In a galaxy far far away, a mysterious weapon called the lightsaber is wielded with the
power to cut nearly anything in its path.
So what if lightsabers were real?
Taking a look at the anatomy of a lightsaber, the design is pretty ambiguous.
The handle contains a couple real and fictional components such as a power conductor, a crystal
plasma source, a few energy modulators, and a magnetic stabilizer.
Because the time it would take me to describe how to possibly make all of these things combined
into a light saber, the lightsaber would obviously already exist, so instead let’s take a look
at what a lightsaber with the properties seen in the movies and what it would be like.
In lore the lightsaber actually arcs out of the handle and comes back in.
But is this even possible?
Maybe, but without the force on your side it could be incredibly dangerous.
Any interactions with other lightsabers would cause interference, though this interference
wouldn’t be the kind of interference seen in the movies.
The blades would pass right through each other with the plasma beams arcing uncontrollably.
So let’s get one thing out of the way, arcing lightsabers probably wouldn't work and controlling
the length would be nearly impossible.
Let’s fix that.
Luckily Star Wars leave a lot to the imagination.
So Plasma is a gaseous state of matter with an incredibly high amount of energy.
This increase in energy causes the gas separate into positively charged ions and negatively
charged free flowing electrons.
But this also means that plasma is a magnetically charged gas that can be shaped by magnetic
fields.
The more these particles move the higher the temperature, therefore plasma is generally
incredibly hot.
Because the lightsabers in the movies are essentially plasma cutters, they’d have
similar characteristics as the small scale manufacturing plasma cutter.
But instead of a 2 cm blade, it would be about 1 mete.
Ignoring the fact that the amount of radiant heat this would generate could ignite objects
around you and maybe even your own clothing, if there was a way to control it, this may
actually be pretty deadly.
That's why, the plasma particles would be ejected out of the handle, through nozzles,
at supersonic speeds.
These particles basically act as a molecular chainsaw.
As the atomic particles impact the particles of an iron rod, or flesh, they transfer their
kinetic energy into the iron atoms, knocking them out of line.
Due to temperature and speed drop off, the blade would actually need to be hotter and
be traveling faster that way towards the end of the blade it can be as deadly as it is
towards the beginning of the blade.
This is where the magnetic field comes into play, it could limit the blade from having
influence beyond 1 meter, but still allow it to be deadly at the desired length.
For the blade design, get rid of the arcing blade it would be uncontrollable, it would
be dangerous.
We don't even want to go there.
A telescoping rod would be a much better alternative.
A cap can be added on the end too, acting as a protective guard when the unit is disengaged
and and a limiter when it is engaged.
When the rod is at full length, a magnetic field could be generated, traveling up through
the rod and out and around the outside of the plasma, ending its journey back to the
magnetic stabilizer.
With the lightsaber having to cut through iron rods, the plasma would need to be excessively
hot and projected at very high speeds.
For this reason, traditional materials for the telescoping rod simply won’t work.
Ceramic is a great place to start because due to its crystalline structure, ceramics
have extremely high melting points, but this temperature tolerance comes at a cost: it
is extremely brittle.
According to new research and studies, a new material made up of Hafnium, nitrogen and
carbon could have a melting point of about 4,000 degrees Celsius.
There’s no indication that this material would be able to transfer the magnetic field
to contain the plasma, but we already know ceramics couldn’t either.
Iron has a melting point of about 1540 degrees Celsius which is about 1/3rd the temperature
of the surface of the sun.
Assuming the telescoping rod is 1 meter long and 3 centimeters diameter with an additional
5 centimeter diameter plasma blade around that, it would take about 68 Mega-Watts of
power to cut through iron and most other things.
That’s enough power to cut through most things and also supply 10,000 homes with power
for 12 hours and that’s only to generate the plasma.
With a power generator on board to supply it with enough juice for it to run approximately
all day, you would need a serious power generation technology on board.
There have been breakthroughs with carbon nanotubes, exploiting its naturally high conductivity,
but super dense batteries that can power a light saber are still exclusive the the galaxy
far far away.
Although it seems like this technology is far fetched, the same has been said about
cell phones, air planes, trains, really anything is possible.
I have no doubt that in the future, if the technology is there to make a light saber,
there will be someone out there that will make a light saber.
Anyways guys, I hope you enjoyed this video and if you did be sure to give this video
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Anyways guys, leave your comments down below, if you could have any light saber, what color
would it be?
Anyways guys, thanks for watching.