From lightsabers to the force and mind tricks the Jedi are a force to be reckoned with even against the best of superheroes
But with the new Star Wars The Last Jedi trailer and movie coming out soon not to mention EA's
Battlefront 2 debacle we started wondering whether or not the Jedi could actually exist hypothetically. Could
humans ever have or obtain some of these capabilities? First up are the Jedi's incredible reflexes,
which could be linked to seeing the world in slow motion,
along with their ability of foresight. When you're put in a dangerous or stressful situation
time often seems to slow down, and this is because your brain begins taking in much more information than normal.
But even in these moments your reflexes and time perception
hardly compare to some other animals.
If you've ever tried to hit a fly you might realize that what is a really quick swat on
your part is easily avoided by the fly and that's because the fly actually perceives it as slower.
Scientists use the point at which a flickering light is seen as one
continuous light as a marker for visual sensitivity.
And it turns out flies can see light flickering at a rate nearly seven times faster than we do.
For them, one second actually
feels longer.
Scientists believe that perception of time co-evolved with how fast an animal moves, how quick their metabolism is and how big their bodies are.
After all it doesn't make much sense for your brain to take in so much
information if your body can't physically react to it in time.
As a result
leatherback turtles only get about 1/3 of the information that human brains do in one second. Dogs on the other hand can see about
25% faster than humans, making our TVs look like a set of flickering lights.
But with improvements in vision sensitivity jedi-like reflexes could become possible.
But it would only matter if you could physically react fast enough.
Otherwise you would just be seeing something come towards you slowly with no means to actually stop it.
While the force is a somewhat mystical
and elusive concept in the movies, it touches on some ideas that scientists have long tried to explore.
Ancient Greeks actually believed in a fifth element that connected everything in the universe and even Isaac Newton proposed a concept of our brains
interacting with something called ether that was all around us,
which could potentially give us psychic powers. And while the force is described in many different ways Obi-wan suggests,
"It's an energy field created by all living things it.
Surrounds us, penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together."
This sounds in some ways like the electric fields that exist in and all around us.
Human brains for example emit brainwaves, a form of electromagnetic radiation that travels at the speed of light.
This is released from the activity of thousands of neurons simultaneously
firing at the same frequency.
And many animals are actually optimized to sense this electricity, like the platypus.
It catches prey in murky waters at night with their eyes, ears and nostrils all closed and instead using its bill covered in nearly
40-thousand electro-receptors to detect the micro volts of electricity that their prey emits.
Even human cells have the ability to detect electric fields though
not consciously.
But perhaps with some genetic engineering our acute awareness of this force could become more pronounced.
Speaking of electricity, many members of the Sith are able to shoot lightning out of their hands.
And there are certain species of fishes that do something similar.
Consider the electric eel capable of producing up to 600 volts of electricity. These fish have evolved electric organs at least
100 million years ago by converting muscle cells to electro sites.
Instead of simply contracting to release a small amount of voltage like normal muscle cells do
electro sites actually push ions across a membrane in order to create a large flow of positive charge,
ultimately creating an electric current allowing them to release a shock at will from several feet away. Perhaps through gene modification
technologies like CRISPR a version of these electro sites could be created in humans allowing for electric capabilities.
Now theoretical physicist Michio Kaku thinks that we do have the materials and technology now to make a lightsaber. Just those technologies need to be upgraded.
Light sabers are weapons of powerful compact energy that can cut through anything with a few exceptions like another light saber.
Dr. Kaku's design consists of a blade made from superhot plasma, one of the four fundamental states of matter
where air is sucked into the base of the blade and is superheated to create a six thousand six hundred and forty-eight degrees Celsius plasma.
An electromagnetic coil would be used to control the plasma while a telescopic ceramic rod,
which shoots out of the handle and can resist the as temperature holds the blade all together.
Where does the energy come from? In the handle of the lightsaber are trillions of nano batteries that power the plasma generator and
Dr. Kaku thinks of this technology could be ready in the next 50 years.
The Star Wars films state that those with a high
Midi-chlorian count are actually much more in tune with the force.
Midi-chlorians are a microscopic life-form that resides within all living cells.
They live inside me.
George Lucas has suggested that this was based on the idea of
mitochondria, an organelle found in all eukaryotic organisms that helped supply energy, cellular differentiation,
cell growth, and many other tasks. And while most of your cells have their own DNA in the cell nucleus,
mitochondria actually have their own genome in DNA, which is more similar to a bacteria.
Lucas used this as a metaphor for how without symbiosis whether it's cells or entire organisms working together life couldn't exist
Now if being more in tune with life simply meant having more mitochondria
it could be as simple as doing more exercise. A study that had seniors complete a 12-week exercise program found that skeletal muscle
mitochondrial DNA increased 53 percent after training. Of course we have no real reason to believe this would do much else.
Unless George Lucas knows something about the mitochondria that scientists don't.
George
Many Jedi are able to employ a type of
telekinesis through the force, and while there's been a lot of interest in the idea of moving objects with your mind
scientific research has not produced reliable, repeatable demonstrations of telekinesis.
So you can't levitate an object with your mind,
but we have been able to manipulate the force with technology. Though
it goes against intuition, non-magnetic substances can be levitated within a magnetic field.
Physicists have been able to levitate animals, like this frog using a high magnetic field as living things consist of diamagnetic molecules like water
Proteins and bones and the tiny forces these molecules give off allow them to levitate.
Finally the Jedi are able to use Jedi Mind Tricks to implant suggestions,
which is perhaps most closely linked to hypnosis in our world. The ability to respond to suggestions.
Though it typically takes time to induce a person into a hypnotic state and hypnotizability itself is a spectrum where not everyone responds.
But as we move into the future and start potentially putting technologies into our brain
another route may actually be possible.
This mouse has fiber optic cables wired into its right motor cortex,
which controls movement to the left. As soon as the light is shot into its altered neurons it cannot help
but run to the left. Its thoughts and actions have been hacked.
As humans continue to enhance their bodies and brains through
technology brain hacking akin to Jedi Mind Tricks may become a major concern.
Connect to the reward centers of the brain and now you can control how someone feels.
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