From: flowerpt@coos.dartmouth.edu (Bill McGonigle)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.starwars
Subject: Re: Luke's lightsaber
Date: 18 Nov 92 06:21:22 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

In article <1e9k4qINNqsc@gap.caltech.edu> keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
>flowerpt@coos.dartmouth.edu (Bill McGonigle) writes:
>
>Yes, but we're talking about acceleration here.  Notice that Yoda didn't move
>the X-Wing particularly rapidly.  It didn't just hop right out of the bog.
>Yes, Vader could accelerate those pieces of whatever, but it would take just
>as long to slow them down...  Are you really trying to say that Yoda could
>catch a cannonball (fired from a cannon) in midair?  If size matters not,
>then why didn't Vader just cause Luke's X-Wing to crash in the first
>Death Star Battle?  Why didn't the Emperor just personally cause the entire
>Rebel fleet to crash into the energy field?  The Force apparently DOES have
>some limitations.  And you didn't answer my question...  could the Force
>be used to accelerate a bullet to muzzle velocity?  I think not.

Lets look at this from a physics point of view.  The Jedi are using the Force
to do things, but the things must still obey normal space laws.  Note, I'm
figuring this out without knowing the outcome ahead of time.  How fast did
Yoda move the X-Wing?  Three meters per second?  How much do you think it
weighs, ten thousand kilograms?  I think these are reasonable figures. The
momentum of the X-Wing would be thirty thousand kilogram meters per second.
A ten gram bullet traveling at half a kilometer per second would have a 
momentum of five kilogram meters per second.  A hundred kilogram cannonball
traveling at one hundred meters per second would have a momentum of
one thousand mKg/s.  So, if Yoda can stop the X-wing he moved, he should be
able to stop a bullet easily and a cannonball without much trouble.  Because
stopping something that is moving is just a matter of changing its 
momentum to zero.   I think.

Yoda knows that size matters not, but I don't think that Vader knows that.  It
seems like he's a pretty mediocre Jedi.  Left his training early, and filled
in the blanks with Dark Side tricks.  And the emperor didn't need to do anything
to make the rebels get destroyed.  He figured that there was no way they
could get the shield down, and the DS was going to pick off the ships one by
one.  

>Okay, how about if you held his head in the swamp?  I bet he'd lose
>concentration THEN!

Ok, if you somehow got Yoda to drown, then yes, he would loose his 
concentration.  And you'd be better than a Jedi Master.  Better not
ask him who the 'Master' is when you pull his head up, though. Yoda
has reached the final level.  (only 1 in 100 will get this reference)

>
>But the point is that there weren't any intricate actions.  You couldn't pinch
>my nose closed with the Force...

How about your throat?  "I find your lack of faith disturbing."

>I still don't think that a Jedi could stop a cannonball.

>However, it is clear from the movies that Jedis AREN'T invincible.  Remeber
>that the Jedi were all but exterminated before Star Wars too place.

True, but it took another Jedi to help destroy them.

-Bill
-Bill
-- 
     -= Bill.McGonigle@Dartmouth.edu =-      |  Fighters!   |   |  /   \  |   |
Do you ever get the feeling that the story's |  Coming in   |=O=|  |=O=|  |=O=|
too damn real, and in the present tense? -JT | point three! |   |  \   /  |   |
Snail Mail: HB 2660, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 03755-4015. (603) 640-5780