So the Millennium Falcon did the Kessel Run in Less than 12 parsecs, huh?

Here's one for the mathematicians:

How fast is the Milennium Falcon, really?
Han Solo said She did the Kesstle Run in less than 12 parsecs.

Lets break this down. First, the Kessel run.

This quote from Wookiepedia:

The Kessel Run was an 18-parsec (Roughly 58 Light Years - Wikipedia) route used by smugglers to move glitterstim spice from Kessel to an area south of the Si'Klaata Cluster without getting caught by the Imperial ships that were guarding the movement of spice from Kessel's mines. Worlds along the Kessel Run included Fwillsving, Randa, Rion, and possibly Zerm.
It took travelers in real space around The Maw (Black hole cluster) leading them to an uninhabitable—but far easier to navigate—area of space called The Pit, which was an asteroid cluster encased in a nebula arm making sensors as well as pilots go virtually blind. Thus there was a high chance that pilots, weary from the long flight through real space, would crash into an asteroid.
Han Solo claimed that his Millennium Falcon "made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs". A parsec is a unit of distance, not time. Solo was not referring directly to his ship's speed when he made this claim. Instead, he was referring to the shorter route he was able to travel by skirting the nearby Maw black hole cluster, thus making the run in under the standard distance, he may have indirectly referred to the speed of his ship here because to be able to go closer to black hole and still be able to get out of its gravitational pull you will need to be able to go faster.

Ok, so Solo did the Kessel Run in 11.5 parsecs.
Wikipedia says that a parsec is a unit of distance to the value of 3.26156 light-years.

Therefore Solo, did the Kessel Run in 3.26 light years x 11.5, giving us a distance of 37.5 light years.


Now, Solo also said

She'll make point five past Light Speed

Which to me, means at full pelt, the top speed of The Falcon is 1.5 x Light speed.
This gives us a top speed of 1.5 light years per year.

So given that the distance they completed the Kessel Run = 37.5 light years
And the Falcon's top speed = 1.5 Light Years/year


I make that the whle trip would have lasted a total of 25 years.

Wow.
And thats at constant, full speed!!!!

you got too much time on your hands

or did Solo work this out during his 25 years doing the Kessel run

Waaaaaay tooo much time... But do you know the atomic weight of Bromide???

How is it that the Millennium Falcon gets to Bespin without a hyperdrive? The closest star to Earth that is not the sun is over 4 light years away. So even if Bespin was extremely close to where they were (it wasn't) it would've taken them 4 years at the speed of light and they didn't even have a hyperdrive.

Originally Posted by Boomer Fett

Waaaaaay tooo much time... But do you know the atomic weight of Bromide???

Bromide is actually a compound of Bromine and another element.

For example, a compound might be Hydrogen and Bromine giving Hydrogen Bromide. H--B
As for the atomic weight, well this is how it looks for Bromine:

Atomic Number: 35
Symbol: Br
Atomic Weight: 79.904


And yeah, I work away from home, so sometimes there's not a hell of a lot to do!!



I'm really surprised at the amount of activity in this thread, thanks for chiming in you guys!!!

Go grow a garden or something

Ok.. well first of all i think GL put 12 parsecs in the script because it sounded cool..

None the less. In an interview with him GL that i once saw, he tried to explain that when the millenium falcon did the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs Han Solo was actually refering the the speed of the hyperdrive computer which computed all the different jumps to get from point A to point B.

I belive what he was trying to say was that other computers were slower and not as accurate. Hence their jumps needed larger margins for error and thus did longer jumps. The ME on the other hand was more precise and take more short-cuts.

So the red arrow would be the ME, while the other (green and blue) are other ships.



Now it's been a really, really long time since i did calculations with vectors but perhaps someone else can do it?

Anyway.. this is the way i figured it was..

But a personal theory on the ".5 past light speed" that might just be (and mind you i'm no physics expert) the ME's top speed in "normal space". It might not have any relevance once the ME goes into "Hyperspace". The physics of the normal world might not apply there so the .5 past lightspeed might not have any relevance there.

just a thought...

Originally Posted by Darth Paul

Bromide is actually a compound of Bromine and another element.

For example, a compound might be Hydrogen and Bromine giving Hydrogen Bromide. H--B
As for the atomic weight, well this is how it looks for Bromine:

Atomic Number: 35
Symbol: Br
Atomic Weight: 79.904


And yeah, I work away from home, so sometimes there's not a hell of a lot to do!!



I'm really surprised at the amount of activity in this thread, thanks for chiming in you guys!!!

Wow! YOU ARE DA MAN!!!!! You Gotta love it!!!!

Okay...What are the only single element liquids known to man????? Hmmmm????

BOBA SWEDE: Wiki says this about the Hyperdrive:

it may provide a shortcut between two points in real space, thus effectively increasing the ship's speed by reducing distance travelled rather than time taken.

So my thinking is, whatever means of propulsion the Falcon uses, 11.5 parsecs would remain constant.

Your ace graph kinda proves that point correct, I'd say.

I can't find anything relating to Hyperspace physics, probably because (and I'm sorry to have to tell you this, guys ) Hyperspace is a science Fiction theory. So I can't find an argument that physical laws in hyperspace would be any different to those in normal space!

Therefore, tell me if I'm wrong, but I think the Falcon's top speed would still be 1.5 x light speed...


Boomer Fett: Is the answer Bromine, Iodine or Mercury? You didn't indicate standard temperature pressure...



TR 4059: Cant do it brother, I'm currently living in a hotel 5 days a week!!
Thats the reason I've got so much time on my hands!!

Now my brain hurts!! :/

Originally Posted by Ronin677

you got too much time on your hands

or did Solo work this out during his 25 years doing the Kessel run

Can you imagine startin on the Kessel Run, THEN doing the maths!!!
Don't think there was any facility for stasis on the Falcon!


I bet he was awesome at Solitaire by the end!!!

You DA MAN!!! Mercury is correct. Standard temps. YOU ROCK! What Han didn't ever say was that he was 426 years old already...

My head just asploded!

jeez, I have not seen this sort of stuff since university

Originally Posted by LostSonOfSparda

My head just asploded!

Brother, I read your signature line and my head asplodes!

I like chocolate milk.

Originally Posted by SWFreak

I like chocolate milk.

God! My wife says that all the time!!!LOL!!!

And I thought it was just a movie!

The lessons are endless....... It all began with this galaxy far......

Okay, ya gotta throw real physics out the window with Star Wars. I thought I heard somewhere that the Star Wars galaxy was about the same size as the Andromeda galaxy, which is about twice as big as ours. Even if it ain't, ours alone is approx 100,000 light-years across. In the movies, getting from one side to the other takes days, or weeks.

Now, according to the Roleplaying game by WEG they had a hyperspace route chart which showed how many days it would take getting from certain systems to another, and starship hyperdrives were classed with a "multiplier number". So for example, if it took 2 days to get from Tatooine to Alderaan with a (pretty fast) "x1" hyperdirve, a "x4" hyperdrive would take 8 days. The Falcon had a "x1/2" hyperdrive (half) so that would only take one day. As we all know, a half equals 0.5 (point five). So if we go by what the game says, "point 5 past lightspeed" is not just a smidge faster than lightspeed, it is a DARN sight faster!

Either way, lightspeed is not any kind of realistic travelling speed, it is merely the thresh-hold speed that pushes a ship into hyperspace, at which point, the normal rules of physics (like they count in Star Wars) do not apply. Therefore, trips to other systems may take only hours or days.

And for those who aren't aware, yes, a "parsec" is a measurement of distance (not time) , but the whole point of the Kessel Run is to shave as much distance off the trip as poss, thereby (presumably) shortening the time. Kessel is inside an area known as The Maw, a group of black holes (about 11 I think) that all continuously orbit each other. The trick is to calculate the best possible route through The Maw in the shortest route possible, getting as close to the black holes as possible without getting caught in one. Or getting caught by the patrols. 8) The less parsecs you do it in, the shorter the route, the quicker the time. And Han doesn't hold the record - that belongs to BoShek if I recall.


For I am Oddball, king of all geeks; may all lesser geeks bow down to me!
:o

Originally Posted by Foxbatkllr

How is it that the Millennium Falcon gets to Bespin without a hyperdrive? The closest star to Earth that is not the sun is over 4 light years away. So even if Bespin was extremely close to where they were (it wasn't) it would've taken them 4 years at the speed of light and they didn't even have a hyperdrive.

Again, according to the roleplaying game, many ships have hyperdrive backups that can get you to nearby systems. Not as fast as a proper hyperdrive, but good in emergencies!


And watch out for

Good god... O_o my brain, lol...

El1te

I once had a firespray class ship with a flux capacitor, It could get from tatooine to alderaan yesterday, but only once it reached 88 mph!

Originally Posted by SWFreak

I like chocolate milk.

me too. and kittens.

Originally Posted by Boba Swede

None the less. In an interview with him GL that i once saw, he tried to explain that when the millenium falcon did the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs Han Solo was actually refering the the speed of the hyperdrive computer which computed all the different jumps to get from point A to point B.

I belive what he was trying to say was that other computers were slower and not as accurate. Hence their jumps needed larger margins for error and thus did longer jumps. The ME on the other hand was more precise and take more short-cuts.

So, does that mean that the Falcon is a mean Gaming PC?! Does it solve Pi in it's free time?

You know, you guys are proving all the critics right about us. "Us" being SW "Geeks", and I say that in the kindest way possible.

Hay its cause of things liek this how physics and such get proven wrong.

IN YOUR FACE OLD PEOPLE!

I think its funny. oh you cant go faster than this its impossable blah blah blah. They dident even have cars back then and the fastest they could travel is how ever fast the horse went.

Originally Posted by SWFreak

I like chocolate milk.

I love lamp!

Originally Posted by Too short for a stormie

I love lamp!

Do you really love the lamp Stormie or are you just saying that because it's there?





I think, that Han realized he was talking to an idiot (Luke) and an old guy (Ben) and just thought he could make up something that sounded cool to make his ship look good.

Then again GL probably just thought it sounded cool and Harrison Ford was just like, whatever I'm sitting next to a walking carpet.

That kind-of solves the question as to how long Luke was on Dagobah recieving training from Kermit I mean Yoda.

1/4 of a movie.

Originally Posted by tk7602

me too. and kittens.

I like beer!

but if he was traveling .5 past the speed of light time would move more slowly for solo, year to earth would have felt like a few days to solo so, 25 earth years is more like a few mounths to solo

But then again we havent reached the speed of light and then what happens after teh speed of light?

The Falcon made the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs because it's a model hanging from fishing line in front of a blue screen

Originally Posted by Darth Paul

Bromide is actually a compound of Bromine and another element.

For example, a compound might be Hydrogen and Bromine giving Hydrogen Bromide. H--B
As for the atomic weight, well this is how it looks for Bromine:

Atomic Number: 35
Symbol: Br
Atomic Weight: 79.904


And yeah, I work away from home, so sometimes there's not a hell of a lot to do!!



I'm really surprised at the amount of activity in this thread, thanks for chiming in you guys!!!

GOOD GOD!!! you can think faster than a computer...

By the way do you know the ultimate question of life the universe and everything?

Originally Posted by gojirafan

By the way do you know the ultimate question of life the universe and everything?

I know the answer is 42...

Originally Posted by mandosoldier

I once had a firespray class ship with a flux capacitor, It could get from tatooine to alderaan yesterday, but only once it reached 88 mph!

How did you get back to the future?

Originally Posted by gojirafan

By the way do you know the ultimate question of life the universe and everything?

Hmmm..BEER!!! Beer is the answer to all of lifes little questions...

Originally Posted by Oddball Fett

Han doesn't hold the record - that belongs to BoShek if I recall.

Heh, yeah. But Han set it first!!!

Thing is though OBF, games are games, Star Wars is REAL! dude!!!

Originally Posted by Boomer Fett

Hmmm..BEER!!! Beer is the answer to all of lifes little questions...

Second that dude!!!!

The reply above about distance is the way its been further explained throughout books and through the tech of starwars.

The books about the maw cluster touched on it some.

In short, you can not fly within x of the maw (black holes) or it sucks you in.

The faster you can fly, the closer you can get and still be able to escape its gravity.

The falcon was able to shorten the distance from the maw, because the ship was fast enough to escape its pull. The falcon 'supposedly' has engines that are like 6-7 times creating more positive thrust per weight than most other ships.

Now, if you factor in the expanded universe, the sith sphere and / or jacen and kip are able to sense the paths through the black holes of the maw, and make some course adjustments without leaving hyperspace.

So by all geekdom common sense, jacen would be able to be the fastest through.

if he werent dead

Originally Posted by Boba Swede

Ok.. well first of all i think GL put 12 parsecs in the script because it sounded cool..

None the less. In an interview with him GL that i once saw, he tried to explain that when the millenium falcon did the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs Han Solo was actually refering the the speed of the hyperdrive computer which computed all the different jumps to get from point A to point B.

I belive what he was trying to say was that other computers were slower and not as accurate. Hence their jumps needed larger margins for error and thus did longer jumps. The ME on the other hand was more precise and take more short-cuts.

So the red arrow would be the ME, while the other (green and blue) are other ships.

That Looks like my route to work.....

Hehehe Kessel is a place in Holland I am serious.

One can not pass the speed of light. The faster an object moves time slows down, its mass increases, and it requires more energy to accelerate it. The reason something can not surpass the speed of light is because the closer an object reaches the speed of light, it gains in mass and requires more energy. If an object were to pass the speed of light, its mass would become infinite.

sure you can!

you just need a ship that can generate infinite kenetic energy.

My head hurts now

Light can go the speed of light... does that mean that a flashlight can generate infinite kinetic energy?

perhaps he was being sarcastic.......like me once saying my mark 2 cortina did Camberley High street in 3 seconds?
Maybe sarcasm is a galaxy wide thing.......

hmm maybe it was a sort of my nav comp is better than yours thing
because it calculated the shortest route through the black hole cluster