Light Sabers......

[divisionByZero0]

How close are we to Light Saber technology? (In a non-fictional point of view)

[MCahoon]

far, far away??

Some serious obstacles - but I would not discourage anyone from endeavoring greatly towards a goal.

The general starting point seems to be that a light saber would be based on something like a laser - which is where one of the basic problems comes in - how to "end" the blade.

Secondly, light does not interact with light that I know of, so the "sword fight" scenes from the movies would not occur in reality.

A thought though - what if the light were just a visual indicator of the blade, but the actual "cutting force" were some other phenomenae of a shorter range nature?

[gblake]

Originally Posted by divisionByZero0

How close are we to Light Saber technology? (In a non-fictional point of view)

Somewhere between 10 years and never. We would have to discover and harness currently unknown physical properties of the universe to create a Star Wars light saber; and those properties might not exist (Magic 8 Ball says "Signs point to No.")

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by MCahoon

far, far away??

Some serious obstacles - but I would not discourage anyone from endeavoring greatly towards a goal.

The general starting point seems to be that a light saber would be based on something like a laser - which is where one of the basic problems comes in - how to "end" the blade.

Secondly, light does not interact with light that I know of, so the "sword fight" scenes from the movies would not occur in reality.

A thought though - what if the light were just a visual indicator of the blade, but the actual "cutting force" were some other phenomenae of a shorter range nature?

Forget lasers, they will only hinder progress. Plasma is where it is at. It can be seen, shaped, and reacts similarly to light sabers in starwars. It's not technically 'light', but it works.

Originally Posted by gblake

Somewhere between 10 years and never. We would have to discover and harness currently unknown physical properties of the universe to create a Star Wars light saber; and those properties might not exist (Magic 8 Ball says "Signs point to No.")

Again, It's called PLASMA. The 'fourth' state of matter.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by PAR_WIG1350

Forget lasers, they will only hinder progress. Plasma is where it is at. It can be seen, shaped, and reacts similarly to light sabers in starwars. It's not technically 'light', but it works.




Again, It's called PLASMA. The 'fourth' state of matter.

I know what plasma is - That's not the point.

[Chris is me]

Plasma doesn't behave as a magic semisolid beam of cutty stuff that you can turn on and off like a light saber... Sorry..

[DavidGitz]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Plasma doesn't behave as a magic semisolid beam of cutty stuff that you can turn on and off like a light saber... Sorry..

This definition of a light saber should be on wikipedia.

[divisionByZero0]

I have a slightly better belief in plasma rather than any form of light.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Ditto Chris on plasma not being the answer. Just looking at the properties of light sabers, there's no chance any laser, plasma, etc. solution is going to work. They can effortlessly cut through people and metallic objects. Anything laser/plasma based is going to burn through things, which necessarily takes some time. And would produce a lot of smoke and byproducts. Burning through a metal without leaving a pile of slag is even harder. So yeah, give up on plasma as a solution to this. If you're going to toss out a random futury word as a solution, atleast keep up with the times and say it'll probably be something quantum.

[divisionByZero0]

Plasma and lasers are the closest things we have to the light saber, eventhough we've most likely discovered 10% to 30% of all the properties of both lasers and the plasma-state matter.

On a related topic:
Super-heated rods of metal of +3000 degress celcius would not be considered a safe alternate for light-sabers.