'Star Wars' sci-fi becoming sci-fact

NEW YORK, May 25 (UPI) -- The science fiction of "Star Wars," marking 30 years since its U.S. movie house debut this weekend, leaped to fact in the study of warp speed and robotics.

Scientists found an Einstein equation mimicking warp speed -- needed to boost the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace -- and now know, on paper, how it works, ABC News reported Friday.

"We physicists have been fascinated, have been inspired by the warp drive," Michio Kaku, a most prominent physicists and the co-founder of string field theory, said. The development, he said, "is not for us" but for future generations.

While some people watched C3PO and R2D2 assist the rebel alliance and thought, "Whoa," others were inspired to work in artificial intelligence, said Kaku, who lives in New York.

While researching "Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination," a traveling museum exhibition developed at the Boston Museum of Science and hits the road in June, exhibit developer Ed Rodley said he found similar inspiration.

"We interviewed roboticists all over the world -- and they all said where they were (and) how old they were when they saw 'Star Wars' and how that had an effect on their decision" to enter the field, Rodley said.