For 30 years, moviegoers have thrilled to the sight of space-going swashbucklers slashing at each other with laser swords as they rocket from star to star.
The last movie in George Lucas' epic Star Wars series may have come and gone, yet the franchise lives on in books and games, and soon on television. But could any exploits of these warriors of a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away have actually happened? Are the fantastical sights--the speeding spaceships, the chattering robots, lightsabers in every imaginable color--even physically possible?
It's not as silly as it sounds. Science fiction has always played a role as a diviner of future trends. Sci-fi writers of the 1930s described moonshots and nuclear bombs, and Arthur C. Clarke was famously the first to conjure up the communications satellite. With the exception of warp drive and transporters, a lot of the technology in the 1960s Star Trek now looks antiquated. (Why, after all, is that guy with the pointy ears carrying such a clunky cellphone?)
Star Wars is, of course, a mishmash of B-movie and sci-fi conventions: laser pistols, hyperdrive ships and funny little men. But could it too, have some prophetic power? Forbes.com contacted scientists to find out.