Benm
0
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2007
- Messages
- 7,896
- Points
- 113
Ah well, the lightsaber is just one of those mythical devices you can attempt to make
Obviously it would never work like the thing in the movies, but somehow getting a beam of light of finite length is a challenge in its own - even if it doesnt even cut trough butter.
Making the laser so powerful it ionizes air at the waist of the beam is a idea that does have merit - at least in the sense that it would put an 'end' to the beam without the need to trap some 'unobtanium'.
It would still produce a cone with a rather bright spark on its end instead of a cylinder that just stops, but i think it could be built. The chief problem would be getting a visible laser that is powerful enough to ionize air. I've seen pulsed Nd:YAG lasers do this, and now i wonder if it would look anything like a lightsaber viewed from the side with an IR camera
Obviously it would never work like the thing in the movies, but somehow getting a beam of light of finite length is a challenge in its own - even if it doesnt even cut trough butter.
Making the laser so powerful it ionizes air at the waist of the beam is a idea that does have merit - at least in the sense that it would put an 'end' to the beam without the need to trap some 'unobtanium'.
It would still produce a cone with a rather bright spark on its end instead of a cylinder that just stops, but i think it could be built. The chief problem would be getting a visible laser that is powerful enough to ionize air. I've seen pulsed Nd:YAG lasers do this, and now i wonder if it would look anything like a lightsaber viewed from the side with an IR camera