So I just learned this method of attack from Chinese swordplay.

It's not really a chop or a slash, more like a whipping action - it's really great, but I kinda thought - it depends on the sword having at least some weight to work.

Of course, I did find an answer that works either way, but that'll come later.

What I want first is for all you Star Wars consistency/physics nerds to come out of the woodwork and explain to me why a lightsaber blade does/does not have weight or inertia or mass or whatever you want to call the quality that allows me to perform a whipping action.

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Duel Zero key count: Zero! Down to guns and forces. Expect a release soon.

[This message has been edited by Checksum (edited December 21, 2003).]

I would guess no, but I've never really researched the fake technology of the lightsaber

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Do you have stairs in your house?

Someone once asked me if, were a lightsaber dropped while turned on, it would cut through everything and just keep falling.
I said no but couldn't prove it.

Maybe you guys could help me out too.

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All you need is love.

Lightsabers are designed so that you have to hold the little lever down to keep it on. that's why when they're dropped in the movies they always turn off
(heh, I did know that much )

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Do you have stairs in your house?

[This message has been edited by Correction (edited December 21, 2003).]

The blade doesn't have weight. I built one once out of some old batteries, a lightbulb and a bunch of other junk. =) Oh and on mine you had to hold down a pin to keep the light I mean blade on.

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"The Oracle told me I would die with my boots on. I've worn tennis shoes ever since." - Axis

I'm not quite sure, really...the blade isn't just pure light, since light can't come out of the handle and stop after one meter. One time I read a lightsaber website that suggested that the blade might be made of plasma, in which case it would have at least some mass.

*ducks to avoid incoming barrage of "lightsabers aren't real!!!" posts*

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It doesn't... because it's a movie...

Or is someone going to explain why weapons have a maximum range in space, why spaceships always confront each other perfectly aligned, why they make sounds in a vaccuum?

Light sabers are energy loops, that much I know. Being pure energy, I would think they would have SOME mass, but not enough to work with the way you want them to...unless you use the handle as a fulcrum... Also, how do jedis do saber throws if you have to hold down a lever??

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There's no such thing as pure energy.

There are two popular theories about this. The first is that the blade is really a force field-contained plasmoid. The force field would be able to repel similarly shielded technologies, like other force fields (TPM), blaster bolts and other lightsabers. In addition, plasmas give off light and are extremely hot. Given that we don't currently have force field technology, nor a sufficiently small power source for such a device, we cannot currently construct one.

The other popular theory is that it's just a movie, and we do not have the physics knowledge to construct such a device yet.

Either way, given the combat styles researched for the prequels, it's a pretty safe bet to say that the weightless blade is canonical. The TPM styles, in particular, emphasize the cutting power of the lightsaber as opposed to the strength of the user. I think there was an article on Starwars.com about this back when TPM was released.

As for the "saber dropping" question: I would think that the hilt would stop the blade. In TPM we've gotten a pretty fair demonstration of how the actual cutting part of the lightsaber is pretty much hair-thick, and the majority of the damage is from simple heat.

Fun observations: If you watch closely during the second Maul duel, you can see the Jedi lightsabers glowing on the bottom end. Probably a glitch, but still
Also, in TPM and AotC, we've seen lightsabers get cut in half. Anakin's saber in particular looks like it's solid inside, meaning we can pretty easily throw out all of those old cross sections.

[This message has been edited by Jon`C (edited December 22, 2003).]

Depending on what the blade could be made of, probably not pure light of course, there could be a drag. While it wouldn't be weight, when moving it there could be air resistance as it trys to keep it's shape.

That could be the compensation for the blade being weightless, considering all the movie fights wouldn't be true if there wasn't some resistance there. They use pieces to stand in for the pieces on the sabers, so the actors/stuntment have to respond to the weight on those.

As for the saber falling issue. You'd probably have to have the hilt be the same size as the actual blade's width, and no greeblies sticking out on it. A standard lightsaber likely wouldn't because it would be stopped by the emitter's housing being usually wider than the actual blade. So far all the lightsabers we've seen have had top pieces that go off the sides of the emitters.

On the power lever/buttons for it. Some sabers could obviously be rigged to have a device to keep the switch on, or if it's a lever the user could use the force to hold it down.

Btw, when Anakin's saber was cut apart, you could see wires sparking inside of it. You don't get a very good view, but the sparks are evident.

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"We came, we saw, we conquered, we...woke up!"

E=MC2
Matter can be converted into energy...
I never took physics, but can energy have mass?



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I'm going to go out and do stuff, like besides work. Call up ben, hang out. Maybe see the last samurai, go skydiving, whatever.
Get back into the gym...
I want to do stuff that prevents me from playin video games so I can only play them a few hours a day, basically.
(Formally Veger, who died when he lost his e-mail adress, and his password. Veeger still looks for his old pass...)

I personally think that the lightsaber's blade would be weightless (or extremely light) since it is raw energy (like fire or electricity). Because of that, a Jedi would have a much easier time swing one since it would be like swinging a flashlight.

BTW, even if the lightsaber's blade wasn't weightless, the fact that the blade is pure energy means that its stupid to apply force to your swing because the lightsaber doesn't need a lot of force in order to make the blade cut better because - for crying out loud - ITS A FREAKING BEAM OF PLASMA! If you could melt metal with it, you shouldn't need to put so much power into it in order to cut someone's arm off. The use of "stances" in Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy is useless because you can swing it like a feather duster and still severly hurt someone. If the blade is indeed weightless, you don't have a reason at ALL to put much force behind the swing because that damn blade is going to cut ANYTHING without much effort.

Oh yeah... this just came to mind. Wouldn't the lightsaber blade emit intense heat? Wouldn't it be a bad idea then to have something so hot be in your face? That's like holding a torch that has a 3-foot long flame.

Then again... it's just a freaking movie. Who freaking cares about how realistic the lightsaber is. It's obviously just a fantasy so no need to engage in a crazy over-analysation of the stupid weapon.

-- SavageX

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If the blade were light, it would also be pure energy. Light is energy. As far as anyone knows, light has no mass.
There is a theory that is beign explored that states that photons do have mass. If the theory is proven to show that light does have mass, it states that photons weigh less than electrons so the blade in a light sabre would weigh somewhere around a millionth of a gram.

Plasma is not pure energy. Plasma is ionized gas. A light sabre would have enough gas in it to weigh as much as a small party baloon.

Those are the facts. The rest is all speculation and/or sci-fi.

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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.

Light isn't pure energy, it's a particle that carries energy. It's also a wave that carries energy. Quantum physics discusses this topic thoroughly.

Some lightsabers do that; others have different switches; every saber is different!


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GhostOfYoda - General doer of stuff.

Ahh! Don't try and apply physics to a fantasy movie!

Well, but in TESB Luke did not cut Vaders arm of when he scored a hit on his shoulder.



I read somewhere that the blade itself is not hot. It just heats what it touches.

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Sorry for the lousy English

Because he didn't go through his arm, he just snagged a bit of Vader's side like Obi's wounds in AOTC.

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"We came, we saw, we conquered, we...woke up!"

I was wondering about this a few days ago, but thankfully you guys already discussed it, in deapth. Also I have a few more questions about light sabers. How did they do them in the old movies, 4,5,6. And would it be possible to build one, not one that actually cuts, but one with a solid beam of corlored light.

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One ring to rule them all. One to find them. One ring ti bring them all and in the darkness bind them. In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

I have no idea about all that physics junk, so I'll just answer this fanboy question
Considering the Jedi is controling the trajectory of the throw and essentially levitating the saber, it'd be pretty darn easy for him to keep a little lever held down through the force.

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The Massassi-Map
There is no spoon.

Space isn't a perfect vacuum

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Do you have stairs in your house?

True, but as far as the theory goes as we know it today, that particle is massless, and therefor light is only energy according to Einstiens theory. Once (or if) physicists find that photons (the particle part of light) have mass, then all former theories and E=mc^2 will have to be reformulated.
Until then light is pure energy. Quantum electrodynamics shows this.

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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.

But I also don't expect tons and tons of oxygen to just float around in space


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My counselor asked me what university I was considering. I said FU.

What can I say? I like Flordia!

Actually, as far as the saber throw question goes, most lightsabers have a button that must be held down to be kept activated, but this button can also be locked mechanically, with a switch.

Also, I read somewhere that sabers don't emit heat because they're cooled internally (or something)

Really? I do

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Do you have stairs in your house?

Well, it seems the vast majority says it's weightless.

Also, a very trusted old friend told me the description in KotoR says they're weightless.

What gets me is that half of you guys (with the exception of SavageX, who explained why he went to the topic) said stuff about how I wouldn't need to use power.

Obviously I should explain the attack style more. The way it works is simple - handle the sword like a whip. You hold it in such a grip that it can rotate freely, but mostly you just sort of fling it for the start of the swing, then just let the momentum do the work.

If you still don't get it, watch that XMA (which is cheesy as hell) untill the scene where that Chinese chick is doing that chain whip scene.

While we're at it, I said I'd post a universal solution, didn't I? It's pretty simple - if the blade has weight, you could already do this. If the blade doesn't have weight, which most of us have agreed on, then have a slightly longer (not Darth Maul length) handle, with a heavy point near the blade end. That way the handle is doing the actual whipping action, and the blade is really just an extension.

...And that's the end of this.

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Duel Zero key count: Zero! Down to guns and forces. Expect a release soon.

Wait... so you were asking a question to which you already knew the answer?

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Do you have stairs in your house?

[This message has been edited by Correction (edited December 22, 2003).]

Not really. It's just that the question had two possible answers, but I already had a solution lined up either way.

Mostly, I was just curious.

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Duel Zero key count: Zero! Down to guns and forces. Expect a release soon.

Gotch'yeh

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Do you have stairs in your house?

I have read theories that the actual "blade" is a thin filament of rotating electrons spinning at or near the speed of light. The cutting is done by electrons being sheared off of atoms and giving off heat. Of course you have dangerous gamma radiation to contentend with but that's another issue. Also with these spinning electrons, you get a virtual mass.

Savage: Swinging a massless blade (à la your "flashlight" analogy) would be incredibly difficult and require much more effort. You need the feedback and the CoM to be about 1/4 up the blade for effective use. Otherwise you randomly slice things...including yourself.

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<scribbly handwriting barely resembling name>

If a lightsaber blade has mass, it would be so small that it would be inconsequential. Kind of like light.

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It was understood by me that one of the big freaky unknowns in science was that light has no mass, but it has momentum.

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Do you have stairs in your house?

Seeing as how the technology doesn't actually exist in our universe (that we know of) and there is no actual evidence to back up any theories, all explanations are pretty much null and void.

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Most people regard me as the dark and immoral side of Massassi. At least I'm getting what I want out of life.

Why don't you just kill the discussion next time? Oh wait. You did.

I'd have to go with the blade weighing so little that a person couldn't really feel it. I don't see how it could have much mass at all.

From what I've read, most sabers require that you hold a button down to keep them on, but it wouldn't be impossible to have rig a saber to stay on.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

They're called nebulae. Maybe there are some out there made of oxygen, but if the ships had passed through a nebula (I guess depending what it's made of) then sound would have something to be created from.

Star Wars and Star Trek universes are just engolfed in one huge giant neverending invisible nebula that allows sound. So there.

Btw I think the ships usually end up aligned because of the computer navigations. You don't want to show up near an enemy ship with your poorly protected underside to'em.

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"We came, we saw, we conquered, we...woke up!"

That's great, but we're talking about lightsabers.

...Or, we were.

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Duel Zero key count: Zero! Down to guns and forces. Expect a release soon.

Scroll fool! Oh, and on that comment that all theories are null and void, this is where quantum theories and subjects become fun

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[This message has been edited by Dj Yoshi (edited December 22, 2003).]

I know we're talking about sabers, but the subject was brought up.

To stay on topic: Lightsabers are shiny and perdy.

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"We came, we saw, we conquered, we...woke up!"

In response to "if it has no weight, then why not swing it like a featherduster" thing, that's all well and dandy if your chopping up droids or doors, but if you're dueling someone, it becomes your strenght against theirs, so you'd want to swing hard to knock theirs out of the way, then fast to kill.

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MadQuack on Military school: Pro's: I get to shoot a gun. Con's: Everything else.
"I'm going to beat you until the laws of physics are violated!!" ! Maeve's Warcry

RIP -MaDaVentor-. You will be missed.

Here's a better reason why:

"Soon you'll be wearing my lightsaber like a shish kabob!"

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All you need is love.