flights of fancy

[cellio]

"Existentially speaking, is there such a thing as half a piece of cake?" -- kayre

This evening at dinner the fundamental dynamics of lightsabres came up. Specifically, how does the color encoding work? Is Luke's blue because Luke prefers blue, or because any lightsabre Luke uses will channel Luke-specific force, which is blue? If so, do the admission criteria at Jedi University include "sabre does not glow red" (and if not, why not)? Are there important qualitative difference between blue and green sabres, both of which appear to channel the light side of the force? Surely these are important research topics for someone out there who has, you know, seen all the movies.

Comments

Re: lightsabres

[geekosaur]

A laser doesn't end after a meter, and for swords to "cancel" each other (i.e., hit), they'd have to be of the same color.

In fact, there's no way known to (our) physics to accomplish either; the beams would (a) go on "forever" (or at least until they encountered an object, or ultimately until they finally diverged sufficiently) and (b) not be able to "hit" each other whether the same frequency or not. (And it doesn't help to invoke "force fields" to contain the beams; as far as our physics is concerned, they have precisely the same problems. In fact, a "force field" in real physics has essentially nothing to do with the SF concept. Magnetic and electrical fields are real-world physics "force fields", and the closest those get to the SF version is that, if strong enough, they can attract or repel non-ferromagnetic materials by interacting with particle "spins" (IIRC; "spin" not really being spin as we know it, but related to "magnetic moment") — which is how MRI scans work, among other things. Not quite what we're looking for....)

Of course, it's silly to argue this when they have even bigger contradictions of known physics, such as FTL travel. :)

Re: lightsabres

[(Anonymous)]

The beams of a lightsabre are linked nanite superconducting robots. That's why they buzz and end at a certain distance.

When they cut through a body, they eat it.

Rob of UnSpace (http://www.unspace.net/)

Re: lightsabres

[psu-jedi.livejournal.com]

Of course, it's silly to argue this when they have even bigger contradictions of known physics, such as FTL travel. :)

And let's not even get into the whole sound of Tie Fighters (and planets!) exploding cunundrum!

Re: lightsabres

[sethg]

The sounds of the explosions are generated by the X-Wing fighter's navigation computer. When the sensor array detects an explosion, the computer generates the appropriate sound in the pilot's headphones, so the pilot can tell where the explosion was without taking his eyes off his targets.