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Would you break this dang thing, or would it break you? Let's get technical. (neuralyzer whirs and fires) Would you break this dang thing, or would get break you? Let's get technical. What? (upbeat techno music) Out of all the fun sci-fi weapons in the Men in Black-iverse, the Noisy Cricket mightbe the most famous. Absurdly small and absurdlypowerful for its size, this tiny gun is known forits crazy strong recoil. Now we know almost nothingelse about this weapon, aside from its recoil, but I think that if we canput some numbers to its oomph, we can learn a lot more about it than some dudes in suits would tell us because no matter where theMen in Black got this weapon, physics works the sameeverywhere in the universe. First, I can't see anything. First, what is recoil? Well recoil is the term that we use for a weapon's backwards momentum, its mass multiplied by its velocity and that backwardsmomentum is a consequence of the conservation of momentum, a principle that s...

For thousands of years,humans have used the power of wind to sail across our planet and discover new lands thatwere seemingly out of reach. What if I told you thatthere's a 400 year old idea that applies the concept of sails to space that could make the edge ofour solar system accessible in under 10 years of travel time? In the hands of the Sith Lord Count Dooku, a version of this concept was used when he escaped fromGeonosis without a trace. How could we use sunlight to assail our travel woes in real life? (upbeat electronic music) The sun is a source ofplentiful free energy, and ever since 1608,harnessing it was an idea that BFF's Johannes Keplerand Galileo Galilei shared, and it's since inspired tabletopRPG's like Star Traders, short stories, TV shows, movies, and actual solar sail missions. One example of solar sails in movies is Count Dooku's Punworcca116, or the Solar Sailer. It's somewhat of a misnomersince it's not being pushed by solar pressure, ...