On this week's episode of Science and Star Wars... may the Force be with you Taylor Gray!
Lightsabers.
Hello and welcome to Science and Star Wars where we explore how close
real-world science has come to our favorite Star Wars technology.
I'm Anthony Carboni and joining me on the show is my friend here. Hello my name is Watson.
And today we're talking about lightsabers as Obi-Wan described them
"elegant weapon for a more civilized age" and by civilized Obi-Wan meant mess some
stuff up real bad. Watson what can you tell us about lightsabers?
After reading every Star Wars film script and the starwars.com databank
I have learned the lightsaber is a complex instrument consisting of the
pommel cap. hand grip. control module main hilt, focusing lens and blade emitter
with an energy core powered by a Kyber crystal. Kyber crystals actually power
both lightsabers and the Death Star it's what makes them different from something
like a blaster the closest thing we have in the real world to a lightsaber right
now is plasma and in order to achieve that you'll need a plasma arc welder.
But still lightsabers aren't real, we would also need
But that doesn't mean all hope is lost. No! in fact at the National Ignition
facility in Livermore, California there is a laser that can produce temperatures
close to the center of the Sun. It provides about hundred times the power
of the entire electrical grid of the world and it all concentrates that in a
tiny little spot for a billionth of a second creating incredible temperatures
and pressures which enables us to study high energy density physics that we use
to bring us future solutions to the energy problem of the world.
And at IBM Research Zurich they're floating plasma in the air what's very intensive our
laser is that we can focus this whole energy within 150 fantaseconds so this
is less than a millionth of a millionth of a second and this is what makes this
team stand very bright and very intense and then we can create a so-called
quantum fluid and with this quantum food we can study these quantum mechanical
applications for future computing.
Now surprisingly if you call the lab in
Zurich and request to use their very expensive laser but don't tell them why
hmm they tell you no! I wonder why. Taylor you are Ezra Bridger on Rebels you have
a lightsaber. I've had two right now I've got a green one. Green is good. Watson what
color lightsaber would I have? Based on my analysis of Star Wars materials and
cross-referencing your social media handle for personality insights your
lightsaber color would be green. Whoa! Look at that! Twinsies.
In the real world lightsabers come in one color, blinding white-hot what we're gonna do is make a
thermic lance so we've got a carbon steel tube here we have some steel wool
a and a tank of oxygen we're gonna run oxygen through this tube
and then use the steel wool as an igniter there's iron flecks in the steel
wool and when oxygen hits it you get iron oxide that is oxidation. Yes! it creates a
lot of energy in the form of heat which means we are going to create a 2,000
degrees Celsius plasma blade okay now this is a room to create plasma
we got Alan Pan with us you're gonna be helping us build some of our experiments
for the show and you've made a thermic Lance lightsaber like this before yeah I
did but mine was smaller and hit mounted it looks like yours is gonna be a lot
more powerful. Dude it feels legit looks legit let's see what it does
all right let's light this candle. I'm gonna ignite our steel wool we're gonna
start the oxygen flowing through that let's do it so what we have is a 100
pound double pane steel fire door.
Yeah!! Yeah we're through.
Taylor it looks so rad. I can feel the sparks!
Those are just your midichlorians, Taylor.
Get through that door Taylor!
Wow! Look at this you can see the burning and the scarring and the oxidation you
can feel the heat coming. That's full Qui-Gon. That is full Qui-Gon! Awesome!
Taylor Gray I have to ask you did we build a lightsaber today?
We built a very successful lightsaber that was unbelievable awesome man thank you so
much for being here. Thanks for having me! And remember we are just getting started
we have more here for you every single week and more science for you at ibm.com/StarWars
Look at that dude. That's insane!