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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.
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!
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.
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
If you watch Episode 4, right after Vader kills Obi Wan, he's holding a silver-colored stick. So, perhaps this mechanical core doesn't retract at the same time?
Good eye. Once the Jedi were defeated, the few survivors had to make their lightsabers from spare parts. I think Obi Wan used one of those powered telescoping radio antennas from an old land speeder.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
...I don't know why everyone wonders how a fictional lightsaber could work.
Neither do I. Lasers? Plasma? Mechanical core? Containment? Lenses and gyrsoscopes?
THERE WAS NONE OF THAT. There was a guy and his typewriter and a bunch of words that, while compelling, were not true. There is no technology of the lightsaber. There is no "how it works". It doesn't work. It doesn't exist. The same is true of teleporters, holodecks, warp speed, etc.
If someone wants to have some fun writing or reading this kind of stuff that's fine. But it's just fanfic. People seem to ascribe to it some sort of weight it doesn't have b/c of the science tone.
Now get off my lawn!
-- "Oh. This guy again."
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.