Toulouse: what if you decipher Star Wars with the astrophysicist Roland Lehoucq?
How powerful is a lightsaber? What could be the nature of the Force? Astrophysicist Roland Lehoucq will answer these questions and many others this Wednesday evening, in Toulouse, during an evening organized by Science Animation.
This Wednesday evening at 9 p.m. Scientific animation organize an evening-conference in Toulouse on the theme of Star Wars. Roland Lehoucq, astrophysicist at the French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA), and author of the book “Doing science with Star Wars”, will come to decipher the saga of Georges Lucas. The conference is accessible from the age of 8.
When you watch a science fiction movie, do you happen to be generated by the scientific aberrations that you observe?
Not at all. I watch a movie for its cinematic qualities, if it’s anything, I don’t mind at all. The quality of a movie, especially science fiction, is unrelated to how it treats science. I look at a work having in mind that I could be used for my analyzes.
I still have a small neuron that spins: will I have to see this scene again because it is interesting? The idea is not to make a criticism but rather to make a scientific investigation. In the case of “Star Wars”, for example, we do not know the power of a lightsaber. This kind of investigation makes it possible to talk about a scientific method, to show live and concretely how a scientific brain solves the problems that are posed to it. How does his head work when he is faced with a question he is asking himself. These are basic problems, but they can be relatively difficult. To do physics is to use one’s knowledge to obtain information on the world.
What kind of questions is a physicist likely to ask himself when watching “Star Wars”?
He asks himself questions about what he sees: is this an engine that we could manufacture? How big is the Death Star? Of course all this is impossible, but it does not matter, we can try to quantify to see how impossible it is. We can analyze the planets observed: we know almost 5,000 exoplanets, could they look like one of them? Are they plausible? Do they evoke states of the evolution of the Earth or the planets of the solar system? In addition to talking about the scientific method, there is also the issue of knowledge and the issue of having fun. We are there to hijack the film, making it an educational object that allows us to talk about physics. We will also try to quantify the power of a lightsaber, it is not for tomorrow that we will make one: it corresponds to the heart of a nuclear power station that fits in the hand. You don’t have to have done a lot of education to know it’s not going to be easy. But to know this power, how do you do it? Where do we get this number from? It was necessary to make calculations, to construct a reasoning, it is these stages of construction that I am describing.
Are the audience asking questions if you can’t answer?
Once or twice I’ve been asked relevant questions that I hadn’t thought of. For some questions, we do not necessarily have the means to answer them while watching the film.
Which science fiction movies are the closest to reality from a scientific point of view?
Some are more or less well done from a science point of view. “2001 A Space Odyssey” has a lot of relevant elements, as does “Gravity”, and “Interstellar”. In “Star Wars”, nothing is done well, but it is not very serious. The narration sometimes requires violating some laws of physics because otherwise we do not get out. It allows students to ask questions: why is it wrong? This makes it possible to use the critical mind, the mental tools to analyze a scientific discourse. This is an important question in science.
Your last book has just been released …
Indeed, it is called “The Human in Space – Between Real and Fictional”, and looks back on the major stages of space exploration, between real and imaginary. In science fiction, in movies or in literature, many things have been told. It is a richly illustrated book using old science fiction magazines, newspaper images, cinema images, artist illustrations.
The evening is free and takes place in the Sénéchal room, 17 Rue Charles de Rémusat in Toulouse. Registration required.