Apart from their divergent presenting styles, celebrity astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson is something like an American version of Professor Brian Cox. He’s responsible for fact-filled tweets like this:
December 21 / 22: Happy Summer Solstice to 15% of all Humans and 100% of free Penguins who dwell in the Southern Hemisphere.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 22, 2015
Last month he described the Millennium Falcon as ‘fake fake’, as opposed to Star Trek’s Enterprise, which he says is ‘fake real’. So when Tyson took to Twitter last week to talk about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it was obvious the first thing he would talk about was the physics issues. Here’s what he says about the various problems in Star Wars: The Force Awakens…
1. He’s a big fan of BB-8…
In @StarWars #TheForceAwakens, BB-8 is waaaaay cuter than R2D2.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 21, 2015
2. …except when BB-8 is on sand, which is totally unrealistic and rubbish, apparently
In @StarWars #TheForceAwakens, BB-8, a smooth rolling metal spherical ball, would have skidded uncontrollably on sand.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 21, 2015
3. He’s keen to tell us there’s no sound in a vacuum, even though that’s ancient news/this is a movie
In @StarWars #TheForceAwakens the TIE fighters made exactly the same sound in the vacuum of space as in planetary atmospheres
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 21, 2015
Jeez.
4. The energy in stars destroys more stuff than you’d think.
In @StarWars #TheForceAwakens, if you were to suck all of a star’s energy into your planet, your planet would vaporize.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 21, 2015
In @StarWars #TheForceAwakens, the energy in a Star is enough to destroy ten-thousand planets, not just a few here & there.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 21, 2015
Fair enough
5. That old ‘parsec’ quibble is back, even though fans say it’s more to do with Han Solo’s insanely daring flying than time
Unashamed of inanity, #TheForceAwakens repeats the Millennium Falcon boast of completing the Kessel Run in "under 12 parsecs"
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 21, 2015
( A Parsec is an obscure unit of distance in Astrophysics, equal to 3.26 Light Years. Neither has anything to do with time. )
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 21, 2015
Then Tyson began making some more random observations. For example:
6. The only food with a fractal design is Romanescu broccoli, and Rey eats some
Fractals are complex patterns that repeat themselves on various scales. There’s another example below.
In @StarWars #TheForceAwakens, the lead character snacks on what includes Romanescu Broccoli, nature’s only fractal food.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 21, 2015
Never seen Romanescu Broccoli? Fractal Earth food befitting a tale of long ago and far, far away. pic.twitter.com/NZDkWpeqOB
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 21, 2015
Mother Nature, you so fractal! From this rainy morning at the UC Botanical Garden – @ucgarden pic.twitter.com/u9LJ4EGln8
— Karen Fayeth (@karenfayeth) December 22, 2015
7. Stormtroopers are still filling their nappies
In @StarWars #TheForceAwakens, the Storm Troopers still run as though they’re carrying a full load of poop in their diapers.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 21, 2015
8. Star Wars is one of the few things still using Roman numerals
With next year’s @SuperBowl 50 the NFL abandons Roman Numerals, leaving @StarWars as the last bastion of this counting system
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 21, 2015
Wasn’t that informative?