I've been touched by all your comments since my
last video. I'll give a full update next video, but for now one more time: thank you all so much. If you're anything like me, you've
been impatiently waiting for Dune: Part 2 since they announced it a
couple of years ago. I saw it in the cinema the other day, and let
me tell you, it did NOT disappoint. In case you aren't familiar with the
Dune universe, here's a quick run-down. Dune is a book series written in
the mid-1960s by Frank Herbert. It's regarded by many as one of the best works
of science fiction of all time. The first book alone is almost 900 pages long, which
has since been made into a two-part movie. The Dune universe is incredibly rich in
scientific concepts like interstellar travel, personal shields based on subatomic particles,
human adaptation to incredibly harsh environments, moons that tilt the rotational axis
of their planets, and so much more. It got me thinking - how realistic are these
ideas? Are they really just science fiction, or somewhere within the realm of possibility? I'm Alex McColgan, and you're watching Astrum.
Join me today as we dive into Dune, to uncover how much this pioneering work of science fiction
stacks up as science, and how much as fiction. Dune revolves heavily around the use of
interstellar, faster-than-light travel. Which is necessary, given the story spans
several different worlds and galaxies. In fact, the author himself notes in an Appendix that there
are over 13,000 planets in the Dune universe. That's a lot of planets. So let’s focus on the
main three - Geidi Prime, Caladan and Arrakis. Geidi Prime is home to the Harkonnen,
the current stewards of Arrakis and its resources (which we'll get to later in the
video). It's a highly industrialized world, where little photosynthesis occurs, meaning
they would probably be dependent on trade with other worlds for their food needs.
They've replaced almost all natural things with built environments, except for
a sliver of forest maintained for logging. Caladan, by contrast, is a lush oceanic world,
home of the Atreides and our main character, Paul. Water is abundant and
the weather is pretty mild. Both these worlds couldn't be more
different from Arrakis - where most of the action happens in the
movie. Let's take a closer look. Arrakis is a desert world that makes the
Sahara look like an oasis. It is the third planet from its sun, Canopus, orbiting at
a mean distance of 87 million km. That's about twice as close as our Earth is from our
sun. If we were that close, it would be pretty hard for life to exist, given the searing
hot temperatures and ultra-high radiation. So can Arrakis support human life? Well,
it’s possible Herbert drew inspiration from an actual star called Canopus, a white
star in the southern constellation of Carina. At the moment this star is in its blue-loop
phase of stellar evolution where it changes from a cool star to a hotter one before
cooling again. Meaning at times Canopus could have been considerably cooler and
dimmer than many yellow dwarfs stars, like our sun. This would have positioned Arrrakis
in the sweet spot of its star’s Goldilocks Zone at some point during its stellar cycle making
conditions more suitable for supporting life. Something I think is super interesting
about Arrakis is its orbit. Just like Earth, Arrakis sits third in line from its star
- but that's where the similarities end. On either side of Arrakis are two much
larger planets known as "the twins". Thanks to the dedicated fans over on
the Dune Fandom Wiki pages, who have accumulated an extensive amount of information
about the Dune universe, we know the twins have elliptical orbits. These orbits pull Arrakis into
a gravitational tug-of-war, which causes shifting and changing Arrakis's orbital pattern. A year on
Arrakis can range from 295 - 595 standard days. I wondered if we'd ever seen an example of
something similar in the known universe. Turns out, highly elliptical orbits are not
so uncommon. We've discovered quite a few exoplanets that follow this pattern. We also know
that highly eccentric orbits can influence the orbit of nearby planetary bodies within the same
system, such as a change in orbital inclination, shifts in the orbital period, or even orbital
resonance. However, I think the kind of drastic variation we see on Arrakis is highly unlikely
in our universe because it would require very specific unstable and chaotic conditions to exist.
Even then, the scenario would be short-lived. Speaking of orbits, Arrakis also has
a couple of moons worth mentioning. Krelln and Arvon are both visible in the Arrakis
night sky. Krelln, the larger of the two, shares a lot of characteristics with
our own moon. It orbits every 25.5 days, is covered in a thin layer of meteoric dust,
is speckled by craters, and has no atmosphere. Avon is much smaller and
completes an orbit every 5.7 days. While the Twins affect the
length of the year on Arrakis, these moons affect the length of the day
by influencing how fast Arrakis rotates about its own axis. The average day is
about 22.5 standard hours long, however, under special circumstances, the day can be as
short as 3.8 hours and as long as 51.4 hours. Based on what we know about astrophysics,
this kind of scenario seems highly improbable. Planetary rotation is mainly determined
by the conservation of angular momentum. It's pretty hard to change this momentum
without an external force being applied. Technically, the moons' gravities
would be an external force, but it is improbable that alone would be
enough to cause such strong fluctuations in Arrakis's rotation. Similar to the
dynamic between Arrakis and the Twins, this configuration would also likely be
highly unstable and short-lived in practice. Let's move on to two of the biggest sci-fi
tropes these films deal with - force fields and interstellar travel. In the Dune Universe, both
of these technologies hinge on the same fictional principle, known as the Holtzman Effect.
I won't go into too much detail about it, but it basically has to do with the supposed
repellant properties of subatomic particles. Let's start with the force fields, which
take shape as personal shields in the film. We see lots of different characters
using these shields during combat. They're generated around the
wearer by the Holtzman Effect, creating a defensive barrier that is
impenetrable to fast-moving objects like bullets. Slower-moving objects like a blade,
for example, can still penetrate the shield. Scientists have made numerous -
mostly unsuccessful - attempts at creating force fields or invisible
shields in real life. Most have so far focused on electromagnetism and plasma.
We haven't looked at subatomic methods yet, so for now, this will have to
remain in the realm of fiction. I'm also not sure of the scientific reason why
a subatomic force field would protect its user from fast objects but not slow ones. Perhaps
it was simply to move the plot along or to introduce more tantalizing fight scenes. If the
Dune force fields worked against everything, there would be no place for epic hand-to-hand
combat - and wouldn't that be a shame! This aside, the shields themselves
are obviously way beyond our current technological capabilities. We are only just
starting to understand how subatomic particles like bosons and quarks work - and so far, they
seem to be incredibly difficult to predict. Even if we could predict them, it's unclear how they'd interact with matter to produce the
protective barrier we see in the films. And then there's the issue of conservation
of energy. The energy from the fast-moving objects that are repelled by the shield must
go somewhere. You'd expect some kind of change to the shield, whether kinetic or thermal.
The shields in the movies light up when hit, but it is unclear how the Holtzman effect
turns kinetic energy into heat and then light. The other major application of the never-explained
Holtzman effect is "space folding" - a key component of interstellar travel along with
the spice, which we'll get to in a second. With the help of a Holtzman generator, space
navigators known as the Guild Navigators can literally fold space, allowing spacecraft
to travel faster than the speed of light. Right off the bat, we know nothing can surpass the speed of light without violating the
known laws of physics. There are a few main reasons for this, and they boil
down to Einstein's theory of relativity. Firstly, as a starship accelerates,
time will begin to dilate relative to a stationary observer. As they approach the
speed of light, time would effectively stand still for the crew. Travelling faster than
light, then, implies some kind of negative time. And it's in going down this rabbit hole
that we end up with things like the Grandfather paradox and other time loop paradoxes
we've discussed before on this channel. Secondly, a starship approaching the speed
of light will also approach infinite mass, meaning you'd need infinite energy to
accelerate past that speed. What the source of that energy would be is unclear. But from the
way director Villeneuve portrays it in the film, it seems the ships somehow fold space
- perhaps with a wormhole - to arrive at their destination in no time at
all. We've already discussed the science of wormholes in our analysis of
Interstellar, which you can watch here. The second half of the interstellar travel
equation is a mystical blue powder known as "the spice". It has incredible
economic and political importance in the Dune Universe because, without it,
interstellar travel would be impossible. The only place you can find this spice is
Arrakis. It facilitates interstellar travel by eliciting its effects on the pilots, not the
actual starships themselves. Let me explain. The spice imparts some pretty crazy effects to the
person who consumes it. To the indigenous people of Arrakis, known as the Fremen, it is considered
sacred. It has very strong anti-aging properties and helps you achieve a state of prescience
by expanding your consciousness and enabling you to see the future. However, it is also crazy
addictive, and withdrawal from it will kill you. The Guild Navigators take this spice when
piloting a starship to help them achieve that state of heightened awareness. The precognitive
effects allow them to successfully navigate folded space and safely guide starships
across interstellar space instantaneously. Now, we obviously don't know of any substance that
can help us see into the future, otherwise the entire gambling industry would collapse overnight.
But that would be the least of my concerns. Seeing into the future implies knowledge of events
before they occur, which violates the laws of causality. The effect must follow the cause,
not the other way around. With precognition, you get paradoxes like time loops. It
also violates the law of information conservation which says no new information can
be created or destroyed in a closed system. The closest thing to the spice that might
come to mind are psychedelic substances, which humans all over the world have used to
connect with heightened states of consciousness for millennia. These psychoactive plants
are also held as sacred by the indigenous people who use them, just like the spice
is seen as sacred by the Fremen of Arrakis. That being said, there's no
way eating a magic mushroom on a spaceship will make it reach the speed of light. Another sacred substance on Arrakis is water. The planet is a total desert, without
any natural precipitation or surface water bodies. The only water the Fremen have
access to is stored in underground wells, which they don't dare to use, because they dream
to one day use this water to terraform Arrakis, make it more hospitable, and reclaim
their power from the oppressive Empire. The only other water source they have
are the byproducts of their own bodily processes. As you can imagine, this has led to
some pretty hardcore water recycling practices. You definitely noticed the full-body suits
the Fremen put on whenever they venture out of their underground communities. They're known
as Stillsuits, and are designed to capture and recycle as much bodily water as possible.
They filter sweat, blood, urine, and any other secretions through a series of microdermal
layers. Once the water is separated, it goes to a collection pocket. The Fremen then drink this
water through a tube, kind of like a Camel Pack. It sounds disgusting but also intriguing. How
would that work if we tried to build a Stillsuit? First off, we'd need a material that can filter
things at the microscopic level to separate waste from water. This actually exists - it is
known as a nanoporous membrane, and it is made of nanopores so small, they only allow water to
filter through. Everything else that is too big, like bacteria, will be held back. On Earth, these
membranes are made from a mix of materials that sadly would be hard to come by on Arrakis
- namely metals, ceramics, and polymers. The second big hurdle I see to these suits
is keeping them hygienic. Turns out there are a few different ways to clean
and maintain nanoporous membranes, but only two of them seem plausible on Arrakis
- the Fremen would either need to dry-scrub their Stillsuits with brushes, or apply air
pressure through some kind of hand-held pump. While it is theoretically plausible for us
to use our existing technologies to make a very basic version of something like
this, I doubt many people beyond maybe Bear Grylls and other extreme survival
experts, would be up for trying it out. With Arrakis being a desert planet,
there's not that much in the way of alien life forms to discuss. However,
there is one very impressive creature, that seems too big to be true: The Sandworm.
First off, how could a creature that big survive without much to eat in the desert?
Well, you might be familiar with a similarly large creature here on Earth that
has found a solution to this problem. Apparently, sandworms feed kind of
like blue whales. They guzzle huge amounts of desert sand and filter out the
microscopic sand plankton living there. Ok, but does the math add up?
Blue whales eat anywhere from 1 to 4 tons of plankton per day during the
summer feeding season. They are about 25m in length and only feed in arctic waters
which make up 1.3% of total ocean water. Not accounting for differences in metabolism,
a 200m long sand worm feeding at the same rate would need about 8 - 35 tons of sand plankton
per day. That's a huge number. But if you consider that they have 100% of the planet's
surface to feed, compared to the whale's 1.3%, I guess they could sustain themselves like that.
They don't rely on water to live though, and I'm not aware of a single organism,
even the most hardy extremophile, that doesn't rely on water in some capacity to survive.
Speaking of water, let's talk about terraforming Arrakis. One big goal the Fremen have is to
turn at least parts of Arrakis into a lush, green, and more hospitable world. That's
why their underground wells are so precious to them. Any kind of terraforming
would have to start with water. What I'm about to say isn't shown in either
film, but it is a spoiler from the books, so if you are planning to, or are already
reading them, you might want to skip this part. Several thousand years in the future from when
the movies are set, Arrakis is indeed successfully terraformed by the ruling powers. I couldn't find
much about how this was done, but that didn't stop me from coming up with some ideas of my own.
Terraforming a pure desert into a temperate climate is a super ambitious undertaking,
limited mostly by time. It isn't a project you could do in a lifetime. Luckily for the people of
Arrakis, the spice serves as a fountain of youth, so the time constraint is not such an issue.
It makes me think of similar ideas we've had here on Earth about terraforming Mars, including NASA's
software system architect Casey Handmer's idea to send a fleet of solar sails to Mars to sublimate
the planet's frozen carbon dioxide and thicken the atmosphere. Another, slightly less delicate,
suggestion put forward by Elon Musk is to drop ten thousand nuclear bombs on the polar ice
caps to release carbon dioxide and water vapor. Thickening the atmosphere would warm the planet
to more Earth-like temperatures, but scientists still don't agree whether there is enough frozen
carbon dioxide on Mars for this approach to work. The atmosphere on Arrakis is already Earth-like.
To kickstart the terraforming process there, I’m assuming you'd need to import water from
other planets. Other things to consider include soil quality, climate modification, ecosystem
restoration, and overall climactic stability. You'd also have to introduce species to build
and maintain varied and resilient ecosystems, which is something the Emperor at the time
of Arrakis's terraforming did actually do. In my opinion, Dune really stacks up to its
reputation as a pioneer of the sci-fi genre. It's got everything you could want - multiple
worlds, interstellar travel, force fields, weird alien creatures, and mystical powders
with seemingly magical properties. Dune was never meant to be scientifically
accurate. It really puts the fiction in science fiction, and encourages us
to use our imaginations. Fictional universes give us an opportunity to
explore what we do and don't yet know, deepen our understanding of physics, and get a
sense of where the current limits of science lie. As Albert Einstein himself said, "Imagination
is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces
the entire world, stimulating progress, and giving birth to evolution." And that
makes sci-fis like Dune worth keeping around. As I prepared for this video, a lot of the
legwork was done through careful and conscientious thinking. I’m a big believer in the power we have
to realise things if we spend enough time thinking about them. This doesn’t just apply to scientific
studies, but was also relevant in my personal life. There have been times for me where life has
been hard, and stress and anxiety has crept up on me. But in those times, seeing my circumstances
in a different light has often made all the difference. That’s why I’m a big believer in the
concept offered in paid partnership with today’s video, BetterHelp. BetterHelp’s online platform can match
you up to a therapist in usually no more than 48 hours, and therapists are experts at helping
you think about things. That might seem scary, but I’ve really seen the benefits of understanding
the underlying fears that we can carry that influence our day to day in negative ways. Seeing
ourselves in a new light can be lifechanging, and I heartily recommend it. If you want to see
if therapy is something that might help you, why not give BetterHelp a try by scanning my QR
code or by clicking my link betterhelp.com/astrum You’ll get a therapist’s helpful, unbiased
advice at a 10% discount on your first month. Thanks for watching! And thanks to our crew of Astrumnauts over on Patreon, who help us to make science knowledge freely available to everyone.
Our rocket is getting full, we might need to add some boosters to carry all the Astrumnauts
that signed up, and the night sky is also so much brighter with hunderds of new stars
in the credits. To everyone that answered the call last video and joined Patreon,
thank you so much. This has been so much larger of a reception than we expected, with more
than 500 of you joining in the last week. Thanks to that we're already planning to do so much more
with the new creative freedom you've given us, so stay tuned for updates, and if you haven't
already but you want to join the Patreon - there's never been a better time to get in on the party.
Just sign up with the link in the description. When you join you'll be able to watch the whole video ad free, see your name in the credits and submit questions to our team. Meanwhile, click the link to this playlist for more astrum content. Once again a huge thank you from
myself AND the whole Astrum team. I'll see you next time.
