(Star Wars Technical Question) Lightsabers?

[Craer]

Something I've been wondering for a while popped into my head the other night: Do they ever give a reason why lightsabers stop about four feet from the handle of the weapon and don't just keep going? If some nice fanboy/girl could explain it to me, I'd be very relieved. I lose sleep over things like this.

-Craer

edit: Me fail english? That's unpossible!

 

[Methinkus]

This is information from the Star Wars Encyclopedia which I have borrowed from a friend of mine – inside a lightsaber’s hilt are two components with opposing energy alignments, one positive and one negative, the distance between them and the position of the Adegan crystal in relation to them sets the length of the blade. The standard length seen in films is as long as a lightsaber with only one crystal can get.

Note that in reality-land all this is quite impossible, laws of physics or whatever

hope this helped!

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I will give you the short version hoping someone else can explain it better. The best guess I am aware of from a real world physics standpoint is that a Lightsaber is not a Laser but rather a magneticaly contained plasma field. Now granted that to pull this off you would need a small nuclear reactor in the handle, but that is what sci-fi is all about. The plasma field is a superhot gass, with the magnetic field keeping it in the 3' length show. I read somewhere but couldn't reply as to how exactly it is forced into a tube shape, but somthing along the lines of a very narrow figue 8 shape. This also explains in Ep I the way they shoved it into the blast doors and started cutting thier way in. Hope that helps, it is the best I can do.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I heard the same "official" explaination as Methinkus, but it is only "TechBabble". It doesn`t work.
Light is an Electomagnetic Wave, and it is not subject to other electromagnetic energy fields in the way, they describe it. But who cares, it is Starwars, not Logiwars.

But if you want to make a better explaination in your own world, use Jenkins.
It is at least not as clearly impossible as the Light/Laser theory.

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[orbitalfreak]

Maybe try to build one and see if a professor at a local University can explain it?

 

[Ranger REG]

According to the Star Wars Essential Guide to Weapon and Technology, the "blade" is a closed energy loop. The crystal helped focus the energy into a tight parallel beam emerging from the emitter (located in the center of the saber's grip). It then loops back into a negatively-charged flux aperture (surrounding the center).

Think of a long thin pipe. The energy flows through the pipe on the inside, and then back the other way from the outside of the pipe. Of course, there is no "pipe" on the lightsaber, but I hope you get the gist.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

The long and short of it is... This is Fiction part of Science Fiction.

Don't worry about it too much.

 

[Ranger REG]

ACTUALLY, it's space fantasy. Nothing in those movie that suggest science fiction, except maybe when Han was arguing with Chewie when they're fixing the Falcon.

But for me, I have to worry. I love technobabble. Plus, I play a tech specialist.

"Trek before Star Wars."

 

[Jack Haggerty]

But for me, I have to worry. I love technobabble. Plus, I play a tech specialist.

"Trek before Star Wars."

In that case, just say it's an inverse tachyon field... In Trek, that'll solve ANY problem.

 

[Ranger REG]

Yeah, but that requires a lot of power. It can shorten the life of the dilithium crystal, which is essential for the warp drive. In the case of a lightsaber, you'd probably looking to replace the crystal (dilithium or not) once every two weeks.

I guess for me personally, I like plausible data. Despite that I and a handful of us know that this movie fits in the space fantasy category, the lowest spectrum of science fiction, it is still science fiction.