University of Glasgow, UK

10. Aim: To use the “Star Wars” Universe as a gateway to explore “cutting edge” ideas and concepts in physics and astrophysics

12. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

15. The Physicsof

16. Aim: To use the “Star Wars” Universe as a gateway to explore ideas and concepts in physics and astrophysics

17. The Physics of Star Wars Spaceships Weapons Planets and star systems

18. The stars are VERY far away. The nearest star (after the Sun) is about 40 million million km from the Earth. It takes light more than 4 years to travel this distance. If the distance from the Earth to the Sun were the width of this screen, the next nearest star would be in Rome. Interstellar Travel

19. In Star Wars, spaceships travel through hyperspace

20. “What time does Oxford reach this train?” Einstein’s Special Relativity

21. “What time does Oxford reach this train?” “What time does Alderaan reach the Falcon?”

23. Einstein’s General Relativity Matter causes space to curve or warp

24. Warping spacetime

25. Tatooine Alderaan Warping spacetime

26. Tatooine Alderaan Warping spacetime

27. Tatooine Alderaan Warping spacetime

28. Tatooine Alderaan Warping spacetime

29. Tatooine Alderaan Warping spacetime

30. Tatooine Alderaan Warping spacetime

33. Wormholes in spacetime predicted by theories of quantum gravity, but these are unimaginably tiny, and unstable. How do we fit a spaceship through a wormhole?……

37. Antigravity Gravity is an attractive force We feel weight when we are accelerated 1g = 10 metres per second per second

38. Anakin’s podracer accelerates from 0- 600mph in 2 seconds: a g-force of about 13g

43. Controlling gravity

46. Death Stars

48. Power to destroy Alderaan in 0.25 sec = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 MW This equals the total power output of the Sun for ~ 1.5 months!

49. Power of the Death Star Laser pen = 1mW Light Bulb = 100W Electric Heater = 1kW Wind Farm= 1MW Lightning Bolt = 1GW Largest Laser= 1000TW The Death Star has the power of a million million million million lightning bolts

50. Lightsabres and Blasters Laser beams or plasma beams?

59. Planets and Star Systems

60. Navigation Finding your exact position in the galaxy is a huge computational task. Requires 50 billion Mbytes of disk space, or 77 million CD-roms 10000 years on a Pentium IV computer! (Also needs 3-D star maps of the galaxy) starmaps starmaps

62. Tatooine

63. Possible orbits of Tatooine, Tatoo 1 and Tatoo 2

65. Planets and Star Systems

66. Hoth

68. Galileo’s Moons

70. Inside Europa Could there be life?…..

73. Endor

75. Yavin

76. The tidal pull of the Moon on the Earth

77. Coruscant

80. Runaway Greenhouse Effect