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How Hot Would a Light Saber Really Be?
Datagod asks: "Has anyone ever calculated the temperature you would need to be able to slice through steel like it was thin air? How hot would a light saber really need to be? Also, I am assuming that at least some of the metal would be vaporized and the expanding gas would fling bits of molten metal at the saber wielder. Wouldn't your average Jedi be horribly scarred from all this."
april fools! it's first.
-gjr
Very hot.
A real Jedi would jusst use the force to repel any bits away from him!
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Buy one and point it at a thermometer.
http://wickedlasers.com/
O.K. so these aren't really lightsabers.
A nanotech style light saber would be the best way to go. Nanites could burn through their target and work on a whitelist principle: a friend's DNA would be ignored.
Quite literally you could ram your nanotech light saber through a hostage taker and the nanites would decline to harm the whitelisted hostage.
I can't believe no one else thought of this. PATENT!!!!!! OMFG I am teh pwnz0r take that George Lucas!!!!!!
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Light sabers work at the subatomic level, disintegrating matter. However, heat is generated within resistant materials, giving the impression that the sabers themselves are actually hot. Don't the slashdot guys know this?
not as hot as the pink on the site
Not necessarily, Padawan. If a Jedi cuts through a door/bulkhead/vehicle with a light saber s/he could avoid getting splashed with melted metal by applying a subtle Force push along with the slicing motion of the saber. To Saber 101 class you should return, youngling. ;)
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
More importantly, could a Jedi make a light sabre so hot that he himself could not wield it?
The light saber would need to be 6241 F to cut through metal. At that temperature, the metal would be separated into sub-atomic particles called 'fooltrons'. As I'm sure you are aware, fooltrons are far to small to cause damage to the human body.
OK, since today the weirdest stuff happens out here, can I get this comment modded up? Looks like there just has to ask. Thanks alot.
You just got troll'd!
- The extraordinarily detailed answers from people who spend a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing.
- The retarded answers from people who don't spend a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing.
- The retarded jokes forthcoming about people's pulsing hot lightsabers
- The prospect of spending all day sifting through stuff like this looking for real news
- The fact that I'm rather curious about this myself.
I know very little of physics, Star Wars or other. So I shall link to the disturbing Star Wars-related musings of my friend instead.Looking at this comment I found, the author makes a good arguement: If the light sabre were hot enough to easily melt stuff, wouldn't it radiate so much heat that it would burn the user?
could you toast marshmallows with a light sabre. On the one hand, there's plenty of energy, on the other hand the energy doesn't seem to go very far from the blade. I'm sure if you just touch the blade to the marshmallow it'll just vaporize though. Perhaps a wise Jedi, skilled in the force, could do this. Or maybe force lightnight. I guess you could heat a rock with a sabre and then toast with that, but it's just not the same.
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I remember getting scolded by some fanboys for suggesting that lightsabers should cast no shadows (apparently they must cast shadows since shadows were present in Episode 4...) because the cutting edge - whether plasma or whatever else - would need to be hairline-thin regardless of temperature in order to slice through things without causing unmanageable explosions of melted and vaporized target material.
A-Bomb
... are HERE .
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It's an issue of temperature AND power.
Consider this: how hot does something have to be to melt an ice sculpture? Well, a match would do it, except a match can't provide the power necessary to melt a significant amount of ice.
You need the temperature necessary to turn steel into a vapor (look that up on a periodic table of elements); you also need the power necessary to turn some mass (per second) of steel into vapor. Anyone with a background in chemistry should be able to look up the required information on a standard periodic table.
The equation will look like this:
(Steel's specific heat) * (volume of steel to vaporize per second) * (temperature difference) = power necessary.
I always though it was funny that people did not buy into the success of the Ewoks in the last skirmish. They'll buy into death stars, light sabers, but then balk at the Ewoks.
What does this have to do with ponies? :( I want my ponies! DX
They are of course running at room temperature. You think it's heat that cuts through this mental abstraction you call 'matter'?
Task Mangler
Light sabers (and all other Star Wars pseudo-science) work because Lucas has no idea how physics works in reality, and he doesn't understand that there is a point where suspension of disbelief can no longer support the premise,especially in an adult audience.
I submitted this as a serious question 24 hours ago (or so). Just my luck, the only time my question gets accepted its april fools, and the whole site is pink! LOL
A Lightsaber cuts pretty fast through materials like that. As for the metal bits we'll asume it propels them away from the user, somehow. As for the heat...a portable (55 amp) plasma cutter can cut 1/4" material at roughly 70 inches per minute. The plasma coming out is roughly 24,000 degrees, and is a stream traveling at 20,000 fpm. An industrial cutter can do roughly 1000 inches per minute. I wouldn't imagine its flame is any hotter than 30K degrees. a lightsaber, it seems, cuts WAY faster than that. I wouldn' t know how to estimate its temperature using the given info, but maybe someone else can.
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
on how thick the light sabre active region is. If it's only a few molecules thick, the amount of material vaporized will be relatively low, given that most stuff it's slicing doesn't have very high thermal conductivity (limits heat spread away from the blade). It's too late at night to push the specific heat & volume numbers, but as a guess, if the active region could dump, say, 100KW minimum into a 10nm x 2" x 60" volume, there would be plenty of energy to immediately vaporize any material in that small volume. Since there's not much material being vaporized, there won't be much damage to surrounding entities (like the Jedi sword wielder) or fixtures. As for temperature, I think that will depend on the specific heat of the material being sliced, if we assume that the energy integrated over time being dumped into the material is constant. Something with a low specific heat (air, wood) will get to a higher temperature than something like water or flesh. Once you get over around 5000K, everything's a gas. Another way to determine the temperature would be to look at the emission spectrum of the air when the blade is energized. That would tell you how hot the air is within the blade active region. However, there seem to be big differences between the emission spectra of the Good Guys vs. the Bad Guys. That could complicate the determination of temperature. Just like the 4/1 Slashdot color scheme.....
The example I found of a Tocamac plasma is only red, but is 20-30 million degrees C. However, the lightsabers in the original (and therefore One True) Star Wars were white. This means they must be considerably hotter. The page I found on near-solid high energy density plasmas also talks about tens of millions of degrees - my gut feeling would be that to produce totally solid white plasma would require 40-50 million degrees C.
Now, plasmas at that kind of temperature could quite reasonably be expected to slice through almost anything - steel included. Furthermore, anything that was vaporised would be repelled by the magnetic field and thus travel AWAY from the wielder. This does mean that if you are fighting someone with a lightsaber, you will get sprayed with high-energy plasma every time they hit something.
There is one minor problem, though. Energy. If you want to maintain something at 50 million degrees, AND a containment field, a couple of duracel batteries won't cut it. Even lithium batteries will go flat very quickly. My guess is that the handle of the lightsaber, therefore, contains a wormhole linked to a gigantic anti-matter reactor.
All you REALLY need to do, then, is find out where your opponent's reactor is hidden and turn it off. Their lightsaber will then be useless.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Remember boys and girls, a lightsaber can be a dangerous weapon, and improperly used, it can hurt! Here are a few simple tips for Lightsaber Safety...
e r
http://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/your_lightsab
SirWired
I've always found that reading slashdot on april fools is a good reminder that there are better things to do than read slashdot on april fools.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
I always pictured the light saber to be something like tamed lightning. As it cuts metal, it doesn't melt it from heat but from the actual cutting action of really fast elecrons (or whatever) colliding with and knocking loose whatever the light saber touches. Except it couldn't be electrons because they'd be grounded out by the metal they're cutting, so it's some other sort of particle.
It's not the heat...it's the humidity.
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"Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?"
No, he could always eat the burrito, no matter how hot. He would just suffer while eating it. Horribly. For all our sakes. (And of course, since a Jewish man prepared the burrito, we Christians would hold the Jewish people guilty of this for the rest of time, or at least for a millenium or two...)
I don't think the light is part of the process at all. It's a red, green, or blue (or sometimes purple) herring. The light is probably added by whatever OSHA dealy they had a long time ago to show where the dangerous part is...
But the real question is: where did lucas get a telescope powerful enough to record all of this?
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Vader, that fawking guy, only wore the mask to hide his identity as an anarchist, wanting to overthrow the king...err...queen...
Don't use your light saber to open beer bottles
Don't use your light saber to pick your teeth.
Don't use your light saber to gut fish
If you do any of these things, you might be a jedi redneck.
Bubba-Boe-Bob-Bader: "Shoot, son come on over t' the dark side... it'll be a hoot"
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Light sabers are pretty advanced pieces of technology. Let me try to explain how they work in basic terms.
;)
First off, you need to imagine a sort of 'shield' around the blade. It is this shield that actually forms the blade in to a specific shape and length. It uses micro-miniature deflector technology. It's all deflector technology these days. If you can picture a sort of transparent hollow tube you are on the right track. In fact, if a Jedi needs a non-lethal billy club he/she can simply switch off the fusion generators and start whacking you with the deflector shield. It won't cut your arms off, but it'll smart a bit. Now, last time I checked, if you've gone to the trouble to piss off a Jedi chances are he ain't gonna take the time to just beat you over the head with a deflector shield. He's just gonna slice you in two. So keep that in mind.
Also, it's these deflectors that Jedi use to do that cool hand trick maneuver. They want you to think it's their hand throwing stuff across the room. Ever wonder what 'the force' is. It's just a case of misdirection: "HEY! LOOK AT MY HAND!" (As the Jedi switches his deflector on his saber to maximum using his left hand, down by his side.)
Now that you have this sort of hollow tube shield deflector thing, fusion materials are inserted in to the tube. Then 'blaster' technology is used to ignite the materials and sustain a reaction. Blaster technology is pretty deep, and I don't have time to go in to it. Now, as you can imagine, it takes quite a bit of energy to keep such a reaction going. That's why you hear that cool 'whummm' sound as you move it around. You're holding a few megawatts of energy in your hands. It's also why you hear that crackle when you whack two of them together. Same tech behind the frekin' lightning bolt shooting out of the hands trick.
The question was raised, why doesn't the superheated component of the saber just burn the crap out of the user? Well - deflectors of course. The deflectors contain the radiated heat energy to within a few inches of the blade. In fact, most sabers have a feature to adjust how much energy is radiated. This is handy if you ever find yourself stranded on an ice world. You just pop the thing in the snow, turn up the radiated heat, and you have a nice bonfire.
You might be wondering, but Luke almost froze to death and he had a saber - what gives? Well - let's just say his saber was more of a 'hack.' You see, Jedi in the past have been burnt badly when Sith lords have used the 'dark side' to tweak the controls on their sabers turning up the radiated heat. You think Yoda was born looking that way?? No, saber radiated heat accident. Anikin really liked screwing with young Jedi by turning up the radiated heat when they weren't looking. Well, anyhow, one of Luke's "improvements" to his saber was to remove this feature. Oops.
So there you have it. Be sure to keep your eyes open for my O'Reilly book coming out soon: Light Sabers in a Nutshell.
Plasma cutters are something else again, real and possibly far more like a light saber would be if such a thing was real. Heating up a gas and making it behave a lot like a liquid to burn things away leaving nothing but a clean cut and hot dust is the way the things work - all you need is high voltage electricity, appropriate electodes and a good supply of pressurised gas.
http://www.starwars.com/databank/technology/lights aber/?id=eu
br> Once unleashed, the power channels through a positively charged continuous energy lens at the center of the handle. The beam then arcs circumferentially back to a negatively charged high energy flux aperture. A superconductor transfers the power from the flux aperture to the power cell. As a result, a lightsaber only expends power when its blade cuts through something. So efficient is the blade, that it does not radiate heat unless it comes into contact with something.
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."
In order to make a semi-solid beam of energy which could interact with both matter and energy would require containing a quasar and quantum singularity inside the hilt. The gravitational field would pull all the quasar's expelled plasma back moments after the quasar releases them. The speed of the returning plasma would form a chainsaw effect allowing it to cut through the matter with ease, while when being stopped by an opposing beam. A modulated gravity field would bounce allow for the reflection of energy beams.
HA! try another one
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."
Normally, my interest in applying practicle science to the star wars universe would be astronomical, but reading the question in pink GUI made me realize what a nerd loser I was. Thanks a lot slashdot. :-(
Everybody>/b> knows that the real reason for lack of miracles is the decline of pirates... I mean, SHEESH.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
> All that exists is in the mind of God. To be in the
> mind of God is to exist. God is omniscient, therefore
> everything that's in a human mind is in the mind of God.
> Therefore Narnia, Barsoom, and Middle-Earth exist, and
> George Lucas committed genocide when he blew up Alderaan.
If that's true then holy god there are a bunch of Angelina Jolie, Sandra Bullock, Rose McGowan, and Alicia Witt clones floating around Yahweh-space with extremely sore pussies.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That's simple!
One's red and the other one is a whitey blue!
Everyone knows that when a red light sabre and a blue light sabre connect, it sounds like 2 broomsticks hitting each other.
You must've missed a few days at school....
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
I work in a shipyard as a welder. I can tell you that steel "melts" at approx. 2500 F. However, other metals such as aluminum and copper are welded at much higher temperatures, Of course, something like ceramic is much more "unmeltable" than metal, and we wouldn't want to think that you could fend off a lightsaber attack with a ceramic coffee cup. It's not just a matter of heat. Of course, lightsabering could be said to be more closely related to plasma cutting than welding. In simplest terms, plasma cutting is a process that uses a high velocity jet of ionized gas that is delivered from a constricting orifice. The high velocity ionized gas, that is, the plasma, conducts electricity from the torch of the plasma cutter to the work piece. The plasma heats the workpiece, melting the material. The high velocity stream of ionized gas mechanically blows the molten metal away, severing the material. Then again, welding and plasma cutting only works with conductive materials, like metal. You can't plasma-cut an arm off. The another issue is that both welding and plasma cutting require your material to be grounded, plasma cutting requires a source of compressed air, and an incredible source of electricity/ amps in a power source the same size, or smaller, than several of our "D" sized batteries. We do know, however, from watching "Empire" that they have portable welders, which they use (uselessly) to defend Hoth.
"I cannot answer your question because it contains inconsistent assumptions."
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Considering that the human body is mostly water, wouldn't it flash to steam and blow up when struck by a light saber?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Can God create a rock that he can't lift? To give background information on this riddle, it is of the form where you have a card or piece of paper. On one side it says "The statement on the other side of this paper is true." On the other side it says "The statement on the other side of this paper is false." I'm not sure what the logical term for this type of paradox is called, but the God/Rock idea is very similar. The circular reference in the quoted riddle should be obvious. The solution to this riddle is not a question of God's power. As with most riddles the answer is found by using a vague or misleading definition of a word. The key term in this riddle is "lift." If God created a rock that consumes(replaces) all of spacetime then there is no concept of "up", therefore the rock can not be "lifted" in the normal sense of the term since "lifting" is relative to some other object. With this solution you have achieve a dual state instead of a nonsense state. If an entity can create this hypthetical "omnirock" then the free will of God comes into play. He can create a state where he can not lift the rock and can also create a state where he can by creating a smaller object in space move/lift the first rock; ultimately allowing relative movemnent. The final solution is that both states are possible and exist simultaneously. Look up 'Schrodinger cat' on google. QED