![]() ![]() Based on my very careful measurements, it seems like the floor leans back 6 degrees, assuming the camera doesn't tilt. In the scene, you can see the interior of the Falcon tilting back. Now let’s go back to Leia and Luke in the cockpit. With my value of the Falcon acceleration, I get an incline of 26 degrees. From these two forces, both of which I know, I can calculate the effective tilt angle. The horizontal force (F 2) will be the mass of R2 multiplied by the acceleration of the Millennium Falcon. I am going to assume that the floor-pointing artificial gravity (F 1) is just like on Earth, with a magnitude of mass of the object (R2-D2) multiplied by the gravitational field of g = 9.8 m/s 2. That's a good thing-because I just need to measure R2's acceleration as seen from inside the spacecraft. If R2 has completely frictionless wheels (or at least very low friction), then as the Falcon accelerates forward he would accelerate backwards with respect to the ship's frame. The magnitude of this force on R2 would be equal to his mass multiplied by the acceleration of the spaceship. So, in the reference frame of the accelerating Falcon, there appears to be a gravitational-like force that pushes in the opposite direction as the acceleration. According to Einstein's equivalence principle, there's no difference between an accelerating reference frame and a gravitational force. I mean, it's not necessarily a fake force. If we take the inside of the bus as the reference frame, then we will need to add a fake force to account for the acceleration. It's as though he was on a turbocharged bus when the driver hit the gas, and he's not seatbelted in. When the starship makes the jump to hyperspace, R2 goes flying backwards inside the Falcon. Hopefully they’re looking where they’re going and won’t hit a planet or something. There goes the Falcon, right off into hyperspace. He rolls over, and with the flick of a switch-boom. The central computer comes back with a rumor: The hyperdrive has been turned off. He’s onboard the Falcon talking to the Bespin central computer-you know, just sharing lubrication techniques and dropping some gossip on the silly things C-3PO says. The Imperials have disabled the hyperdrive. We will just make the jump to lightspeed and skip out of this system." Well, that doesn’t work. Once they get off the planet, of course, Darth Vader is there to intercept them with his Star Destroyer. On their way out, they grab Luke (he was literally just hanging around). ![]() So, here is the scene: Leia, Lando, and Chewbacca use the Millennium Falcon to escape from the Imperial forces on Bespin. I mean, if you haven't seen it by now, are you really going to watch it? The great thing about using this movie is that it's so old-more than 40 years-that I don't have to worry about spoilers. For this year's post, I'm going to look at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Following my tradition, I'm going to take some element from Star Wars and do some cool physics. It's another year and another Star Wars Day-May the 4th be with you. ![]()
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