[High Praise! to Hatless in Hattiesburg]
For no reason other than “it’s what nerds do for fun,” XKCD calculated how much power Yoda could output using The Force. All the assumptions and equations are neatly laid out at the link (along with the cute stick figure drawings that are the only thing the ever keeps science from being boring) so you can check his work. But I’ll jump right to the conclusion:
Yoda sounds like our best bet as an energy source. But with world electricity consumption pushing 2 terawatts, it would take a hundred million Yodas to meet our demands. All things considered, switching to Yoda Power probably isn’t worth the trouble – though it would definitely be green.
So to answer the question in the title, I’d say “hell yeah!” Here’s why Obama would back this:
* Yoda is an undocumented alien who speaks English with a funny accent & poor syntax.
* Since there’s only one Yoda, he could never be a significant contributor towards providing for the world’s energy needs, no matter how much of other people’s money you threw at the project.
* You could throw a lot of other people’s money at the project.
* Like all green energy, Yoda is fictional.
What’s not for Obama to love?
I hear people all the time that think they have this power because they have the force or because they’re jedi masters. Yoda didn’t make that power. Somebody else made that power.
Well, his hokey religion and zealous sermonizing would blur the lines between Church and State.
For the first time in my life I am proud of the force.
If Obama throws money at Yoda Power (Power, Yoda I am?) does DamnCat get the money?
Awesome snark here, Harvey, but I gotta say, I’m a little disappointed by the calculations at XKCD. At one point he says the length of an X-wing is 16m, but then he shows a pictures where he uses a length of 12.5m – I think his estimate of the X-wing’s mass is highly suspect. Plus he completely neglects the additional attractive force supplied by the effect of the bog/swamp on the X-wing.
While the approach, calculations, and physics are correct, I take issue with his assumptions and therefore his final numbers and conclusion.
Yoda acted stupidly.
Doesn’t the writer here miss the entire point of the incident? Let’s go to the video.
LUKE: (panting heavily) I can’t. It’s too big.
YODA: Size matters not.
Unless Yoda is blowing smoke, there is no readily discernable upper limit to the energy he can generate using the force. At the very least, lifting an X-wing does not approach such a limit. So I’d say Yoda is a far more promising renewable energy source than the author appreciates. Which probably means that the administration will identify some obscure environmental problem he creates (does Yoda eat any endangered species?) which allows them to refuse to pursue using him to solve a much larger and potentially more significant problem.
That’s true.
It seems that the energy sources we have already commercially available are all eeeevil.
As soon as any potential energy source, like natural gas, becomes commercially viable (by improvements in production technology, like fracking) it is also pronounced eeeevil.
His Yoda-power equation does not show a conversion factor. If you remove the units, the numbers yield 1960, not 19,200. If this were a homework assignment from before the age of calculators, he would only get partial credit, for not showing his work. Multiply the 1960 by standard gravity of 9.8m/(s*s) to convert from units of “earth gravity” to metric, and you get 19,208. BTW, a Watt is equal to a Joule/s, a Joule is equal to a Newton*meter, and a Newton, is a kg*m/(s*s), so the units balance. ;p