Original Star Wars concept art by Ralph McQuarrie
1 STARKILLER AND HIS TRUSTY LAZERSWORD
Stories abound on the internet these days about early drafts of the original Star Wars trilogy. Lucas made the move from Starkiller to Skywalker, from Bogan to The Dark Side, and since when is Biggs Luke’s brother? But most importantly for this essay, he went from Lazersword to Lightsaber, (check out starwarz.com for more). Both of which are terrible misnomers, even though the latter is far cooler sounding. Unfortunately both regular light and light amplified by the stimulated emission of radiation are completely useless as a weapon, or a tool, or anything beyond a fancy colored flashlight for finding your way through a dense jungle cavern. So let’s do this . . .
1.1 A BOSON WALKS THROUGH A BAR . . .
The reason we can’t swing flashlights at each other with epic, spark-flying, ear shattering results is simple, photons are bosons. In the simplest of terms a photon is a “quanta” of light, that is, it’s the smallest discontinuous piece of a continuous electric field. If the ocean were an electric field, a photon would be like a single wave in the ocean. That’s not a perfect analogy, but it will do.
So what is a boson? Well Quantum Physicists are still trying to answer that in finer and finer detail, but there are some basic observations about bosons that we need to know. Primarily, bosons have overlapping wave functions.
Now, I don’t want to derail the lovely conversation we’re having, so I’m going to avoid talking about matter waves, but if you’re feeling brave look up deBroglie and his famous wavelength equation. So photons are like these waves in the ocean, and like waves they can overlap, and they can even pass right through each other having little to no observable effect. So we can wave our laser pointers, flashlights, skylights, etc. at each other all day long. The photon waves will just pass right through each other. . . bummer.
Here’s a little thought experiment that I stole from a famous Physicist named Richard Feynman. Look around you right now, go ahead, look. All of the things that you see are due to light either emitting or reflecting off of the objects around you, traveling to your eye, triggering your retina, and producing an electrical signal in your brain. Light is traveling around you in every direction, it’s reflecting off of the walls, emitting from your lights, and dispersing off of every surface, in every direction. Yet, the light from those objects makes it’s way through all of that noise to your eyes. Cleanly, clearly, without distortion from all of the other light around you. It is the nature of light, without this property it would be like trying to look through a thick luminous fog of light from all of the sources around us. We’d all be effectively blind.
So does this material, these photons, make for a good weapon? Nope.
2 THE FOURTH STATE OF MATTER
Alright, we can’t use bosons such as light, what else is there? Do fermions do this wave thing to? Do you remember fermions . . . ? Go back and read my Ant-Man essay for a refresher. But yes, lucky for us there is a particle whose wave function can’t overlap. It creates the foundational pressures inside of a white dwarf, it moves as a gas through the crystalline structure of metals, and it carries a charge. The electron!
Everyone is familiar with the three most common states of matter, we learn them early in our education. Solid, liquid, and gas. But there is one more that we see every day, it light’s up our signs and it lights up our world, plasma.
Plasma is a collection of highly ionized particles and charged particles that acts as a fluid. It’s sort of like a gas, but imagine heating up a gas to the point that the electrons surrounding the atoms had enough energy to break away. It’s like a soup of free electrons and the atoms and molecules they used to be attached to.
2.1 “MAGNETS, HOW DO THEY WORK . . . ?”
Fortunately, it doesn’t take a, ahem, “miracle” to trap plasma. It just takes a little science. The benefit to using plasma is that charged particles, (like electrons and their positively charged former atoms), can be controlled with what is known as a “magnetic bottle”. As a charged particle travels through a magnetic field, the field causes it to curve, and ultimately to change direction. By shaping the magnetic field correctly, we can trap a charged particle, (or a whole bunch of them), in a small space that we specify based on the field we create. Awesome! Problem solved!
Nope.
The problem with magnetic bottles, (or magnetic mirrors if you want to be a stickler), is that the geometry of them is faulty. They leak. This has been the bane of scientists the world over for more than sixty years. Containing plasma is almost impossible due to the inherent problems with the magnetic containment fields. (NO, the movie Angels and Demons was not correct in showing a suspended particle of anti-matter in a magnetic container. That anti-matter would have fallen straight out and annihilated instantly.
But I digress . . . ). No matter how strong your field is you are always going to slowly leak out all of your plasma to the environment. . . bummer number two.
2.2 HOW HOT IS HOT?
Notice the “heating up” part that I just sort of glossed right over? The trick to a good plasma is energy in the form of heat. The hotter a plasma gets, the more electrons that get freed up, and the more ionized and electrically conductive the plasma becomes. Even the coldest thermal plasma is around 2000K. (That’s a little over 3100◦F for the non-Kelvin user). That’s HOT! A good saber is not going to be cold either, we’re probably talking 5000 − 6000K for a good one. That’s as hot as the Sun! How is Obi-Wan’s little hut not melting into glass the instant Luke fire’s up his old man’s lightsaber!? Better yet, how does any Jedi anywhere not fire up their lightsaber and burst into flames? Heat, (in this instance), is electromagnetic waves in the form of infrared radiation. Don’t let the name fool you, “electromagnetic” might sound like we can contain it with magnets also, but we can’t. It’s essentially light, and you can’t catch light with a magnet. So unless the creatures that live in that galaxy far, far away have some Kryptonian in their bloodline, I believe this is bummer number three.
3 LET’S MAKE A LIGHTSABER!
Wait, what? Didn’t we just prove that it’s basically impossible? Yes. But we’re talking Jedi here. Let’s make it work!
First, the hilt, what’s in it? Well, we need plasma, so there’s some sort of gas canister full of. . . let’s say Hydrogen? Sure, why not. The easiest way to make plasma is by bombarding it with microwaves , so there’s some sort of small magnetron to generate microwaves that create our plasma, (and maybe we could focus those microwaves with some sort of crystal eh?). And finally, a powerful electromagnet to create our containment field. Unfortunately we would still leak plasma, and the heat would vaporize anyone within a hundred mile radius.
How did Lucas do it? With brute force, pun intended. The only way that all of these barriers can be overcome without breaking the laws of physics is with the force. (Which can break all of the laws of physics with impunity).
We know that lightsabers can only be constructed by a force user in a deep and highly focused meditation. It is said that it can take hours to days depending on the strength and focus of the creator. So that’s in our favor. But can only force wielders use them?
Well, according our above postulate the answer is yes. Yet somehow several non-force users have picked up and actually used one. The easiest example is when Han Solo has to open up a tauntaun to squeeze his buddy into for warmth. What can explain this? I say one of two things: 1) In a universe where the force is prevalent, there are millions in touch with it without knowing. That is, they are exposed to it so often that it’s effects are invisible, they use it use it subconsciously. Or a more likely explanation; 2) The builder is able to employ some form of permanent force setting around the saber that travels with it regardless of the wielders abilities. It’s the only viable explanation given the boundaries we are facing.
The Star Wars saga is one of the greatest stories in modern movie history. And while it breaks down all of the known laws and properties of science, it tells a story that strikes a chord in almost all of us. In light of the evidence, I believe we can forgive the catch all “force” excuse when in the end, it tells a great tale.
—Brain
Producer’s note: We here at The SciFi Podcast are pleased to present the scientific musings of one of the smartest guys we know: The Brain! We’ve all been friends with Brain (aka Brian Patchett) for decades, but mostly in the context of mohawks and guitars. Now we have the pleasure of getting to read his thoughts on the real science of fiction with this “The Physics of …” series. We are very happy to post another of his ingenious Brain Blogs here. And, if you like this, check out his previous entries and look for more in the future. IT. IS. YOUR. DESTINY!
First!
And only.
Wait.
Damn.
I imagine much of our listenership is like me when it comes to Brain’s essays. I read them. I love them. I couldn’t possibly say anything even halfway intelligent as a response.
This is true. I feel bad that I never post an answer to his very interesting and informative posts, but I’m no rocket scientist :/
And I’m only a part-time rocket scientist.
I think people should speak up with every crazy, wrong, outlandish, idea they have about this stuff! Before I knew any of this, I knew none of it. Someone had to show me, and I’m happy to pass that along and show people how stuff REALLY works. It makes you fall in love with the crazy reality of our universe, instead of the crazy b.s. that floats around society.
You know, I would love to hear your take on the flat earth theory that has taken off like crazy lately. I’ve seen all the videos of so called “proof” and it all sounds like bogus science to me. Personally, I think it’s the biggest mass trolling in the history of the internet. I’m 99% sure that the majority of the flat earthers are just tagging along just to troll. The main reason I’m bringing this up is because I have a friend that saw The Martian and he had the hardest time appreciating it because he was so deep into the conspiracy theories surrounding the round earth, NASA, space, and whatnot, that he just couldn’t see the movie for what it was. It saddened me to no end.
I both love and hate to talk about the flat earth theory. I love to because it’s so easy to debunk, I hate it because no matter how much proof you give, people will believe whatever they want. The typical flat earther has gotten just enough science to understand why the theory works, but not enough to see where it’s completely implausible. Like NdGT said “The best thing about science is that it’s true whether you believe it or not.” But then flat earthers use the same quote to support their madness…
Haha so true. When I brought up NdGT my friend’s defense was: “He’s in on it!”
Here’s just one example of getting the science of a round Earth RIGHT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gNkgj9h2oM
And you’re right about speaking up, Brain. I’ll try to do that more often even if I sound like a buffoon.
One initial question you may not know the answer to, Brain. How does the Star Wars universe attempt to explain the mechanics of a lightsaber (if at all). I have heard about the crystals (and I noticed your wink to them), but I don’t really get what is supposed to be happening. I guess I just imagined some sort of laser / hot lava knife was coming out that was totally self-contained, which (is the only explanation that I like within the universe and) leads me to a comment an a question.
Comment: I love your force theory, that the maker built some sort of “force” field around the lightsaber upon building it. I like that the theory essentially uses magic to explain the failures of science and logic.
Question: Forgive me if this is already in there in a way I didn’t pick up on, but how do real lasers work as weapons? They can cut metal and wood, right? I had a science teacher in Jr. High tell me that the only problem with the lightsaber was the length–that it would shoot out forever until it hit something. My teacher said that one would need to construct a pole (the length of your desired blade) with something on the end to absorb or reflect the laser’s heat. Any thoughts on this or am I not making any sense?
1) There is a TON of non-canon description of the mechanics of lightsabers. An easy source is the Wookiepedia. But you’ll notice that at all of these sources they mostly throw around a scientific “word salad” that, while impressive, actually means close to nothing.
2) I like the force theory too, I kinda came up with that on the spot. And there’s nothing in the canon that says you CAN’T put some sort of permanent “force” field around something.
3) Your teacher is kinda right and kinda not talking about the same thing. So a LIGHT saber would indeed go on forever an need a reflector, but I showed above that they can’t be made of light, not even l.a.s.e.r. (Light Amplified by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) light would work, they would just pass through each other, they need electron degeneracy pressure to fight with them like swords, so they’re plasma. And primarily they’re heat weapons, (even though they are electrically conductive). Everything they cut melts, if it’s biological it cauterizes (that’s why Darth Maul survived Obi-Wan cutting him in half, it’s canon!), so yeah, it cuts wood just as easily when it’s as hot as the sun.
Lightsaber essay read and loved by me…
Even though I only really understood a little of it.
What I love is the relative unimportance a of how it hey work (according to the movies). They are almost mystical, which makes them far more interesting in some ways. It’s like the essay says; maybe it’s all the force. But it’s cool that it can be rationalized by science as impractical yet still completely captivating, as opposed to, say, trying to use a fusion bomb to freeze a volcano.
I think that’s what’s so cool about them. They are impractical and (right now) completely impossible. But they are a fantastic concept. In essence they are the embodiment of the force users power and personality. The saber and the wielder are one, and that is why they are deadly in the hands of the Jedi who created them, but useless to most others. It is the futuristic idea of the Samurai, Mark Hamill even talked about that…but I digress.
Brain,
What if you had a Laser-saber, with wireless and solar charging power, a Ghostbuster photon pack connected to it to keep it cool, and the force acting like a mirror to keep it the desired length? Would that work?
Solo
Sounds like science. Science is never wrong. Therefore yes, it would work.
(I can be science too!)
That was not science, just fun banter.
I dunno. FEELS like science.
And when I say “Ghostbuster Photon Pack” I don’t mean for the use of photons, I mean some kind of back pack that is filled with some kind of coolant that is used to cool down the immense heat a Lasersaber would emit.
Not to be a ball Buster … but I’m pretty sure it is a PROTON pack, not a PHOTON pack.
Sounds like another interesting essay, Brain.
Nice catch.
What is the difference between “photon” and “proton?”
Easy, one is a positive value of weight, “pro-ton”, and the other is a spicy Thai dish “pho-ton”.
I always wondered what would happen if Egon had put an adjustable aperture on the proton packs so that you could fire a pulse of energy from them and stun a ghost before grabbing it with a trap. They always seem so hard to wield when they are full bore, it would be easier to shoot them like a gun.
SpaceWolf can be a real ball buster sometimes:)
You said to tell you what to do …
In THAT case… William, go get me a donut and coffee.
I know…
It just seems like it’s never enough, or at least done specifically the way you want.
There’s no reason to keep this going here, I should’ve never made that post/comment.
I’m glad you did.
you’re endangering the mission, you shouldn’t have come…..(my favorite line).
I never realized how much I have related to that quote over the years… Self-reflection in process.
Also, I just realized that Spacewolf used the McQuarrie concept piece as the image for this post. I have that framed in my studio. Love it. His design work is among the best in scifi history, if not THE best.
Test. Am I here?
are any of us ever anywhere? #deepstuff