"Star Wars" is one of the most-loved science fiction series of all time, and it has attracted a fiercely loyal fan base over the decades.
A good number of those mega-fans are working scientists, and their passion for the books and movies has led to some hilarious yet surprisingly legitimate research.
In honor of the upcoming release of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," we've rounded up some of the best science studies and experiments inspired by the franchise.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it does contain some of our favorites.
Scientists created a lightsaber...sort of.
Star Wars fans across the globe rejoiced in 2013 when scientists accidentally created a strip of light particles they said behaved just like a lightsaber.
The team had figured out a way to get particles of light to stick together and form a molecule — the same physics principle behind a lightsaber.
The bad news is that you can't actually duel with the lab-grown lightsabers. The problem, as astrophysicist and host of StarTalk Radio Neil deGrasse Tyson explains, is that most beams of light just pass right through each other.
If scientists ever figure out how to harness much more powerful, energetic light sources like gamma rays, then technically we might be able to create real lightsabers. That's because gamma rays will interact with other gamma rays and create a force, as physicist Briax Cox explained.
Can we get someone on that, stat? Because we'd really like to start our Jedi Knight training.
The Rebel Alliance probably left the galaxy in a devastating economic depression after the Battle of Endor.
In a fantastically written research paper called "It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill," economics researcher Zachary Feinstein calculated that the Death Star cost approximately $193 Quintillion (in 2012 U.S. dollars), and the gross domestic product (GDP) of the galactic economy was roughly $4.6 Sextillion a year.
Banks in the galactic empire are likely invested in the Death Star and Feinstein estimates they hold about 60% of that mind-blowingly huge GDP. So after rebel terrorists blow up the Death Star in the Battle of Endor, Feinstein concludes they would have sent the economy into a tailspin and created biggest financial crash we've ever seen.
"In this case study we found that the Rebel Alliance would need to prepare a bailout of at least 15%, and likely at least 20%, of [GDP] in order to mitigate the systemic risks and the sudden and catastrophic economic collapse," Feinstein writes. "Without such funds at the ready, it likely the Galactic economy would enter an economic depression of astronomical proportions."
Faster-than-light travel would have made Luke Skywalker way younger than his twin sister Leia.
Einstein's theory of general relativity suggests that time slows down the faster you travel. It's called time dilation and scientists have already demonstrated it really happens.
In "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back," Luke and Leia are separated. Leia takes the Millennium Falcon to Cloud City, while Luke takes an X-Wing Starfighter to Dagobah to start his Jedi training with Yoda.
The Millennium Falcon can fly faster than Luke's X-Wing, so Leia’s journey yields a time dilation of about 63 days. But the journey to Dagobah is about 25 times the distance to Cloud City, so Luke is traveling at a fast speed for much longer than Leia. The students estimate his time dilation is about 701 days (1.92 years).
That means that Luke ends up about 1.75 years younger than Leia by the end of the movie.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider