Semi-Realistic Lightsaber Technology?

[MechaPilot]

They're not lasers.

Lightsabers are contained plasma. That's well established. The word "light" is just a word.

Beyond that, yeah, it's probably not possible.

I guess the Force helps. Magic makes stuff work!

It's definitely not possible until we can 1) create power sources small enough to fit into lightsaber handles, and 2) create force-fields capable of restraining plasma and radiation.

Whether those technologies will be available in the future is certainly up for grabs, but it will likely be the distant future if it occurs at all.

 

[Morrus]

It's definitely not possible until we can 1) create power sources small enough to fit into lightsaber handles, and 2) create force-fields capable of restraining plasma and radiation.

Whether those technologies will be available in the future is certainly up for grabs, but it will likely be the distant future if it occurs at all.

Or a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..

 

[Umbran]

Insulated gloves and boots fix that

I have my doubts. But in any case, even if insulated gloves and boots are enough, that doesn't help if the charge required to keep the blade stiff calls for a voltge higher than the breakdown voltage of the air. The darn thing just arcs to the ground and is useless to you.

[quote[Already thought of that.[/quote]

I'm not sure you have. The issue here is torque (Force applied * distance from fulcrum). Electric charges repel each other, sure, so they apply a force, but they pretty much apply it *at* the fulcrum - they have a distance near zero. Meanwhile, gravity, and any force from contact with an object, has a fulcrum about the length of the blade to work with. Think of the old image of hair rising when someone touches a Van de Graf generator. Sure, it stands up, but it isn't *stiff*. It is floating, but loose and flexible, not rigid.

On a hit you're pretty much guaranteed to drop your charge anyway, which as you said turns it into a whip.

Thinking about it - the charges leave the blade at something approaching a notable fraction of the speed of light. Far faster than the blade is moving. So, you never get a cut from rigidity - the blade goes limp-noodle the *instant* it touches anything. The thing is not good for cutting - it is only good for applying an electrical shock at a reach of the length of the blade.

 

[Umbran]

The most problematic question that arises from this concept of the lightsaber is that of temperature: why wouldn't the plasma heat the air or the handle so much that no one could stand to be in the vicinity of an active lightsaber (plasma, if I recall correctly, is several thousand degrees).

The most common way to get plasma in human experience is to heat gases, yes. But plasma is really just charged particles. If you can strip off electrons without applying heat, you can have cold plasma.

 

[Samloyal23]

So, one question that comes to mind with the variable sword idea, what happens when they collide?

 

[MarkB]

So, one question that comes to mind with the variable sword idea, what happens when they collide?

Remember that scene in Spaceballs when Lone Star and Dark Helmet's Schwartz beams get tangled? Think of that, but on a molecular level.

 

[Umbran]

So, one question that comes to mind with the variable sword idea, what happens when they collide?

Both combatants drop them, and resort to fisticuffs.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Just to throw some reality into this: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013...sts-accidentally-create-real-life-lightsaber/

 

[Rune]

That article seems sketchy to me. How do you turn photons into molecules? And what atoms are they cooling by pointing lasers at them? Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems like the article is conflating atoms with particles. Throughout.

 

[Umbran]

That article seems sketchy to me. How do you turn photons into molecules? And what atoms are they cooling by pointing lasers at them? Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems like the article is conflating atoms with particles. Throughout.

Well, it is Fox News. Not exactly a bastion of getting facts straight.

For a more clear description of what is going on, you can read here: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/09/seeing-light-in-a-new-way/

In essence - a photon enters a diffuse cloud (or rubidium atoms, in this case). As it goes by, it excites some atoms, and slows down. The next photon in cannot excite the same atoms, and the pair then begins a little dance of pushing and pulling each other, mediated by the atoms, as they move through the cloud. When they leave the cloud, they tend to do so together, as a pair, rather than as individuals. They call that a "molecule".

Despite the lightsaber analogy, the primary benefit may be in quantum computing, because the mediated interaction may be used to have light carry quantum state information.