Yoda's Force power measured in kilowatts

XKCD's new What If? page ("Answering your hypothetical questions with physics, every Tuesday") answers the burning question, "How much Force power can Yoda output?" Here's a part of the answer, but you'll have to click through for the rest:

First we need to know how heavy the ship was. The X-Wing’s mass has never been canonically established, but its length has—16 meters. An F-22 is 19 meters long and weighs 19,700 lbs, so scaling down from this gives an estimate for the X-Wing of about 12,000 lbs (5 metric tons).

mx=mf22∗(1619)3≈5300kg

Next, we need to know how fast it was rising. I went over footage of the sc ene and timed the X-Wing's rate of ascent as it was emerging from the water.

The front landing strut rises out of the water in about three and a half seconds, and I estimated the strut to be 1.4 meters long (based on a scene in A New Hope where a crew member squeezes past it), which tells us the X-Wing was rising at 0.39 m/s.

Follow the link for more.

What If? Yoda