How Hot Would a Light Saber Really Be? 410
Datagod asks: "Has anyone ever calculated the temperature you would need to be able to slice through steel like it was thin air? How hot would a light saber really need to be? Also, I am assuming that at least some of the metal would be vaporized and the expanding gas would fling bits of molten metal at the saber wielder. Wouldn't your average Jedi be horribly scarred from all this."
2nd post (Score:5, Funny)
Re:2nd post (Score:5, Informative)
"The House Subcommittee on Modern Intergalactic Weapons Development and Regulation"
My Firefox browser was hijacked, endless screens opened up and somebody's voice came over the speaker saying I know not what. One of the screens was an unpleasant image.
OK, I've been April Fooled. But I doubt it was the sort of thing slash.dot approves of and if it does, I'm disapointed.
Yes, I know all sorts of clever people can hijack my computer via malicious links. But I had hoped for better standards around here.
I'm now on the 4 hour virus scan/spyware checking cycle on my laptop. Just as well it's Saturday.
Re:2nd post (Score:3, Funny)
Re:2nd post (Score:5, Funny)
Very hot. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Very hot. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Very hot. (Score:5, Informative)
As the anti-protons move at uniform speed and the temperature is defined by the relative speed of particles wrt the flow.
One hot muthertrucker (Score:2)
I don't think it's the heat that does the cutting (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Very hot. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Very hot. (Score:3, Interesting)
What happens when light sabers try to cut adamantium?
I'll spare the details / speculation and leave it open ended...
Re:Very hot. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Very hot. (Score:5, Funny)
Luke warm maybe, but Leia in slave-dress is hot.
here's hoping (Score:2)
Duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Duh (Score:5, Funny)
Stevie Wonder jedi.
It is a time of great eye protection in the republic.
Eyeprotection worn by leading scientists without the force powers to deflect metal bits from their eyes.
They found the lightsaber:
Was developed from an ancient bread-slicer / toaster.
Contains 1.21 gigawats of power between recharge of it's flux capacitors.
Ranges from 350F to 50000F (battery life may suffer from extended operation, and overheating may occur at high temperatures.
Still makes a tasty grilled cheese sandwich in a pinch.
It was a dark time in the Republic.
Mainly because light sabers are really, really bright at high temperatures.
So bright as to be blinding.
Hence the recall.
*sigh* and so the 100th episode of the Star Wars series aired... in gravity distorting 3-D.
1138 left to go.
Wickedlasers (Score:4, Funny)
http://wickedlasers.com/ [wickedlasers.com]
O.K. so these aren't really lightsabers.
Re:Wickedlasers (Score:5, Informative)
*phew* that was close!
Re:Wickedlasers (Score:2)
How could you unleash the terror that is these lasers into the hands of the Slashdot community??? There's a laser on that site that is visible 120 miles away, without assistance... Dangerous in the hands of the average reader!
And I'm sure there's some wacko on here with the $2000 of disposable income that'll run out an buy to aim at planes... (as is *EXPLICTLY* prohibited on the website - and in US law.)
Nanotechnology (Score:5, Interesting)
Quite literally you could ram your nanotech light saber through a hostage taker and the nanites would decline to harm the whitelisted hostage.
I can't believe no one else thought of this. PATENT!!!!!! OMFG I am teh pwnz0r take that George Lucas!!!!!!
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:2)
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:2)
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:3, Funny)
My personal theory about light sabers is that they're really just extendable swords, with lights added to let people know where the bad parts are. You know, like how smell gets added to gasoline, or the title "prequal" gets added to some of Lucas's movies.
Light sabers are not hot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Light sabers are not hot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Light sabers are not hot (Score:2)
Consider oxy cutters and plasma cutters instead (Score:5, Interesting)
Plasma cutters are something else again, real and possibly far more like a light saber would be if such a thing was real. Heating up a gas and making it behave a lot like a liquid to burn things away leaving nothing but a clean cut and hot dust is the way the things work - all you need is high voltage electricity, appropriate electodes and a good supply of pressurised gas.
Re:Light sabers are not hot (Score:2, Insightful)
Hot enough to bring down WTC7 (Score:2)
In your heart, you know it's true.
As hot as... (Score:5, Funny)
Use the Force... (Score:5, Funny)
Not necessarily, Padawan. If a Jedi cuts through a door/bulkhead/vehicle with a light saber s/he could avoid getting splashed with melted metal by applying a subtle Force push along with the slicing motion of the saber. To Saber 101 class you should return, youngling. ;)
The real question is really... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The real question is really... (Score:2)
Re:The real question is really... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going off topic, but I think today's as good a day as any to do so... is it possible that at some point God renounced his omnipotence? As an omnipotent being, he would certainly have the power to do so... but of course he might not be able to undo it afterward, being no longer omnipotent. Perhaps he painted himself into a corner that way.
It would certainly explain the steep decline in the quality of miracles these days [bbc.co.uk]...
That's silly (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The real question is really... (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah. Nowaday, God logs in as a user instead of as root. It's so much more secure.
Re:The real question is really... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wikipedia notes the parallels of this to Hinduism. When I read God's Debris, I was reminded of GWF Hegel's Philosophy of Religion, where God also empties himself of divinity in order to start time and create the universe because he realized that his pure existence is meaningless. Time is the progress of God, the spirit of whom is now extended in all matter, coming to 'realize' himself as God. So, in a sense, God is evolving.
These theological moves (God is extended in the world and God is realized in the future) allow for dodging some thorny questions. For example, Can God create a rock that he can't lift? The answer is, for *now*, yes. But he might be stronger tomorrow.
Re:The real question is really... (Score:2)
Kind of. Although, once that point is reached, they're technically no longer called lightsabres. I think you must be referring to a dildo
My calculations say ... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:My calculations say ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My calculations say ... (Score:5, Funny)
Mod me please? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Mod me please? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mod me please? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing how the grand-parent got modded, I conclude that I hardly understand any logic in the modders mind anyways. Instead of considering using quasars for encryption, they should rather consider using /. mods.
Afraid (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Afraid (Score:2)
Re:Afraid (Score:2)
Not quite (Score:2)
How hot? enough to burn the user? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How hot? enough to burn the user? (Score:2)
Re:How hot? enough to burn the user? (Score:3, Interesting)
If a
Exploding Bodies (Score:3, Informative)
What I want to know is (Score:4, Funny)
Shadows (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shadows (Score:5, Informative)
Well, assume for a moment that it works. To melt metal one needs a lot of energy - so it likely comes from a nuclear source.
1kg of steel has specific heat of 448 joules per degree Kelvin.
Energy from fusion of hydrogen atoms is at most 8 Mev, the energy stored in Hafnium atom is 3 Mev - let's assume that the agent used has weight of Hafnium but produces 1 Mev per atom.
Thus 1kg of energy agent stores 9e10 Joules - plenty enough to heat 20e3 tonnes of steel to 10000 degrees - cool !
So, as long as I am having fun, here is a "complete" light saber design - just so that no one tries to patent something that obvious:
All your answers ... (Score:5, Informative)
It's not an issue of just temperature (Score:4, Informative)
Consider this: how hot does something have to be to melt an ice sculpture? Well, a match would do it, except a match can't provide the power necessary to melt a significant amount of ice.
You need the temperature necessary to turn steel into a vapor (look that up on a periodic table of elements); you also need the power necessary to turn some mass (per second) of steel into vapor. Anyone with a background in chemistry should be able to look up the required information on a standard periodic table.
The equation will look like this:
(Steel's specific heat) * (volume of steel to vaporize per second) * (temperature difference) = power necessary.
Re:It's not an issue of just temperature (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's not an issue of just temperature (Score:3, Informative)
Uh no. Steel is the name given to various Iron alloys. Iron is the name for the pure form of
Yes, I'm a Mechanical Engineer.
Temperature and Power (Score:2)
If it's just a heat transfer, don't forget that the rate of energy dissipation is dependent on temperature difference. All the power in the world won't do a thing unless it can be transfered.
Re:It's not an issue of just temperature (Score:3, Informative)
Assuming your numbers are correct, your last conclusion is wrong.
7612609 J produced over 10 seconds means 761260.9 Watts == 761 KILOwatts, not megawatts. Quite a difference.
Start your calculators! (Score:2)
More importantly, how hot would a lightsaber need to be to cut a pony into sausages? Pink hot?
Probably about as hot as an Ewok is deadly. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Probably about as hot as an Ewok is deadly. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's been awhile since I watched the movies. I do remember that it wasn't just the ewoks that bothered me, in terms of suspension of disbelief. Most of what I found hard to swallow about the series was either science/engineering stuff ("laser" weapons that shoot bolts, a planet sized spacecraft with an unprotected vent leading down into the reactor), or plot holes. However, those can be excused if you take a step back and look at star wars as fantasy, rather t
Re:Probably about as hot as an Ewok is deadly. (Score:2)
and.. I thought the whole point of the ewoks was that they happened to be in
Re:Probably about as hot as an Ewok is deadly. (Score:2)
Design by comitee at it's finest. That or ole' Geor
Re:Probably about as hot as an Ewok is deadly. (Score:2)
Of course, then you have to believe that the superlaser didn't have any kind of sensor on the port to disallow operation when the port is closed off, but that's not that hard of an oversight to imagine, especial
Re:Probably about as hot as an Ewok is deadly. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Probably about as hot as an Ewok is deadly. (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny, I seem to recall hearing that in an early draft, the Ewoks were supposed to be a space-faring, semi-technologically advanced race. I think it might have even been that they were supposed to be Wookies. Then when the toy sales blew up after the first movie, Lucas re-wrote them into an excuse to sel
but... (Score:2, Funny)
The Holy Grail of lightsabers (Score:2, Insightful)
Lightsabers work because... (Score:3, Informative)
Light sabers (and all other Star Wars pseudo-science) work because Lucas has no idea how physics works in reality, and he doesn't understand that there is a point where suspension of disbelief can no longer support the premise,especially in an adult audience.
I was actually asking a serious question... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I was actually asking a serious question... (Score:2)
Is the light sabre hotter than the pink of this site?
Could you get it hot enough to melt the OMG Ponies!!
And last but not least...
Does Sailor Moon wield light sabres? if so... *Swoon*!!
(As a total aside, my room mate stuck a mottled My Little pony on my computer and told me it was my pony because it was all mottled n stuff. So I have my very own Zombie pony.I pointed out the 'OMG ponies!' and she just stared blankly at the screen for a moment, then wandered off to go to
Pretty Damn Hot. (Score:3, Interesting)
so it depends (Score:2, Insightful)
Not hot at all, until.... (Score:2)
Re:Not hot at all, until.... (Score:2)
It's a plasma, contained by magnetic fields. (Score:3, Insightful)
The example I found of a Tocamac plasma [pppl.gov] is only red, but is 20-30 million degrees C. However, the lightsabers in the original (and therefore One True) Star Wars were white. This means they must be considerably hotter. The page I found on near-solid high energy density plasmas [utoronto.ca] also talks about tens of millions of degrees - my gut feeling would be that to produce totally solid white plasma would require 40-50 million degrees C.
Now, plasmas at that kind of temperature could quite reasonably be expected to slice through almost anything - steel included. Furthermore, anything that was vaporised would be repelled by the magnetic field and thus travel AWAY from the wielder. This does mean that if you are fighting someone with a lightsaber, you will get sprayed with high-energy plasma every time they hit something.
There is one minor problem, though. Energy. If you want to maintain something at 50 million degrees, AND a containment field, a couple of duracel batteries won't cut it. Even lithium batteries will go flat very quickly. My guess is that the handle of the lightsaber, therefore, contains a wormhole linked to a gigantic anti-matter reactor.
All you REALLY need to do, then, is find out where your opponent's reactor is hidden and turn it off. Their lightsaber will then be useless.
Re:It's a plasma, contained by magnetic fields. (Score:3, Informative)
Also, the magnetic field by itself would just constrain the particles to the axis of the saber. There's
As a source familier with the source... (Score:2)
Why Yes!! as a spokesperson for Jedi Inc.. (LLC) I can safely state that all Jedi completing our online (tm) courses since 5/12/97 have an exemplary track record. Most scars from lightsabers now result in the loss of limbs and/or other LEBOoETO (Life Enabling Biological Organs of ExtraTerrestrial Origin). We have strived hard to maintain safe Jedi Training Environment, and can now report that most Jedi are not only scarred, but scared as well!
When using one, don't forget safety! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/your_lightsab
SirWired
delightful... (Score:3, Funny)
You've got it all wrong (Score:5, Funny)
I was of the opinion ... (Score:2)
It isn't so much the steel/wood/flesh/whatever being "vaporized" as whatever matter is within the localized field.
The resulting release of energy would blow the wielder of the light saber into nothingness, except for a second localized field that collects the energy an
Sheilding (Score:2)
So, where are all these ponies I keep hearing about?
It may come down to the physics (Score:2)
On the other hand - a lightsaber may involve a different kind of physics where the material is actually displaced by other force and the light is actually only a visual representation caused by the displacement field.
Whatever - you have to study the physics of the StarWars universe first to come out with a solution to the pro
Re:It may come down to the physics (Score:3, Funny)
But the real question is: where did lucas get a telescope powerful enough to record all of this?
Tagging (Score:2)
LOL (Score:2)
Ok, fine, I'll do it (Score:2)
The melting temperature of steel [jlab.org] is 1370 degrees C (room temperature is 20 degrees), so the the lightsaber has to raise the temperature 1370-20=1350 degrees C).
Now (to pull some numbers out of my ass) let's say our hypothetical jedi swings a 1-meter-long-and-.02-meter-wide lightsaber through a bulkhead in a circular fashion, sweeping out a 120 degree arc. The volume of steel he has to melt is (120/360) * (pi*r^2) *width, where r = 1 meter an
Remember kids (Score:3, Funny)
Don't use your light saber to pick your teeth.
Don't use your light saber to gut fish
If you do any of these things, you might be a jedi redneck.
Bubba-Boe-Bob-Bader: "Shoot, son come on over t' the dark side... it'll be a hoot"
How They Work... (Score:2, Funny)
First off, you need to imagine a sort of 'shield' around the blade. It is this shield that actually forms the blade in to a specific shape and length. It uses micro-miniature deflector technology. It's all deflector technology these days. If you can picture a sort of transparent hollow tube you are on the right track. In fact, if a Jedi needs a non-lethal billy club he/she can simply switch off the fusi
Slashdot killed my inner nerd (Score:3, Interesting)
Could Jesus microwave a burrito (Score:2)
The correct quote is:
"Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?"
pshh
Re:Could Jesus microwave a burrito (Score:5, Funny)
No, he could always eat the burrito, no matter how hot. He would just suffer while eating it. Horribly. For all our sakes. (And of course, since a Jewish man prepared the burrito, we Christians would hold the Jewish people guilty of this for the rest of time, or at least for a millenium or two...)
Re:Could Jesus microwave a burrito (Score:2)
whether his tolerance for heat would be below that point is the question...
Re:Could Jesus microwave a burrito (Score:4, Insightful)
"I cannot answer your question because it contains inconsistent assumptions."
Re:Hot? What about cold? (Score:2)
Re:spoiler warning!! (Score:2, Funny)