Slashdot Mirror
Lightsabers Recalled
SEWilco writes "Gee, imagine that. Lightsabers can really burn people. Um.. oh, yeah, there's a toy recall now on some models. "
I have a Qui-Gonn and a Darth Maul saber that I ain't given back.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
That was a joke, son......
A strong electromagnet in the handle would keep the bucky-tube tight. (the superconductor would be repelled by the electromagnet)
This makes an interesting weapon, because if someone pulled a gun on you while you were carrying it, the magnetism would pull the gun to you, probably with enough force to accelerate it to enough speed to be quite dangerous. Instead, imagine how you would design a weapon like this but using ordinary string.
I thought that lightsabers were only for children. You guys are losers who should be beaten not with a lightsaber toy, but with a good old fashioned baseball bat about the head.
lears@bigpond.com
Wow! I'll be able to install something in my lightsaber. I get closer to being a Jedi every day.
Hmm, do they have Debian packages, or should I just grab the tarball?
Maybe when I'm ready I can make my own. I want a yellow blade. Or a white one. Enough green, blue, and red crap. Additive colors just don't do it these days.
I can't resist:
Use the source, Luke.
--
QDMerge -- generate documents automatically.
how to invest, a novice's guide
Actually, battery overheating leads to ALKALI burns, not acid burns. Potassium hydroxide is the wrong electrolyte at the wrong end of the pH scale. Nevertheless, alkali burns also are the path to the Dark Side.
--
Gleepy the Hen. More intelligent than the average hen.
(All you flamers who think this is stupid...it's a *theoretical* discussion. Purely for academic purposes. Heh)
I thought those comments on the laser itself zipping out of the handle was a pretty nifty idea, but you'd have to bend space or something, since light doesn't bend easily. Black holes *do* bend light (though I don't know whether it's the gravity or the bending of space (or whether there's a difference)). So if you jammed a whole lot of matter into the thing somehow (ignoring the fact that you'd have a difficult time swinging something heavier than a star)... But then you run into the problem that the blade would go through anything. *Including* another blade. There are hints of a "force field", which made me think of contained plasma in a magnetic field, like those fusion reactors, which would answer a lot of questions nicely, and what I suspect the original story designers were probably hinting at, but then you get lots of radiated heat, which is a bad thing.
Here's my take. This doesn't go with the dramatic "blade of light" philosophy well, but whatever...
What if you're just working with a superheated (white hot) piece of metal. Yeah, it would give off heat like crazy, but if you had some sort of heat transfering device that could keep the handle cool (get me one of those for my AC, woohoo), I suspect that the radiated heat would be *bearable*, unlike plasma. Of course, this wouldn't just slice through steel like a knife through butter, as in the movies, but it *would* be pretty unpleasant to be stuck with it. Sort of like fighting with a flaming sword, like in every D&D scenerio known to man...may not be very practical, but doable. People work around molten metal all the time.
You have to wonder just how much heat Luke's saber would have to give off, though, even if it was just this. You would *not* want to be stuck in a small room with it on.
Here's another idea. You put a really amped-up electromagnet in the handle. Then, you start firing some extremely small slivers of heavy metal (one affected by magnets...is uranium?) from the handle. The slivers shoot out in a ring at the base of the "blade", and are sucked back in to the electromagnet in the middle. Once there, they are fired out again. I suppose if you heated them up quite a bit (or...if they're moving at the speed expected, you'd probably generate a lot of heat already from air resistance), you'd get a nice glow. Various types of elements glow different colors when heated, so by adding specific elements to the metals, you could get designer colors (a la StarWars). Hmm...there's be a lot of wind movement generated, and a lot of surface area, so you'd give off a *lot* of heat. More than my "molten bar of metal" idea. Plus, the tip of the blade wouldn't be very effective, at the tip of the slivers' trajectory. Still, the blade would do the cutting that the lightsabers did very effectively (A-10s fire depleted uranium shells, which cut nicely through whatever tank armor is made out of...and it only takes a second or so long burst to do so). Disadvantages: you'd have an enormously powerful electromagnet in the base. This would be a bad thing if you have metal nearby (esp. in the metal Death Star...your light sabre would just cling to the walls...or, more likely, crumple the walls in on itself). There'd be tons of heat given off, and lots of convection currents generated...sort of like a radiator. The tip of the blade wouldn't be as effective. I don't know whether you can make a trajectory that would approximate the shape of Lucas' lightsabers (remember, they were just drawn over some real sticks with tape on them...so it's not like Lucas was into hard-core physics on this). Especially with the strength of the magnetic field decreasing rapidly away from the base. Unless you had one *darn* powerful magnet, these slivers would have a good bit of time outside of the blade, and when rapidly moving the saber, the blade would "bend" a bit backwards.
Hmm...you could solve some of that by making the blades out of buckystructures...make them immensely powerful magnets in addition to the main magnet. They wouldn't "turn around"...just head out with their tips forward, and then head back with their tips the same way. They'd be tougher than uranium, so they could keep being cycled around and around (carbon buckystructures are pretty tough). You might lose some of the color this way (unless you integrate extra atoms into the buckystructures..you'd have to have solid nanotechnology to do this), but I guess you could do this. Heck, if you can make them insulate well, you might even solve the heat problem...just let their mass (and the heat generated at impact) do the "cutting", and cool them each time they get back to the handle.
You could block "blaster shots" (whatever they are), because the splinters could absorb a lot...as I said, the buckystructures are incredibly tough. If the blaster shots are energy-based, they'd expend themselves, and if matter-based (bullets or whatever), the bullets would get chewed up. Of course, you'd feel the impact in your hands (splinters move, move base on magnetic field), but I don't see how else you could do anything.
You'd need a heck of a lot of constantly inputted energy to do this...or, wait, I guess a superconducting electromagnet would work. Yeah, if you have the nanotech to do the splinters, you can undoubtedly do superconducting electromagnets. Yeah. There you have it, folks. Luke's lightsabre...*with* color! Kind of pointless...I mean, if you can manipulate molecules this well, you can make much more nasty weapons than lighsabres (custom engineered little robots that act like viruses...), but whatever.
I used to do this kind of envisioning -- how can you make sci-fi stuff, (in theory is fair), and what obstacles would you run into? Take teleporting, everyone's favorite sci-fi effect. Ever think of pressure differences? 100 feet or more of altitute change on a planet like Earth instantaneously is *hard* on people. Teleporting even 100 feet up or down is out of the question unless you do some serious work. Since nanotech would be required to construct a "new person" at the other end, you could theoretically identify air pockets, and add additional air molecules in, but seeing as it'd hard even to identify what's human and what's unnecessary air/clothing/ground, etc, I don't think you want to add more to the computer's workload. Heh...given today's image recognition algorithms, I'm not sure I want to trust a computer's guess at what's me and what's ground. ("Well...the copy has everything but an inch or so of feet, and there's a bit missing off the surface of the eyeballs..." Yeesh.).
Interestingly enough, if we *could* teleport, should we destroy the original copy of the person or not? StarTrek does...but isn't that akin to cloning (well, not cloning, but something like it) and subsequent murder? There's a sci-fi book...Cuckoo something...Cuckoo's Song, Cuckoo's Egg...dunno, where the author thought of exactly that...the originals stay. People who's presence is required all over (sucessful/talented, or whatever) have tons of copies running around all over.
Hey, that's good. Signature material.
Or some type of plastic. Or just coat it.
Jeez. Look at the prices. I must be reading something wrong. Electronics: $25. Tube: $40. Batteries: ~$10 (being generous). They charge you $385 for the largest sword. WTF?!?!?! How can they justify charging $310 for a stupid glorified *battery* case (the handle casing)? Well...at least they let you buy the goodies dirt cheap...
This reminds me of Red Hat. Heh. $100 for Red Hat 6.0...but we'll also give you blazing-fast FTP sites to download it for free. Yeah. Just cut it back to $50, people.
Well, if lightsabers could cut through anything, why did Luke's lightsaber bounce off Vader's armor?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'd grab the tarball and compile. The older (Vader/Luke) lightsabers use libc5. The new ones (Quigon/Maul) are glibc based. They have completely incompatible screw types, among other things. Since it's only the new ones that need the upgrade, I guess it's proof that the old ones are better. Slackware all the way, baby.
-Chris
I found this out earlier today as i went to the local toy store. They had already taken them off the shelves. I had just gotten paid. I had been eyeing them both all week. Its just not fair. *tear up*
They were invented by the Tnuctipun about 2 billion years ago (in Niven's Known Space universe). They are mentioned in many of his stories. I think the first appearance, however, is indeed in "Ringworld".
If you read the article, you'll see that you just have to call up Hasbro and they'll send you a kit to fix them.
This'll only make the things more valuable to collectors. Most of 'em never take the things out of the package anyway, much less waste any of the precious fuel in the "original batteries -- oooooh!".
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I wonder if anyone is activly trying to figure out how to make a "real" light saber... It's a common topic for idle conversation among me and my friends (heehee, we're dorks), but is anyone paid to do it?
The only thing more annoying that people posting stupid comments before reading the story is having the story posted by someone who didn't read all of the story in the first place...
Looking at the market for SWE1 toys, though, I suspect that collectors will never have to worry about their items becoming rare.
echo Prpv a\'rfg cnf har cvcr | tr Pacfghnrvp Cnpstuaeic
Wow! I'll be able to install something in my lightsaber. I get closer to being a Jedi every day.
Maybe when I'm ready I can make my own. I want a yellow blade. Or a white one. Enough green, blue, and red crap. Additive colors just don't do it these days.
-Chris
Am I the only one who thought that, "Customers should stop using these lightsabers immediately," was funny?
"Your lightsaber use you should not. Defective, your lightsaber is, mmm?
"Use leads to spring dislodging. Spring dislodging leads to battery overheating. Battery overheating leads to acid burns. Acid burns are the path to the Dark Side..."
Just wondering if anyone had a trick to download the file, and not just play it.
:)
cause I wanna play it in loops, even when I'm offline
Murphy
Yea Rob! We had good fights at LE I'm not givin mine back either!
If we ever achieve something like a force field then a lightsaber or Niven's "variable sword" become more possible. But then there will be a lot of other gadgets too...
Anyone know the physics behind the teleportation experiments? Is only a photon state being teleported, or could the "strong force" be teleported without an atom?
the concept of a lightsaber actually cutting through things is akin, in my mind, to the idea of a laser actually cutting through something. apparently, it is the intensity of the thing (or something of that nature) that allows it to sever objects and create various other forms of destruction. back to the laser thought, we have laser pointers, lasers in our CD players, etc, that don't cut through objects, and then you have industrial and medical lasers, that do. plus, if anyone ever reads "Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology" by Bill Smith, they'd know all about lightsabers....
Insert mind here.
Speaking of lightsabers - Yard sales are popular in my area. In some camera stuff I found some vintage equipment that is a _dead ringer_ for the real light sabers. Former antique camera strobe stuff. It is _really amazing_ . I do not have the ability to post pictures or else I would. They feel _really_ good to hold too.
Not like that plastic hasbro crap. Nice aluminum. Yes, they even have cool switches on the side.
Just one step away from totally real.
Looking at the above link to the 'neon tube' lightsabers, they say that you can not use it real swordplay because it is glass.
What good is a lightsaber if you can't use it for swordplay???
vader/luke are glibc2 and qui gonn/obi wan/maul are libc5... remember, it's a prequel.
-- adraken
I know just how the kid feels.
Kinda kewl IMHO
Forget swords.. try this one on for size:
Carefully wound 'strings' of the stuff (perhaps as many as a few hundred, considering how little space they would take up), each with a small sliver of superconductor at one end, the other end attached to an unpowered electromagnet in the base of a small tube (about the size of a can of mace for example) which was itself ringed in electromagnetic coils (powered) to keep the things centerd. Some guy comes running at you with his neato-keen sword, you hold up a hand, flip the button and his head/torso region turns into a pile of fillet on the ground as the hundreds of 'strings' are propelled out of the tube at high speed..
Dreamweaver
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
Here.
This sig is false.
Sorry if I'm not a big Star Wars an here, but I have some thoughts. Having never read the "tecnical" manuals that are out there I can only rely on what I have read, being William Gibson. Anyone ever read Johnny Mnemonic from burning crome? (screw Keanu Reeves and that stupid movie) If you have you'd remember the idea of the micro filament that could seemingly cut through anything. (I'm getting to lightsabers)
Does any one know of the vaibility of such an idea? if so then the microfiliment in the story was obviously housed by something and something made of that material could theoretically be fassioned into a pole and have said micro filaments running the length of it side by side. Presto and sword that could cut through anything. That is if it works like the one in the book. I can't honestly say that Gibson did anything more than put preety words together when he thought up a microfilament, but if there is any base for reality in it... very sweet. Possiblly only viable for assasinations cause as someone else stated you can kill from very far away nowadays...
http://www.amazing1.com/plasma.htm
They even have a cool mpg of a guy using one.
Scroll down a bit and they make custom handle, even a Darth Maul one.
Oh, and the also sell kits so you can make your own casings...
I recall in the backs of one of the Star Wars comics, they said something about the lightsaber's blade actually being an arc. It's a laser that shoots out of the handle, curves back on itself like a hairpin, and goes back into the handle. Yeesh. I think we'll be able to send Jodi Foster around the galaxy in a chair before we're able to make lightsabers.
I've had enough of these bold lightsabre colours, what about some lovely pastel shades??? A jedi's best friend is not the force, it's his interior decorator!
From the does-this-exist dept...
Is there a such thing as a lighter with a light saber handle?
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball (TM).