Science Channel: Building a Real Lightsaber

[Kastor]

Next week, 10pm EST on the Science Channel there is a How To Build A Lightsaber program called 'Sci Fi Science' Just thought that might be of interest incase you haven't heard.

[Novastar]

Cool...

But.... d'ohhh I don't have the science channel, so... I guess me gots to waits untils its on da internetz... :D

[Jedi-Loreen]

Cool, I do have Science Channel. :-) I never knew. I've been missing out! :|

For me, it's on Tues. night at 7 and 10pm.

[Rhyen Skytracker]

Can someone TiVO that for me and burn it to a DVD? I don't have the science channel here either.

[Jedi-Loreen]

Not I. Me no got TiVO.

[Rhyen Skytracker]

What?!?!?! I thought everyone had a TiVO. How do you survive with out one? LOL

[Scars Unseen]

I bang sticks together and make drawings on the wall with charcoal

[FenderBender]

Bleh, I watched the clip. Hopefully, thats not the only approach that they'll go into in the show. The whole "it's gotta be made of plasma" approach is just overdone and convenient for carnival science to sell to a TV program.

[JamoUp]

Michio Kaku, in his book Physics of the Impossible says that light wouldn't work, because two beams of light would pass through each other and light goes on forever (can't have a 36in blade). And since he is basically the authority on sci-fi science that's what people (TV) goes with these days.

[Rhyen Skytracker]

I don't think plasma would be the way to make lightsabers. I am not sure what they would be made of but I don't think it would be plasma.

[Sunrider]

Plasma is not light. If dense enough with fields to contain it. Plausible.;)

[Rhyen Skytracker]

It would generate way too much heat to even get near was my main point with the plasma. Even if the hilt was cool to the touch the blade wouldn't be able to get anywher close to you.

[Thaxos]

This is relevant to my interests. ;)

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

How to build a real lightsaber isn't really a scientific question its an engineering question.

What it boils down to, essentially, is two requirements; one in materials science and one in fabrication technique.

1. room temperature superconducting material.

2. nanoassemblers.

Extreme energy density storage torii could be built out of the former by the latter.

So could extremely minaturized particle accelerator rings or perhaps more likely helices to generate microscopically fine very tightly collimated ANTIPROTON streams

As could be the complex mechanisms for the multiple moving magnetic fields that would both contain the antiproton stream and make sabers 'duelable' as weapons with mutual 'blade' repulsion and 'saberlocks'.

Room temperature superconductors are SUCH a 'game changer' disruptive-technology across almost EVERY technology sector Humanity produces that IF such material was discovered tomorrow it is very likely that VERY powerful 'interests' would immediately try to gain a monopolistic control if business or 'classify' it if govermental...the life of its discover wouldnt be worth the proverbial plugged nickel, and its unlikely WE would hear of it for a loooooooooooooong time...the 'alphabet boys' wherever it was discovered would make SURE of that...

...similarly nanoassemblers would almost certainly be a 'suppressed technology' for similar but not only 'vested interest' reasons - besides being a disruptive technology nanoassemblers would represent a very real 'clear and present danger' ANYWHERE on Earth - NOBODY wants the 'Grey Goo' scenario - so nanoassemblers would ONLY be allowed to exist once a Civilization becomes spacefaring to the extent that ALL nanoassemblers can be safely strictly confined to automated uninhabited orbital or deep space nanofactories with EXTREME 'quarantine' protocols...heck we'd have to CREATE a 'level 5' containment protocol for them [present containment protocols for our most lethal pathogens only go to Level 4] and it almost certainly would read "OFF WORLD ONLY". Since we have no off-world colonies and no plans to build them this century [afaik] I'm reasonably sure TPTB will NOT ALLOW nanoassemblers to exist SOON for any reason much less building real lightsabers.

This is a SOCIOPOLITICAL limit on building lightsabers not a technical one.

[Rhyen Skytracker]

If we had real lightsabers there would be so many people with out arms and legs. I know I would have cut off my arms and legs hundreds of times, and even my head a few times, if they were real. LOL

[Sunrider]

LOL Rhyen too true.:p That's why they would be so difficult to use. The technology may not be too far away to make a blade but me thinks a mandalorian power cell is pretty far off.

Yes a hilt would have to have a reflective field to protect the user from the blade & objects being cut.;)

[Shadar Al'Niende]

How to build a real lightsaber isn't really a scientific question its an engineering question.

What it boils down to, essentially, is two requirements; one in materials science and one in fabrication technique.

1. room temperature superconducting material.

2. nanoassemblers.

Extreme energy density storage torii could be built out of the former by the latter.

So could extremely minaturized particle accelerator rings or perhaps more likely helices to generate microscopically fine very tightly collimated ANTIPROTON streams

As could be the complex mechanisms for the multiple moving magnetic fields that would both contain the antiproton stream and make sabers 'duelable' as weapons with mutual 'blade' repulsion and 'saberlocks'....


Is it wrong that this makes me excited? :rolleyes:

[Kal El Rah]

Is it wrong that this makes me excited? :rolleyes:

It's all good........;)

[Blade-Rave]

wasn't there a theory where the energy ignited from the saber was actually suspended in a minor megnetic field of some sort that allowed the length of the energy to be controlled so it could extend to a certain length, rather than go on to infinite lengths?

[Jedi-Loreen]

Photons from light don't respond to magnetic fields though, do they? I thought it took a black hole to bend light.

Maybe some way to reflect it back on itself?

I don't know, I'm not a physicist.

[Firedrops]

Photons from light don't respond to magnetic fields though, do they? I thought it took a black hole to bend light.

Maybe some way to reflect it back on itself?

I don't know, I'm not a physicist.



And that, is where Tim's super powers come in handy.

[Rhyen Skytracker]

There's the answer. Each saber has to have a black hole to control it. LOL

[Crystal Chambers]

Gravity bends light and the density of a black hole is so great they can do that.

Also antimatter is believe to bend light.

Bob lazar has some interesting theories based on supposed UFO reverse engineering. Mainly that they utilize the gravity of subatomic particles to make the same matter bend time space around itself. When they do this it would make a alien craft appear to vanish but it's still there bending light in preparation for the maneuvers that witnesses claim defy known physics.

That ceramic telescope idea was quite a stretch. As If ceramic could withstand so much abuse. I think this show looked like a desperate attempt to get ratings and sell ad time. I saw several different clips and I wasn't too impressed.

[FenderBender]

That ceramic telescope idea was quite a stretch. As If ceramic could withstand so much abuse. I think this show looked like a desperate attempt to get ratings and sell ad time. I saw several different clips and I wasn't too impressed.


Exactly.:cool:

[Titoshi]

Plasma will work, just not the plasma from a plasma torch/cutter. the Other plasma(4th state of matter) can be tuned, as it were, to produce a specific repulsion type field. There was that science of star wars show that was on last year that went into the theory of it. They actually showed a 3x3 in working repulsor shield that worked like the invisible doors on a star destroyer hangar bay. Some scientist already built a machine that can produce a 3 in long 1 in round plasma beam, but the machine is 3 stories tall and the length of a football field. It seems like the batons the robo-police from futurama use are more likely that a true light saber unfortunately.

[Darth_DevilGuy]

Plasma will work, just not the plasma from a plasma torch/cutter. the Other plasma(4th state of matter) can be tuned, as it were, to produce a specific repulsion type field. There was that science of star wars show that was on last year that went into the theory of it. They actually showed a 3x3 in working repulsor shield that worked like the invisible doors on a star destroyer hangar bay. Some scientist already built a machine that can produce a 3 in long 1 in round plasma beam, but the machine is 3 stories tall and the length of a football field. It seems like the batons the robo-police from futurama use are more likely that a true light saber unfortunately.

the problem isn't plasma, it's superheated plasma, if the air touches something so hot it can cut through steel like a hot knife through butter it too will become superheated, and that's when your lungs melt.

my solution is to use a paired field one of superheated plasma as a central core, the second as an envelope around the core, the two don't interact, the envelope keeps anything with the density of gas or liquid out while allowing solids to pass and be cut/burned/melted.

[Ingchao]

Watched the show last night.
Besides the power supply being many years away (insert gov't conspiracy to suppress that tech),
I think Prof. Kaku's idea of channeling the plasma thru ceramic tubes is B.S. The ceramic would more than likely shatter as soon as it made contact with another blade. He basically stole that idea from the cheap- I mean budget- Hasbro sabers.
I've watched a few episodes and I'm not impressed with the show @ all.

Oh yeah, big props to Flynn (Talek) and Paul S. (Darth Jinduri) from the NY Jedi for a great job demonstrating in the background for Mr Kaku!:D

[JamoUp]

Yeah a brilliant physicist who built a particle execrator in his garage for his high school science project definitely stole his ideas from a cheap hasbro toy. The jig is up!

[Crystal Chambers]

yeah but this is entertainment. He's probably got pressure on him to go a certain way with the show. No matter how smart he is, like most shows they want sensationalism and insult our intelligence by catering to lowest common denominator. I find so many shows dumbed down and it sucks because TV shows could be so rich if quality programming really came first ...I'm just a little jaded..lol

[JamoUp]

The show definitely doesn't let him get into the down and dirty of it. How many people could understand the math behind these concepts...not many. So the show makes it light and fluffy for consumer audiences. But to suggest he is making things up, or stole ideas is ridiculous. I suggest people read his book "the physics of the impossible" (also available on itunes) to get a more in-depth idea of the concepts (and the math and physics behind them) that the show is talking about.

[FenderBender]

Didn't say he wasn't brilliant, I just think he sold out on the whole "rock star" image that Discovery Network has made for him, and he just threw a half way plausible idea out there to give them something to put on TV. If he ACTUALLY divoted some time to the idea, maybe he'd come up with something truly great.

[Ingchao]

The show definitely doesn't let him get into the down and dirty of it. How many people could understand the math behind these concepts...not many. So the show makes it light and fluffy for consumer audiences. But to suggest he is making things up, or stole ideas is ridiculous. I suggest people read his book "the physics of the impossible" (also available on itunes) to get a more in-depth idea of the concepts (and the math and physics behind them) that the show is talking about.

Did you see his "concept"? The man may be brilliant, but to have telescoping ceramic tubes? C'mon, man even on their own ceramic is useless as a contact surface for a saber.

And if you read the ST:THG tech manual you will see where his "warp drive" came from.

[Eco]

the problem isn't plasma, it's superheated plasma,
There is only superheated plasma.
It doesn't exist unless it's super heated, because the ridiculous temperature is required to free the electrons from their orbit around the nucleus of the atom.

if the air touches something so hot it can cut through steel like a hot knife through butter it too will become superheated, and that's when your lungs melt.

The saber is fueled by air from the fan at the base of the hilt. So it will already be superheating air. The magnetic field keeps the plasma in check.



That ceramic telescope idea was quite a stretch. As If ceramic could withstand so much abuse.
Maybe not the ceramic on it's own. But imagine carbon fiber inlaid within the ceramic. The carbon fiber provides flexibility and tensile strength while the ceramic protects the carbon fiber.

I think everyone is forgetting that Mr. Kaku didn't say that his design would definitely work. He said that this was a theoretical design that is nothing more than a basic concept. The nano-cell battery technology is another 50 years away, easily. By the time those 5 decades are up, we'll know ten times more about plasma and magnetic fields than we do now.

In the 1900's, a college professor said that commercial air flight for the masses will never be a reality because it is impossible. For less than $200 I could be in Florida by tomorrow.

In the 1950's, university students who were involved with developing the computer said that by 1980, a computer will weigh no less than 1.5 tons.

Technology moves too fast for us to say what isn't possible or what wouldn't work.

[DarthRevenchist89]

The thing that bakes my noodle is what that guy was at the end? That was a something I have never seen before and I saw some strange stuff at gencon last summer.

[RuleOfTwo]

I'm gonna throw in my two cents as an engineer who has a couple years experience with nuclear physics and plasmas.

As it was correctly pointed out earlier, light is no good simply because it cant be contained the way a plasma can. It's gotta be a plasma.

You can strike a Hydrogen plasma in a near vacuum and mold it into a beam using electrostatics (voltage differentials). This is not how you would want to do a saber because you need a target at both ends of the beam (since electrons go one way and the protons, or ionized hydrogen, goes the other) and it takes a lot of power to maintain it, among other issues. I worked with this technology for building a 'Neutron generator' for another application.

The most likely candidate is a magnetically confined plasma. Just google the 'VASMR Engine'. Ions and electrons will spiral around magnetic field lines, so the right magnetic field shape will contain the plasma. A problem that you run into when you use very high energy particles is bremsstrahlung radiation, which are photons with energies around X-Rays and gamma rays (Jedi with cancer is not fun). Lower energy plasmas would probably be fine and still hot enough to melt 'stuff'.

So, room temperature superconducting material is a must for magnetic confinement. Oh, and magnetic confinement is great for isolating the hilt from the beam, so your hands don't melt. Also, I saw a cool thesis project presentation in one of my grad classes that proposed an arrangement of permanent magnets for a portable MRI that create a magnetically intense zone surrounded by a region of negligible magnetic field strength. For an analogy, think of turning on an oven and leaving the door open, but the heat stays only in the oven. You could stand next to this thing in a chainmail suit and be perfectly fine, but stick your hand inside and watchout!

As for power....gotta be some kind of nuclear battery, which is socially difficult, but not so much technologically difficult. You'd need a radioactive isotope that emits alpha particles (which cant hurt you unless they are inside you) and some sort of semiconductor arrangement to collect the electric charge. This is not a new idea. You could probably google 'Nuclear Battery Alpha Emitter' and get a bunch or articles.

I could talk about this stuff all day!

[Sunrider]

As for power....gotta be some kind of nuclear battery, which is socially difficult, but not so much technologically difficult.

LOL too true. We could be driving around in cars that would last 40 years without using gas or any other fuel. But that is too dangerous. Lets just stick with an imploding civilization, oil slicks and sky high gas prices. :?