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The Science of the Lightsaber
Smartcowboy writes "Chances are that you have seen a lightsaber at one time or another, whether on the evening news or down at the local cantina. Therefore you know that a lightsaber is an amazing and versatile device that is able to cut through nearly anything in a matter of milliseconds.
Have you ever wondered how these remarkable weapons work? Where does the energy come from, and how are they able to contain that energy in a rod-like column of glowing power?
In this article, you will have a chance to look inside a lightsaber and discover the source of its incredible characteristics." I was sure the blade was made from the focused hate and disappointment of the last three movies.
On top of that, this has been erroneously filed under "Technology." Let's just pause and let that sink in.
Now I'll quote the article:
You are putting that into the technology category? Seriously? I am sorry, normally I roll with the it and just play along when this stuff is under Idle on the frontpage but this is ridiculous. I know I'm just one of many Slashdotters in bitchbitchbitch mode but the next time you come across an article like this put it in your damned April Fools folder and don't revisit it until then!
... filed under Biotech!
Next week: The Science of NBC's "Heroes"
My work here is dung.
...I don't know why everyone wonders how a fictional lightsaber could work.
"How does it contain the plasma in a rod? Why doesn't it just go everywhere?"
From what I remember of the movies, I don't remember there being any mention of there not being some kind of mechanical core to a lightsaber -- almost like a control rod that extended at the same time that the rod of light did. You'd never know from watching it.
For all we know, even as works of fiction, they could just be normal swords that glow.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Well, at least they didn't show any household uses for the lightsaber that I've already covered. :)
Lightsaber Uses for the Everyday Dark Lord
I have not lost my mind... it's backed up on disk somewhere!
Seriously, how does stuff like this get on the front page?
The Jedi ones, I mean. Everyone knows the red ones run Windows.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
and apparently there's a lot of trick photography involved in those movies. First of all, the blade is just plastic segments, and you kind of flick it to get the blade to extend. By the way, it doesn't cut worth a damn. It seems that the "light" part of the lightsaber is just a flashlight bulb embedded in the handle and shining through the tube. Pretty disappointing really.
Now the sound effects on the other hand are pretty damn cool. Granted, they're a little tinny compared to the movies, but I figure that's just due to the way they mixed the audio in post-prod.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
Silly posts like this seem custom made for Idle, where they can be safely ignored...
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Especially when the article in question involves lightsabers. (And wishing that they were real. *daydreams at work*)
I'd rather have a working phaser than a lightsaber. The phaser is a ranged weapon -- works better for us geek weaklings who don't want to get our hands dirty. It also seems more versatile -- you can stun people, injure them, kill them or completely disappear them (let's see them CSI a vaporized corpse!).
In short, the phaser slices, dices and makes julienne fries.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/lightsaber.htm/printable
Facts are useless, they can be used to prove anything.
I don't know how doable phasers are as described in canon. They utilize a completely invented subatomic particle (the nadion) for their effects. The vaporization effect in particular seems far-fetched -- in Trek they explain it away because of the magical properties of the nadion -- in reality you'd need an awful lot of energy to vaporize the human body (imagine taking 100-200 pounds of water from 98 degrees to >212 degrees in under a second) and you wouldn't want to be standing nearby when it happened.
The concept of a directed energy weapon that would be adjustable and which could stun/injure or kill seems doable in the future though.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
A lightsabre is a magic sword. How about an article on the science of the One Ring.
You'd have to be a Jedi to use one of these things because any average Joe is likely to cut off his own foot. A light saber represents the awesome mutilating ability of power tools combined with a form factor that's even more prone to mischief. No weight in the blade, will cause major damage with fleeting contact. They're cool but you'll be losing fingers and limbs.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
All the articles about the "tech" of Star Wars, Star Trek, etc (up to an including the old Star Trek 'Engineering Manual' are nothing but mental masturbation for geeks. They are great when your in your teens, but...
Just enjoy the show/movie
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
On the other hand, you'd probably have a sonic boom as elements expand in disintegration, so...
I've always rationalized it in my mind as a conversion to neutrinos or some other particle that doesn't really interact with normal matter and which would allow the disintegration of objects as people stand right next to them with little to no ill effects.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Well, at least it's not as bad as the "Zat" guns from Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis.
The writers got themselves stuck into a corner really early on when they introduced the "One shot stuns, two shots kills, three shots VAPORIZES" mechanic on that weapon. The first two make sense for a weapon that shoots something akin to lightning bolts, but the third mechanic is just DUMB.
I remember watching the 10 year anniversary show and the producers and actors talking about how much they hated putting that into the show, and how the writers realized it was a dumb mistake almost immediately. (But not fast enough to prevent it becoming canon. DOH!)
Oh well, I guess if we all had to wait until every single sci-fi weapon was completely vetted for scientific accuracy before it could be used in a show we would NEVER get any shows!
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Why would you have to drop one to have it start eating everything?
If the thing vaporizes everything, I wonder why the AIR around it survives, and you don't end up with a constant wind inwards towards the blade.
Han Solo used one one once to open up a Tan Tan. Luke was training with it before he had any force abilities at all. I don't habeeb it.
Parent should be tagget as redundant. It on the friking title: "NEWS FOR NERDS, STUFF THAT MATTERS". Nuf' said
-- dnl
Actually, I don't know if you realize it, but super-heated plasma is actually opaque to light.
The photons emited in the nuclear fusion in the sun's centre, are absorbed and re-emitted and take millions of years to reach the surface. The sun is actually very close to a black body, except, of course, it radiates so much energy of its own that you can't shine a beam at it and notice that it's actually absorbed.
A nuclear bomb's fireball, for the first couple of moments is actually opaque too, which actually helps with converting more of that energy into temperature of the fireball, thus into more rapid expansion of that air, and thus into a bigger shockwave. That's how about 50% of the energy goes into the shockwave. If it weren't for that, i.e., if that super-heated air actually let radiation pass right through, the bomb would just scorch the ground and fry anyone close enough and standing in the open, but wouldn't cause the kind of shockwave that levels concrete buildings.
So could a lightsaber cast a shadow? Well, in much as the same way as a fluorescent tube can cast one. If it's in the way of a beam of light that's brighter than the sword's own shine, it would most definitely cast a shadow. (But, ok, in some poorly lit rooms like in the movies that doesn't seem to be nearly the case.)
Now that road is another minefield for other reasons, so I'm not going to claim that lightsabers are "realistic" or "possible." But just saying that technically, yes, a blade of super-heated plasma could technically be opaque.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
In true CSI fashion, they'd also have a program that would be able to analyze the residue and perform an exciting 3D reconstruction of what the person looked like, their position in the room at the time of vaporization, and the type of cereal they ate for breakfast that morning.
I'm so excited I just made water in my pantaloons!
In other news, Ralph Nader has brought a suit against the Jedi Council for negligence in the design of proper safety features in such a dangerous device.
Repeatedly he has brought to their attention several design flaws which they have consistently refused to take action on. Specifically the introduction of the timed dead man's switch to comply with EU regulations was done hastily and without forethought and has created a false sense of safety and resulted in more accidents with people who felt it was now safer to throw their lightsabers.
Nader is asking that the Light Saber's safety devices be "Beefed Up" in a few simple ways. First, the removal of the timer from the safety switch. Clearly one who is force adept and capable of guiding a light saber, can use a little extra concentration and keep the kill switch depressed with his force power, while guiding the saber to its target and back.
More controversial, is his request to move the switch entirely inside the light saber. This would effectively make it impossible for those who are not force adept to even activate a light saber, as constant force power would be required to keep the switch closed.
The Lobbying group Galactic Lightsaber Buyers and Trainers Association (GLBTA) has come out against Mr Nader's recomendations citing that it would prevent law abiding citizens from obtaining a useful tool, and leaving them only in the hands of criminals.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Nah, no smell and no mess. Here's what ya need to do. Ya gets all the nadions out to the target, where they act as subatomic dance choreographers. They signal to every quark, lepton, boson, and what have ya to turn sideways, on three; and-a-one, and-a-two, and-a-three, now!
O' course, there's always some lag. The particles in the brain always have to think for a second, and the particles in the volcal cords are too busy yappin' to pay attention, so there's always a scream, but the final result is that the victim just kinda sidles out of time and space as we know them.
No mess, no smell, and it's guaranteed to work less'n the immutable laws of narrative causality dictate that the shooter's gotta be taken prisoner and exposed to green Orion slave chicks, brains living in jars, or possibly tortured by spending the night with the jar-inhabitin' brain of a green Orion slave chick.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
Ha! Focused hate. +2 funny.
The real source of power is the same source of power worshipped by George Lucas. The one that sucked away his soul and creativity over the last 30 years. I think they call it "ego."
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
...than you give him credit for.
We're able to give fairly unexceptional 16 year olds sticks which weigh about 12 ounces, fit in the palm of your hand, have exactly one button on them, and have the rule "anything extending in a ray from this hole to the horizon when the button is depressed dies". The overwhelming majority of them understand the safety precautions -- there are only four.
1) Never point the stick at anything you do not intend to kill
2) The stick has two states. In one, the ray coming out when the button is pressed is lethal. In the other, no ray will come out. Always assume the stick is in the lethal state.
3) Anyone capable of pressing a button is capable of operating the stick. Accordingly, never let anyone who you don't trust to not kill someone touch your stick.
4) You should receive additional instruction to use your stick in an effective manner.
And we didn't need a High Holy Cult of Gun Safety to accomplish that, now did we?
Although it might be kind of fun. You look like you have the makings of a great marksman, young one. For your first lesson, I'm going to hand you a lethal weapon and blindfold you, then put you within arm's reach of six people. You're going to learn to use that lethal weapon safely and effectively. Did I mention that you're under attack by a practice drone? *zap* Well, what are you waiting for, shoot him already. We can talk about the basic properties of your lethal weapon later, for now, either you'll have the right instincts or we'll all die horribly.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.