![]() In The Empire Strikes Back, the Falcon's jump to hyperspace throws Artoo across the deck and into the open engine pit. Of course, the force that makes us stumble back as the subway car accelerates doesn't seem completely conquered on the Falcon. Just eliminating it for a fraction of a second could allow a rapid, effortless acceleration, after which point inertia could return and the Falcon could cruise at a constant, high velocity. Perhaps they have learned to manipulate inertia. Since Star Wars ships are constantly undergoing rapid accelerations and decelerations, they must have found some way to solve this problem. Even at 9 g's, it would take him nineteen days to reach half the speed of light, though he'd be dead long before the ship reached that speed. For Han to take off from Mos Eisley and accelerate at 3 g's to half the speed of light would take him two and a half months-hardly the makings of an exciting movie. For the sake of argument, though, let's try to tough it out at 3 g's for a little longer. We can withstand 5 g's for only two minutes, 3 g's for only an hour. If we need to accelerate for extended periods, the level we can withstand is even lower. ![]() We're forced to limit the acceleration of planes and spacecraft to a level humans can survive. The Air Force's F-16 can produce more g's than the human body can survive. If the acceleration doesn't decrease, you will pass out and finally die. Your vision narrows to a tunnel, then goes black. When undergoing an acceleration of 9 g's, your body feels nine times heavier than usual, blood rushes to the feet, and the heart can't pump hard enough to bring this heavier blood to the brain. Normal humans can withstand no more than 9 g's, and even that for only a few seconds. We experience higher or lower g forces when we are rapidly changing speeds or directions. Just as gravity pushes you down against the Earth, inertia pushes you back against your seat. The gravitational force on an object is equivalent to the inertial force on an object undergoing a comparable acceleration. The reason we measure acceleration in terms of gravity is because the two have the same effect. The speed of light is so fast, that to accelerate to it safely would take months! We measure acceleration in g's, with one g equal to the acceleration caused by Earth's gravity-the acceleration of falling objects on Earth. But accelerating from zero to 186,000 miles per second in five seconds will push Han back so forcefully that he'll become a splat on that fine vinyl upholstery. Inertia will push him slightly back in his seat. Let BMW try to beat that acceleration! It's no problem for Han to accelerate the Falcon from zero to 60 miles per hour in five seconds. The Falcon might be traveling along at 50 miles per hour, and then suddenly it's traveling at 186,000 miles per second. Han Solo talks about making the "jump to light speed." If the Millenium Fal con is somehow jumping to light speed, it implies a nearly instantaneous acceleration. The latter will be more noticeable.Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the 1999 book The Science of Star Wars by Jeanne Cavelos. So you could have 1% difference in gravity due to radial location, but several centimeter displacement from dropping something. But again, due to forces that only occur when something is moving relative to the ground. For the 2 rpm case, there is significant noticeable deflection. Here are some images of dropping an object in artificial gravity. For normal motion, these are much more significant. The terms depend on velocity, not position, so someone standing still will not feel them (discounting any moving fluid in their body). These are not static like the effect your mention. The main concerns of discomfort in artificial gravity are dynamic Coriolis (false) forces. It is about half the radius of the Earth.Ī percent difference in acceleration from head to toe shouldn't bother someone too much. ![]() If you like, you can calculate the radius needed to produce this degree of consistency. Earth has an exceptionally constant gravitational field. For a person standing in a 224 m radius structure, that's 2/224 = 0.9%.įor reference, the tidal forces on Earth cause a difference in gravity of 0.00006 % from your head to your toe. This makes the problem simple because the rotation rate (omega) is constant, so the difference between your head and feet is r1/r2. The acceleration for anything attached to the structure will be: Even with a radius of 224 m the difference isn't much. Technically there will always be a vertical gradient of artificial gravity. What radius and rotation would be needed to produce 1g consistently from the floor to a height of about 6ft (2m)?
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