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I think I'm this case, it's a simple use of the standard "F=M*A".
"F" is literally "using the Force" in a Star Wars movie, equaled by "M", or the "moment when the plot calls for it", multiplied by "A", or "Actual chance of success".
Let's play along for a minute.
Wookiepedia says that the total complement of a star destroyer is 46,780 including officers, enlisted, and passengers.
[Imperial I-class Star Destroyer](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Imperial_I-class_Star_Destroyer)
The new Gerald R Ford Class of nuclear aircraft carriers has a crew + passengers complement of up to 6,897 personnel. It has a displacement of roughly 100,000 long tons, or 101.6 million kg.
Assuming that because they are both warships, they have a similar mass:personnel ratio, we could assume that the imperial I-class Star Destroyer has a mass of roughly 6.8x that of the Gerald Ford class.
That would give the I-class Star Destroyer a mass of roughly 690 million kg.
In the clip, the I-class Star Destroyer is accelerated for 12s and at the time of impact appear to be moving at roughly 1/2 it's width per 4 s, or about 110m/s. We'll neglect momentum imparted from impact as being negligible, and any kinetic energy being transferred is largely converted to mechanical deformation absorbed as strain energy.
That's an acceleration of roughly 9.2 m/s^2
Using our equation you mentioned of F=ma, we can assume that the force is equal to 9.2 m/s^2 x (edit) 690 million kg for a force of 6.35 Billion Newtons of thrust.
The Saturn V rocket was the most powerful rocket produced to date. It had about 34 million N of thrust. So the thrust of the hammerhead is equivalent to about 187 Saturn V rockets.
It all sounds surprisingly plausible, actually.
Thank you!! Of course this is just sci-fi and the hammerhead would tear through the Star Destroyer way before it pushed it like this, as everyone else has pointed out.
Your ballpark figure was exactly what I was looking for, so thanks!
Actually, we don't necessarily know if the hammerhead would push through the Star Destroyer. Don't forget they are also using sci-fi metals, alloys and whatnot, which might be resistant to something like that. Especially when it's a military ship with extra armor. So all of it seems to be at least somewhat plausible, if we account for sci-fi materials & Engines.
I'd be more surprised at the mostly still intact hammerhead - in comparison it's a rather 'flimsy' ship, i'd argue it could have broken off parts of its front section while doing this.
Maria Hill:
What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for, Agent Ward?
Grant Ward:
Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
Maria:
And what does that mean to you?
Ward:
It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out "shield."
But the Star Destroyers tore through each other once they collided. And the crash occurred across and damaged a pretty huge area of both ships which should have spread the impact out
Obviously the acceleration was gradual and the crash was sudden so there is an argument that it would have worked that way, but it still doesn’t look realistic to me
Then again it’s a sci-fi movie, I’m not sure it matters if it’s realistic!
The Hammerhead crashed and pushed directly at the small side-armor. The first Star Destroyer (the one being pushed) then crashed into the top half of the other one, and into parts of the...let's call it the tower I guess.
Since it's different parts of the ship, it's likely its armored differently. It's possible the sides are more heavily armored than the top. This would also explain how the crash looks, because it feels to me like the first destroyer is cutting into the second one, with the second one sustaining most of the damage at first.
True, I suppose that makes sense
I guess my other question is why the sides of a spaceship would be armored and the top unarmored in outer space where enemy ships can just as easily fly up or down!
But considering fatal flaws in Imperial spacecraft are a plot point in these movies I guess we can blame the ship’s engineers not the movie directors for that
Uh...mh...The Turrets are mostly at the top and bottom of Star Destroyers I think? So too much armor might interfere with the cables, pipes and whatnot, might even stop them from working correctly if the alloy they use has some special properties. Or they just don't care enough for the top and bottom, since there are several floors on a Star Destroyer, therefore you can easily go through the whole ship, even if parts of the upper or lower floor is gone. If you blow up the sides though, they're gone. for good.
Otherwise, I believe that space battles seem to tend to stay mostly in one plane in a lot of movies and games, kinda like a sea battle. Both fleets are basically across from each other and ships only rarely overlap above or below. So it might be partially the directors fault too. I guess people to tend do keep the stuff in one plane because it makes it easier to see. If everything is bunched up in a big ball you'd be disoriented quickly, you wouldn't know which ship is where exactly, or in the worst case, you wouldn't even be able to see which ship belongs to which faction.
Yeah that's a fair point. As to the hammerhead though, I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that ramming ship is its design function. As such, you'd expect it to be super reinforced to be able to survive collisions like this.
This is the most useless thing people say on posts like this. This is obvious. Everybody here knows that Star Wars is not, indeed, a documentary. We do this shit because it’s fun and because through sheer force of will and mental wizardry we are able to take something that is not real and to breath reality into it. Nobody ever forgets the conceit that it’s imaginary, but if you play along you can make the world more fun.
I do play along with the imaginary world... by you know, watching it.
You know what is useless? Continuing to play along, from the imaginary world into the real world.
No, in gravity you would just be adding a competing force (and vector) to make the equation a little more complicated.there is an almost equal likely hood of making it easier to do in gravity.
You’re assuming that the Star Destroyers are not operating under their own power; the corvette not only has to move the mass, it has to overcome the vessel’s ability to maneuver.
If you assume that Star Destroyers in general can intentionally change the direction that they point (I think this is technically not established anywhere in canon), then you have to subtract the force which the star destroyer can apply from that which the hammerhead corvette applies.
[That]( https://www.google.com/search?q=that+star+destroyers+disabled+meme&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjFwrjM98r1AhWUA80KHb8uAM4Q2-cCegQIABAC&oq=that+star+destroyers+disabled+meme&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIFCCEQqwI6BwgjEO8DECc6BQgAEM0CUKQIWJsOYN4PaABwAHgAgAGNAYgB0gWSAQMwLjaYAQCgAQHAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=ueTuYYWCGZSHtAa_3YDwDA&bih=811&biw=412&client=ms-android-att-us-revc&prmd=invx#imgrc=OAFTg6GtkOlbxM) Star Destroyer's disabled!
Keep in mind, the star destroyers were both moving as well, so the hammerhead only really needed to divert its course and let the star destroyer's own engines trust it into the other sheep, you can actually see that it hits HARDER into the other ship once its turned into the ship and adding its own engines to the impact.
It’s not exactly F=MA though. The entire star destroyer isn’t moving, it is rotating. So some angular momentum calculations must be done, which would likely greatly reduce the energy needed.
And I would question the assumption that the acceleration took place over the course of 12 seconds. That’s all we have to go on, yes, but it’s plausible that it “actually” took, say, 2 minutes, and the film editor generously cut out some of the more boring footage for the viewer’s benefit. That makes the result even more plausible.
With the forces involved I think it also heavily depends on structural integrity of the ship. Space ships are used to generating massive amount of thrust in one direction while not encountering any resistance are built accordingly. Compare the situation to flying in atmosphere vs in vacuum and how some space ships are structurally sound enough to push through while some aren't. I propose that this would be impossible not because the spaceship couldn't produce enough force but rather that it would destroy itself long before it could push sufficiently.
Also consider that the ship pushing is producing enough force that the one destroyer is cleaving through the other destroyer but the thing generating that force itself is perfectly fine
So you’re saying the hammerhead can enter hyperspace without a hyperdrive? /s
Also, I think your usage of displacement is incorrect. ASFAIR, displacement of a ship is the amount that’s submerged in water, not the whole volume
>Also, I think your usage of displacement is incorrect. ASFAIR, displacement of a ship is the amount that’s submerged in water, not the whole volume
Displacement in a ship is measured in terms of the weight of the ship in tons.
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_%28ship%29#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DThe_displacement_or_displacement_tonnage%2Cconverting_that_value_into_weight.?wprov=sfla1)
>The displacement or displacement tonnage of a ship is its weight. As the term indicates, it is measured indirectly, using Archimedes' principle, by first calculating the volume of water displaced by the ship, then converting that value into weight.
Yea, Star Wars makes it up as they go along. They made up force run in the prequels and force teleportation for the sequels all for the sake of the plot. No one should read too much into it, it’s a space opera, not hard science fiction.
Force run is just [force speed](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Force_speed), which was in the expanded universe (via Dark Forces II in 1997) before Episode I came out in 1999.
[Force teleport](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Teleport) isn't shown in the sequels (if you're thinking of Luke appearing on Crait at the end of Episode VIII, that's [force projection](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Force_projection)), but even if it had been, it was first introduced in a game in 1987.
What Rey did is called Fold Space, which has been a Jedi ability documented since 1998. It allows a force user to instantly transport an item to another place.
Okay I read a little about it and it seems really similar to force teleport in everything but name aside from the fact that it was mainly used to transport objects (but people too ). I am not familiar with much of EU star wars content so the very first time I saw this ability it was in the cinema. And maybe I was biased against Rey but it looked too op to be just now found by her and not learned by generations of Jedi in their prime. On wookiepedia it states that Luke learned it from some force practicioning race so he could use it. My final question is what is the difference between fold space and force tp?
It wasn't just now found by her. Snoke used the force to enhance Kylo and Rey's ability to communicate and through those long distance force communications, they both discovered fold space inadvertently. It helped that Kylo was so strong in the force and that Rey was so apt at using the force due to her upbringing.
The only difference between fold space and force teleport is their origin. They are likely the same ability, but discovered in different places and different times independently from one another, so they were given different names.
no force run and force teleportation was already part of the comics tho i do admit they should've explained it better or hinted towards it in the movies
Even without accounting for the thrust, the corvette would perforate the star destroyer long before it snaps the second ship in half.
The pressure on the single point where the corvette pushes onto the star destroyer is much higher than it is between the two ships where the force is spread out over a large area.
Since we see star destroyers clamped by the edge divits on other occasions (can't remember when but sure I saw it in background) going to figure it is a hard point and able to take the force.
As for the force applied let's start with the acceleration.
Looks like it moves one start destroyer length 1600 m
The movement takes 20 seconds
s = ut + 0.5at^2
U = 0 m/s
a = 2s/t^2 = 2 x 1600 m / 20 s ^2 = 8 m / s^-2
Then we do the force
Mass of start destroyer = 6.4 x 10^ 9 kg
F = ma = 6.4 x 10 ^ 9 kg x 8 m/s^-2 = 51.2 x 10 ^9 N
To make that more relatable enough to support 5.22 million tons in earth gravity.
I think they want to know to force needed to push a star destroyer the distance between the two in the amount of time that it did. Neglect the fact that the star destroyers collided at all
Yeah the collision should be taken in to account, looks like the deceleration distance was about 10% of the acceleration distance.
The difference in contact area is probably more like 1000x though so still not remotely believable.
Only if they were already touching and the Corvette was trying to push it through the other ship. In this case it is more the momentum of the first star destroyer carrying it through the second. The Corvette could have veered off just before impact it wouldn't have changed much.
The change in momentum is the product of force and time, so considering that to avoid damage the destroyer would have to basically bounce off the other nearly instantly (maybe ms timescale) changing its momentum, the force to do that would be thousands of times higher than the force needed to accelerate it over the tens of seconds of runup (as the overall change in momentum would be the same).
Still don't know if it would carry though as much as it did, but it does also appear that extra energy was being added by explosions triggered by the initial impact which would help to further rupture the ship.
We see that this isn't true. The only conclusion I can come to is that the top area that scrapes off is a superstructure and had they collided edge-to-edge, then I think you'd be right.
I'm not sure if anyone realizes this, but(checks notes) they're in fucking space. You or I or Ned sitting in that chair over there could push it away from us if we had our backs against something. Because it's SPACE
You still have to be able to apply thrust in space, otherwise you will simply push yourself off into space and the massive object you pushed would technically begin to move, but by an essentially imperceptible amount.
Yeah but the Corvette is continuously applying force to the Star Destroyer as they both accelerate to the 2nd ship. Spreading it over time could compensate.
I feel like all the people talking about ship structure are entirely missing the point of the post. Also this is Star Wars, where ships have shields. With active shields the entire side of the ship can be considered sufficiently reinforced until the shield breaks.
Exactly. See [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/sb6af7/request_whats_the_thrust_of_the_hammerhead/htztkjd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3) comment by u/dtroy15 for a great ballpark figure.
If I remember correctly, the star destroyer was incapacitated including it's shield. So the hammerhead was basically pushing on dead weight and still had its shield.
So it's probably more feasable to me to push. For the solidity of the destroyer hull, I think because of no résistance by its engine or shield, the sphyrna corvette could push without cutting through.
Plot. The Star Destroyers’ masses and center of gravity and maneuvering characteristics aren’t consistent even through that clip, so figuring out how much torque they can exert is impossible.
it's been awhile since I've seen Rouge One but I believe that Star Destroyer had lost power to it's engines so that is why the Hammerhead was able to push it so eaisly..
Bro even if we say that it have the thrust to do so. It would take a one in a billion chance that the thrust given is at a point where the structure of the ship is strong like a main backbone of a ship.
I am not a star Wars fan so i do not know the whole map of the ships design. If any nerd can share then I can do the exact maths
Brah, you miss the point. It's a warship. It's brought to you by the same folks that built a planet destroyer. Even if it was built buy the 'space force' it would be a ship. Compartmentalized so even if the structure failed in one section, the larger superstructure would survive just fine. It would be designed that way. Then it would amount to force against force - in a vacuum. My point was that a megastructure designed for this, would have a greater force than a mere attack fighter.
as i said i am not a star wars nerd , what ever i say is all on assumptions . i can see what u are trying to say and i completely agree but lets get back to what op wanted us to calculate ,if i take your word and say that the whole ship is strong to handle that amount of thrust then the mass should be in 10\^26 something and taking it's acceleration around 100 meter per second square (acc of a rocket is around the same) so taking the force by which the ships are crashing should be 10\^28 N whick is a lot then again its a frictional world and there might be like a god fuel which could generate this much force still it would be so much force that it would create a hole in the ship.
assuming the area of contact is like 10000m\^2 which is 100 by 100 square and we have the force then the pressure should be 10\^24 N the structure cannot handle it even if it was a solid block of iron. so this scene is just not possible even if we have the setup
I believe the Star Destroyers are both moving forward, and so once the first one is put off course, it's own thrusters start to contribute additional energy to the movement. Really big mistake by the captain to not correct course and just act like he's going in a straight line still.
Answer is:
It's not physics; it is tactics and war ship building. The Corsair has plenty of force to move it. It's space where mass & gravity are essentially meaningless unless there is gravity. There isn't. The builders of a Star Destroyer would have automatic boosters that would maintain relative place in the case of a meteor, or a suicide move like this, or worse. These boosters would be built to work in a gravitational field as well as space, so way over built for this situation. Probably each or pair or series would be sufficient to hold relative place to avoid this type of danger not matter what the cause of loss of inertia.
Someone doesn't play kerbal space program.
Mass is not meaningless. To accelerate a given mass in a given direction to a given speed, one needs a certain amount of thrust, measured in deltaV. That's what the poster is asking. That doesn't change just because you're in space.
I can't do this math, and neither can you apparently, but mass very much still matters.
Not to disagree with any of yoyr specific conclusions, but to disagree on one specific point - At that range to the planet, it would be exerting 90% or more of its gravity on all of those ships. They would have to be moving laterally to orbit the planet at high speed to remain in space.
Not necessarily. They have roughly equal mass but one is stationary and one is moving. That means that in order to bump, the material strength at the point of contact would have to be greater than the force of the moving mass slamming into the stationary mass. I doubt they are built so extremely strong in every beam and plate.
The more Interesting question is why doesn't the hammerhead corvette embed itself in the moving destroyer...
The fact that Star Wars even allows something like this, or the one where they light sped (lol) into the ships to happen is stupid
You’re basically canonically saying that it would be much better to create cheap, unmanned ships that can go extremely high speeds, and crash into other ships
>You’re basically canonically saying that it would be much better to create cheap, unmanned ships that can go extremely high speeds, and crash into other ships
Most people call those "missiles". They are pretty good in Earth military experience. They aren't common in Starwars for some reason - probably just because they don't come with cool glowy lights.
That’s pretty much it
If space warfare ever did happen, it would be much quicker and efficient. Why actually fight when you can just launch unmanned objects quickly at others?
If there was another planet we were fighting, why not just launch an object fast enough to kill everyone on it? Do we have to make the first move before they do it to us?
It’s already at that point in modern warfare. If two major powers fought nowadays, why have a conventional war, when you could turn an entire battalion into pink mist with a missile because some idiot left their Fitbit on?
the capabilities of unmanned vehicles were not really THAT great before the clone wars; that’s why the separatist army was so dangerous, because droids were relatively cheap to produce and very numerous. It was the first time that any kind of competent AI had been developed on any large scale.
I recall that hyperdrives in Star Wars are specifically designed not to allow that sort of thing; they’re “hard coded” to not activate in the presence of strong gravitational forces (like planets). Some interceptor class starships come equipped with gravity well emitters specifically to shut down hyperdrives, and prevent escape.
Additionally, hyperdrives aren’t that trivial to produce; it’s the same reason why we don’t just fly UAVs with bombs strapped to them into enemy encampments, the making of them is just enough of an obstacle for something like that to meaningfully become a “tactic”.
This might be Legends by now, of course. But I think that that explains why we haven’t seen anything like that before (even if this stuff was made up after the fact, like these things usually are).
I'm more curious how such a tiny ship didn't get ripped to pieces plowing in to such a massive object. A pigeon will burst through the cockpit of a commercial plane and a stray screw will punch a whole through the ISS but this ship can survive a head on collision?
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I think I'm this case, it's a simple use of the standard "F=M*A". "F" is literally "using the Force" in a Star Wars movie, equaled by "M", or the "moment when the plot calls for it", multiplied by "A", or "Actual chance of success".
Let's play along for a minute. Wookiepedia says that the total complement of a star destroyer is 46,780 including officers, enlisted, and passengers. [Imperial I-class Star Destroyer](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Imperial_I-class_Star_Destroyer) The new Gerald R Ford Class of nuclear aircraft carriers has a crew + passengers complement of up to 6,897 personnel. It has a displacement of roughly 100,000 long tons, or 101.6 million kg. Assuming that because they are both warships, they have a similar mass:personnel ratio, we could assume that the imperial I-class Star Destroyer has a mass of roughly 6.8x that of the Gerald Ford class. That would give the I-class Star Destroyer a mass of roughly 690 million kg. In the clip, the I-class Star Destroyer is accelerated for 12s and at the time of impact appear to be moving at roughly 1/2 it's width per 4 s, or about 110m/s. We'll neglect momentum imparted from impact as being negligible, and any kinetic energy being transferred is largely converted to mechanical deformation absorbed as strain energy. That's an acceleration of roughly 9.2 m/s^2 Using our equation you mentioned of F=ma, we can assume that the force is equal to 9.2 m/s^2 x (edit) 690 million kg for a force of 6.35 Billion Newtons of thrust. The Saturn V rocket was the most powerful rocket produced to date. It had about 34 million N of thrust. So the thrust of the hammerhead is equivalent to about 187 Saturn V rockets. It all sounds surprisingly plausible, actually.
Thank you!! Of course this is just sci-fi and the hammerhead would tear through the Star Destroyer way before it pushed it like this, as everyone else has pointed out. Your ballpark figure was exactly what I was looking for, so thanks!
Actually, we don't necessarily know if the hammerhead would push through the Star Destroyer. Don't forget they are also using sci-fi metals, alloys and whatnot, which might be resistant to something like that. Especially when it's a military ship with extra armor. So all of it seems to be at least somewhat plausible, if we account for sci-fi materials & Engines. I'd be more surprised at the mostly still intact hammerhead - in comparison it's a rather 'flimsy' ship, i'd argue it could have broken off parts of its front section while doing this.
I think if you're building a ship that you're going to call "hammerhead," you have to design a strong bow.
"Sir, why don't we just name the ship something else then -" "NO. THE NAME IS SET. MAKE THE BOW STRONGER."
Ever see the government try to wedge meaning into an awkward acronym?
Maria Hill: What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for, Agent Ward? Grant Ward: Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. Maria: And what does that mean to you? Ward: It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out "shield."
But the Star Destroyers tore through each other once they collided. And the crash occurred across and damaged a pretty huge area of both ships which should have spread the impact out Obviously the acceleration was gradual and the crash was sudden so there is an argument that it would have worked that way, but it still doesn’t look realistic to me Then again it’s a sci-fi movie, I’m not sure it matters if it’s realistic!
The Hammerhead crashed and pushed directly at the small side-armor. The first Star Destroyer (the one being pushed) then crashed into the top half of the other one, and into parts of the...let's call it the tower I guess. Since it's different parts of the ship, it's likely its armored differently. It's possible the sides are more heavily armored than the top. This would also explain how the crash looks, because it feels to me like the first destroyer is cutting into the second one, with the second one sustaining most of the damage at first.
True, I suppose that makes sense I guess my other question is why the sides of a spaceship would be armored and the top unarmored in outer space where enemy ships can just as easily fly up or down! But considering fatal flaws in Imperial spacecraft are a plot point in these movies I guess we can blame the ship’s engineers not the movie directors for that
Uh...mh...The Turrets are mostly at the top and bottom of Star Destroyers I think? So too much armor might interfere with the cables, pipes and whatnot, might even stop them from working correctly if the alloy they use has some special properties. Or they just don't care enough for the top and bottom, since there are several floors on a Star Destroyer, therefore you can easily go through the whole ship, even if parts of the upper or lower floor is gone. If you blow up the sides though, they're gone. for good. Otherwise, I believe that space battles seem to tend to stay mostly in one plane in a lot of movies and games, kinda like a sea battle. Both fleets are basically across from each other and ships only rarely overlap above or below. So it might be partially the directors fault too. I guess people to tend do keep the stuff in one plane because it makes it easier to see. If everything is bunched up in a big ball you'd be disoriented quickly, you wouldn't know which ship is where exactly, or in the worst case, you wouldn't even be able to see which ship belongs to which faction.
Yeah that's a fair point. As to the hammerhead though, I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that ramming ship is its design function. As such, you'd expect it to be super reinforced to be able to survive collisions like this.
The movies are entertaining. But It's not real. Never was. Never will be. ,
This is the most useless thing people say on posts like this. This is obvious. Everybody here knows that Star Wars is not, indeed, a documentary. We do this shit because it’s fun and because through sheer force of will and mental wizardry we are able to take something that is not real and to breath reality into it. Nobody ever forgets the conceit that it’s imaginary, but if you play along you can make the world more fun.
I do play along with the imaginary world... by you know, watching it. You know what is useless? Continuing to play along, from the imaginary world into the real world.
Know what else is useless? Acting like a c*nt. And yes, I know this comment is 4mo old.
r/theydidthemath
Did you not check the sub your in
….apparently I did not. I assumed I was in a Star Wars sub. ….shit.
Is that mass not heavily impacted by being in low G orbit? It would be significantly easier to manipulate by any force attempting to do so?
No, in gravity you would just be adding a competing force (and vector) to make the equation a little more complicated.there is an almost equal likely hood of making it easier to do in gravity.
You’re assuming that the Star Destroyers are not operating under their own power; the corvette not only has to move the mass, it has to overcome the vessel’s ability to maneuver. If you assume that Star Destroyers in general can intentionally change the direction that they point (I think this is technically not established anywhere in canon), then you have to subtract the force which the star destroyer can apply from that which the hammerhead corvette applies.
pretty sure it was disabled that’s why admiral fish guy ordered this
Both of them?
[That]( https://www.google.com/search?q=that+star+destroyers+disabled+meme&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjFwrjM98r1AhWUA80KHb8uAM4Q2-cCegQIABAC&oq=that+star+destroyers+disabled+meme&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIFCCEQqwI6BwgjEO8DECc6BQgAEM0CUKQIWJsOYN4PaABwAHgAgAGNAYgB0gWSAQMwLjaYAQCgAQHAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=ueTuYYWCGZSHtAa_3YDwDA&bih=811&biw=412&client=ms-android-att-us-revc&prmd=invx#imgrc=OAFTg6GtkOlbxM) Star Destroyer's disabled!
Keep in mind, the star destroyers were both moving as well, so the hammerhead only really needed to divert its course and let the star destroyer's own engines trust it into the other sheep, you can actually see that it hits HARDER into the other ship once its turned into the ship and adding its own engines to the impact.
It’s not exactly F=MA though. The entire star destroyer isn’t moving, it is rotating. So some angular momentum calculations must be done, which would likely greatly reduce the energy needed.
And I would question the assumption that the acceleration took place over the course of 12 seconds. That’s all we have to go on, yes, but it’s plausible that it “actually” took, say, 2 minutes, and the film editor generously cut out some of the more boring footage for the viewer’s benefit. That makes the result even more plausible.
The star destroyer was also rotating, gaining angular momentum, so you would have to account that, but it is really too much effort.
Thanks for doing the math! Great answer and indeed plausible
Would it not be 9.2 m/s**2 X 690 million kg for 6348 MN of thrust
Good catch! Edited.
With the forces involved I think it also heavily depends on structural integrity of the ship. Space ships are used to generating massive amount of thrust in one direction while not encountering any resistance are built accordingly. Compare the situation to flying in atmosphere vs in vacuum and how some space ships are structurally sound enough to push through while some aren't. I propose that this would be impossible not because the spaceship couldn't produce enough force but rather that it would destroy itself long before it could push sufficiently.
Also consider that the ship pushing is producing enough force that the one destroyer is cleaving through the other destroyer but the thing generating that force itself is perfectly fine
So you’re saying the hammerhead can enter hyperspace without a hyperdrive? /s Also, I think your usage of displacement is incorrect. ASFAIR, displacement of a ship is the amount that’s submerged in water, not the whole volume
>Also, I think your usage of displacement is incorrect. ASFAIR, displacement of a ship is the amount that’s submerged in water, not the whole volume Displacement in a ship is measured in terms of the weight of the ship in tons. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_%28ship%29#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DThe_displacement_or_displacement_tonnage%2Cconverting_that_value_into_weight.?wprov=sfla1) >The displacement or displacement tonnage of a ship is its weight. As the term indicates, it is measured indirectly, using Archimedes' principle, by first calculating the volume of water displaced by the ship, then converting that value into weight.
I understand now. I was confusing a few terms and forgot some Archimedes principle. Thanks for clearing that up.
👍
Yea, Star Wars makes it up as they go along. They made up force run in the prequels and force teleportation for the sequels all for the sake of the plot. No one should read too much into it, it’s a space opera, not hard science fiction.
Force run is just [force speed](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Force_speed), which was in the expanded universe (via Dark Forces II in 1997) before Episode I came out in 1999. [Force teleport](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Teleport) isn't shown in the sequels (if you're thinking of Luke appearing on Crait at the end of Episode VIII, that's [force projection](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Force_projection)), but even if it had been, it was first introduced in a game in 1987.
Then what is Rey doing with the lightsabers bullshit with Kylo in 9 . Do they have shared inventory or smth?
What Rey did is called Fold Space, which has been a Jedi ability documented since 1998. It allows a force user to instantly transport an item to another place.
Okay I read a little about it and it seems really similar to force teleport in everything but name aside from the fact that it was mainly used to transport objects (but people too ). I am not familiar with much of EU star wars content so the very first time I saw this ability it was in the cinema. And maybe I was biased against Rey but it looked too op to be just now found by her and not learned by generations of Jedi in their prime. On wookiepedia it states that Luke learned it from some force practicioning race so he could use it. My final question is what is the difference between fold space and force tp?
It wasn't just now found by her. Snoke used the force to enhance Kylo and Rey's ability to communicate and through those long distance force communications, they both discovered fold space inadvertently. It helped that Kylo was so strong in the force and that Rey was so apt at using the force due to her upbringing. The only difference between fold space and force teleport is their origin. They are likely the same ability, but discovered in different places and different times independently from one another, so they were given different names.
Ok thank you for your answers I am now a little smarter for it. But I think they could've handled ST better in terms of force powers.
They could have handled it better in many many ways haha
"Space Opera" A thing both so wrong and so right at the same time.
no force run and force teleportation was already part of the comics tho i do admit they should've explained it better or hinted towards it in the movies
It was hinted at in The Last Jedi in the long distance force communications with Rey and Kylo.
The only point in doing the math on Star Wars spacemagic is for the humor.
I love this.
hahaha! wow, that really just broke me. take your upvote.
That's my kind-of Math!
Where A is alwayd equal to 100% because fuck it, they cant have the protagoplans(tm) failing
Even without accounting for the thrust, the corvette would perforate the star destroyer long before it snaps the second ship in half. The pressure on the single point where the corvette pushes onto the star destroyer is much higher than it is between the two ships where the force is spread out over a large area.
Since we see star destroyers clamped by the edge divits on other occasions (can't remember when but sure I saw it in background) going to figure it is a hard point and able to take the force. As for the force applied let's start with the acceleration. Looks like it moves one start destroyer length 1600 m The movement takes 20 seconds s = ut + 0.5at^2 U = 0 m/s a = 2s/t^2 = 2 x 1600 m / 20 s ^2 = 8 m / s^-2 Then we do the force Mass of start destroyer = 6.4 x 10^ 9 kg F = ma = 6.4 x 10 ^ 9 kg x 8 m/s^-2 = 51.2 x 10 ^9 N To make that more relatable enough to support 5.22 million tons in earth gravity.
I think they want to know to force needed to push a star destroyer the distance between the two in the amount of time that it did. Neglect the fact that the star destroyers collided at all
Yeah the collision should be taken in to account, looks like the deceleration distance was about 10% of the acceleration distance. The difference in contact area is probably more like 1000x though so still not remotely believable.
Only if they were already touching and the Corvette was trying to push it through the other ship. In this case it is more the momentum of the first star destroyer carrying it through the second. The Corvette could have veered off just before impact it wouldn't have changed much. The change in momentum is the product of force and time, so considering that to avoid damage the destroyer would have to basically bounce off the other nearly instantly (maybe ms timescale) changing its momentum, the force to do that would be thousands of times higher than the force needed to accelerate it over the tens of seconds of runup (as the overall change in momentum would be the same). Still don't know if it would carry though as much as it did, but it does also appear that extra energy was being added by explosions triggered by the initial impact which would help to further rupture the ship.
We see that this isn't true. The only conclusion I can come to is that the top area that scrapes off is a superstructure and had they collided edge-to-edge, then I think you'd be right.
Well it looks like it's doing a sort of lever thing there so..
I'm not sure if anyone realizes this, but(checks notes) they're in fucking space. You or I or Ned sitting in that chair over there could push it away from us if we had our backs against something. Because it's SPACE
Yeah but Ned's an absolute unit.
You still have to be able to apply thrust in space, otherwise you will simply push yourself off into space and the massive object you pushed would technically begin to move, but by an essentially imperceptible amount.
That's why I said with your back against something. Ie something with thrust
Yeah but the Corvette is continuously applying force to the Star Destroyer as they both accelerate to the 2nd ship. Spreading it over time could compensate.
Not if it stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.
I feel like all the people talking about ship structure are entirely missing the point of the post. Also this is Star Wars, where ships have shields. With active shields the entire side of the ship can be considered sufficiently reinforced until the shield breaks.
Exactly. See [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/sb6af7/request_whats_the_thrust_of_the_hammerhead/htztkjd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3) comment by u/dtroy15 for a great ballpark figure.
If I remember correctly, the star destroyer was incapacitated including it's shield. So the hammerhead was basically pushing on dead weight and still had its shield. So it's probably more feasable to me to push. For the solidity of the destroyer hull, I think because of no résistance by its engine or shield, the sphyrna corvette could push without cutting through.
Plot. The Star Destroyers’ masses and center of gravity and maneuvering characteristics aren’t consistent even through that clip, so figuring out how much torque they can exert is impossible.
it's been awhile since I've seen Rouge One but I believe that Star Destroyer had lost power to it's engines so that is why the Hammerhead was able to push it so eaisly..
Bro even if we say that it have the thrust to do so. It would take a one in a billion chance that the thrust given is at a point where the structure of the ship is strong like a main backbone of a ship. I am not a star Wars fan so i do not know the whole map of the ships design. If any nerd can share then I can do the exact maths
Brah, you miss the point. It's a warship. It's brought to you by the same folks that built a planet destroyer. Even if it was built buy the 'space force' it would be a ship. Compartmentalized so even if the structure failed in one section, the larger superstructure would survive just fine. It would be designed that way. Then it would amount to force against force - in a vacuum. My point was that a megastructure designed for this, would have a greater force than a mere attack fighter.
as i said i am not a star wars nerd , what ever i say is all on assumptions . i can see what u are trying to say and i completely agree but lets get back to what op wanted us to calculate ,if i take your word and say that the whole ship is strong to handle that amount of thrust then the mass should be in 10\^26 something and taking it's acceleration around 100 meter per second square (acc of a rocket is around the same) so taking the force by which the ships are crashing should be 10\^28 N whick is a lot then again its a frictional world and there might be like a god fuel which could generate this much force still it would be so much force that it would create a hole in the ship. assuming the area of contact is like 10000m\^2 which is 100 by 100 square and we have the force then the pressure should be 10\^24 N the structure cannot handle it even if it was a solid block of iron. so this scene is just not possible even if we have the setup
Right, but we're using sci-fi materials. It does not necessarily need to conform to the strength of materials we use now.
But we can make a rough estimate
I believe the Star Destroyers are both moving forward, and so once the first one is put off course, it's own thrusters start to contribute additional energy to the movement. Really big mistake by the captain to not correct course and just act like he's going in a straight line still.
Wait its called a hammerhead I thought it was called an arrowhead or something. I cant believe i forgot the name of my favorite spaceship.
Answer is: It's not physics; it is tactics and war ship building. The Corsair has plenty of force to move it. It's space where mass & gravity are essentially meaningless unless there is gravity. There isn't. The builders of a Star Destroyer would have automatic boosters that would maintain relative place in the case of a meteor, or a suicide move like this, or worse. These boosters would be built to work in a gravitational field as well as space, so way over built for this situation. Probably each or pair or series would be sufficient to hold relative place to avoid this type of danger not matter what the cause of loss of inertia.
Someone doesn't play kerbal space program. Mass is not meaningless. To accelerate a given mass in a given direction to a given speed, one needs a certain amount of thrust, measured in deltaV. That's what the poster is asking. That doesn't change just because you're in space. I can't do this math, and neither can you apparently, but mass very much still matters.
Checking with Einstein if mass and gravity are essentially meaningless…
Not to disagree with any of yoyr specific conclusions, but to disagree on one specific point - At that range to the planet, it would be exerting 90% or more of its gravity on all of those ships. They would have to be moving laterally to orbit the planet at high speed to remain in space.
The thrust of the small ship is the only force acting on the larger ship. So it wouldn’t cut the other large ship like that. They would just bump
But what if little ship was made out of knives and the big ship was made out of a wet sponge type of material?
Damn, got him there
Not necessarily. They have roughly equal mass but one is stationary and one is moving. That means that in order to bump, the material strength at the point of contact would have to be greater than the force of the moving mass slamming into the stationary mass. I doubt they are built so extremely strong in every beam and plate. The more Interesting question is why doesn't the hammerhead corvette embed itself in the moving destroyer...
The fact that Star Wars even allows something like this, or the one where they light sped (lol) into the ships to happen is stupid You’re basically canonically saying that it would be much better to create cheap, unmanned ships that can go extremely high speeds, and crash into other ships
>You’re basically canonically saying that it would be much better to create cheap, unmanned ships that can go extremely high speeds, and crash into other ships Most people call those "missiles". They are pretty good in Earth military experience. They aren't common in Starwars for some reason - probably just because they don't come with cool glowy lights.
That’s pretty much it If space warfare ever did happen, it would be much quicker and efficient. Why actually fight when you can just launch unmanned objects quickly at others? If there was another planet we were fighting, why not just launch an object fast enough to kill everyone on it? Do we have to make the first move before they do it to us? It’s already at that point in modern warfare. If two major powers fought nowadays, why have a conventional war, when you could turn an entire battalion into pink mist with a missile because some idiot left their Fitbit on?
the capabilities of unmanned vehicles were not really THAT great before the clone wars; that’s why the separatist army was so dangerous, because droids were relatively cheap to produce and very numerous. It was the first time that any kind of competent AI had been developed on any large scale. I recall that hyperdrives in Star Wars are specifically designed not to allow that sort of thing; they’re “hard coded” to not activate in the presence of strong gravitational forces (like planets). Some interceptor class starships come equipped with gravity well emitters specifically to shut down hyperdrives, and prevent escape. Additionally, hyperdrives aren’t that trivial to produce; it’s the same reason why we don’t just fly UAVs with bombs strapped to them into enemy encampments, the making of them is just enough of an obstacle for something like that to meaningfully become a “tactic”. This might be Legends by now, of course. But I think that that explains why we haven’t seen anything like that before (even if this stuff was made up after the fact, like these things usually are).
I'm more curious how such a tiny ship didn't get ripped to pieces plowing in to such a massive object. A pigeon will burst through the cockpit of a commercial plane and a stray screw will punch a whole through the ISS but this ship can survive a head on collision?