Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.

do lightsabers burn anything they touch such as in TPM when Qui-Gon melted the blaster doors or do they just cut and slice as when Obi1 cut off the aliens hand in ANH?

This should answer your question.

Oh my. How closely can the headline, poll and message relate? Now we do know...

The lightsaber is the weapon of a Jedi, an elegant armament of a more civilized time. In comparison, blasters are crude, inaccurate and loud affairs. To carry a lightsaber is an example of incredible skill and confidence, dexterity and attunement to the Force.
When deactivated, a lightsaber appears as a polished metallic handle, about 30 centimeters long, lined with control studs. At the press of a button the energy contained within is liberated and forms as a shaft of pure energy about a meter long. The saber hums and scintillates with a distinct sound. Its shimmering blade is capable of cutting through almost anything, save for the blade of another lightsaber.

In the hands of a Jedi, a lightsaber is almost unstoppable. It can be used to cut through blast doors or enemies alike. Using the Force, a Jedi can predict and deflect incoming blaster bolts, and reflect them back at the firer.

After the extermination of the Jedi ranks, lightsabers became rare relics. The knowledge of their construction disappeared with their masters. Luke Skywalker, the last of the Jedi, built his own lightsaber as the culmination of his training.

Although use of the lightsaber is strictly reserved to the Jedi -- the only ones capable of handling the difficult weapon -- it is also used by their sworn enemies, the Sith.

Which is exactly what was in the link.

or you can go here, which has more on HOW the lightsaber works:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/lightsaber.htm

burp

Man, I thought your ' Yoda ran away' thread was bad.

I've never liked the explanation that the blade is 'pure energy', as there are many kinds of energy...
My own theory, is that the blade of a lightsaber is essentially an extremely controlled forcefield, and that the 'pure energy' blade is composed of what would be known in the Star Trek Universe as Graviton Particles. My reasons for thinking this are...

Forcefields can be set to such high power levels, that anything that touches them is vaporized. Reverse the theory, and anything the forcefield touches is vaporized. (As is the case with a lightsaber)

Forcefields use crystals in their emitters (as do phasers) to focus the graviton stream. The idea that a crystal will suddenly 'create energy' because it has a charge put to it is ludicrous. (As is supposedly the case with a lightsaber)

Forcefields (when on low power) often hum, and make a different noise when something comes into contact with them. (As do lightsabers)

Forcefields have been seen in many different colors depending on the species who have created them. The technology is the same, but the use of local materials (different crystals) is responsible for the color of the field when it is visible. (As are lightsaber blades)

Whats the poll about??? Which of these is most unprobable that will never be created??

Originally posted by General Bondius
Whats the poll about??? Which of these is most unprobable that will never be created??
Dude, if you're not going to contribute something to the discussion (like you didn't in the ST v SW or lightsaber color threads) why bother posting anything at all?

Originally posted by Darth Vious
Dude, if you're not going to contribute something to the discussion (like you didn't in the ST v SW or lightsaber color threads) why bother posting anything at all?




he does want to contribute, he just doesnt know the question.
The thread is titled ' how do lightsabers work' and then there's a poll asking for favourite.

Originally posted by spekdah
he does want to contribute, he just doesnt know the question.
The thread is titled ' how do lightsabers work' and then there's a poll asking for favourite.
And the problem with that is what? I agree, the poll has nothing to do with the thread title, but there's no reason to get in a strop over it, which is what he was doing in the other threads. Take the poll as it is then answer the question... Nothing too challenging in that, is there?

How do lightsabres work?












































You turn on the switch.
Don't look down the barrel when you do this. You will poke your eye out.

Originally posted by Sesse
Oh my. How closely can the headline, poll and message relate? Now we do know... agreed

...

Alrighty then. Now that that's settled....

Originally posted by Darth Vious
Dude, if you're not going to contribute something to the discussion (like you didn't in the ST v SW or lightsaber color threads) why bother posting anything at all?
Because he can.



Try not to whine about it.



Just for the record, I think a lightsaber works by projecting a stream of plasma into a bar-shape into an electromagnetic envelope emanating from the hilt of the lightsaber.

He has as much a right to whine about it as the fool does to flame.

Originally posted by DarkC
Because he can.

So you think trolling is acceptable? That's what the guy was doing.

Originally posted by DarkC

Just for the record, I think a lightsaber works by projecting a stream of plasma into a bar-shape into an electromagnetic envelope emanating from the hilt of the lightsaber.
Plasma is super-heated gas. There are no 'gas cells' in a lightsaber, simply power cells. If a lightsaber blade was some form of plasma, it would be a) too hot to hold near the body, as Jedi do, and b) would heat the hilt to a point where it was impossible to hold without severe burns. Also, an electromagnetic envelope would not account for how the blades can be held against each other, rather than repelling instantly...

Point is, lightsabers can cut through any known material besides Cortosis.

And that Vong armour crap.

Originally posted by Tarvos
Point is, lightsabers can cut through any known material besides Cortosis.

Is that why Obi-Wan and Dooku's lightsabers make that "clanking" sound when they both strike the floor of the Geonosis hanger during their duel? When I saw that I thought "production error" or the floor is impervious to lightsabers!

Originally posted by Darth Vious
So you think trolling is acceptable? That's what the guy was doing.
What, you think being sarcastic is trolling?

Wow, some people seem sensitive in the SWF's.
Put him on your ignore list or something if you don't want to read his so-called worthless posts.


There's no gas-cells in a lightsaber, correct, because there is no need for them. We do need a power source from which to heat the surplus plasma, and likely from those power cells you mentioned. Kinetic energy is the energy of movement of molecules/ions and this is what causes heat.

A proper plasma-based lightsaber would not heat the hilt as you described. If the kinetic energy of the active ions in the lightsaber were only confined to the limits of its magnetic field, then how can it affect the environment outside without any physical means?

Explain to me scientifically why the electromagnetic envelopes would not account for the fact that they can be held against another, albeit with difficulty.

It's the most likely way how a lightsaber works. Matthew Stover, author of the official novelization of ROTS. He continuously mentioned Anakin's lightsaber as a "bar of blue plasma", especially during his turn to the dark side.

And how does a lightsaber know when to stop extending from the hilt?

Originally posted by DarkC
What, you think being sarcastic is trolling?
No. I think being an argumentative **** and trying to pick a fight in every thread you post in is trolling though, and that's precicely what they were doing at the time

Originally posted by DarkC
There's no gas-cells in a lightsaber, correct, because there is no need for them. We do need a power source from which to heat the surplus plasma,
Surplus from what? Plasma is not a substance that just 'appears' out of nowhere, so there would have to be something to either create it, or store the gas which is then energized to become plasma.

Originally posted by DarkC
Kinetic energy is the energy of movement of molecules/ions and this is what causes heat.
Yes. If the blade of a lightsaber was composed of a rotating stream of gravitons, then the motion of those particles would indeed induce heat in things it came into contact with (as a file will heat the metal it is filing, despite neither being hot to start with)

Originally posted by DarkC

A proper plasma-based lightsaber would not heat the hilt as you described. If the kinetic energy of the active ions in the lightsaber were only confined to the limits of its magnetic field, then how can it affect the environment outside without any physical means?
Magnetic fields can not contain heat. It might be possible to contain a stream of plasma inside a magnetic bottle, but that would do nothing to contain the heat, which would still escape. Think of the blade of a lightsaber. It has a white core, and then the colored glow surrounding it. Lightsaber cuts are not the thickness of the entire visible colored glow, but only the thickness of the inner core. It could be that the colored glow is particle decay from the main core, and the color simply a result of the type of crystal used in the refraction of the particles.
That suggests that there is not a 'magnetic field' either confining the shape of the blade, or preventing the particles of the blade escaping, therefore, if there was plasma involved, then its heat would escape. If however, there is no plasma, and the blade is some other form of coherent energy (I suspect gravitons) that would explain why the blade of a saber does not produce heat (despite the particle decay) but creates heating effects when it comes into contact with a solid object.

Originally posted by DarkC

Explain to me scientifically why the electromagnetic envelopes would not account for the fact that they can be held against another, albeit with difficulty.
Magnets (and magnetic fields) either repel or attract. The blades of lightsabers neither attract nor repel each other in the way magnets do. What you call the 'difficulty in holding the blades together' is not a case of the blades trying to repel from each other, but a case of the fighters trying to physically push their opponent and using the blade as the balancing point.

Originally posted by DarkC

It's the most likely way how a lightsaber works. Matthew Stover, author of the official novelization of ROTS. He continuously mentioned Anakin's lightsaber as a "bar of blue plasma", especially during his turn to the dark side.
No it's not. Star Wars rarely displayed tractor beams or forcefields of the same type seen on Star Trek, but graviton devices (forcefields/tractor beams) are the kind of technology that would best explain not only a lightsaber's blade, but the properties that it displays. And the official LFL answer on lightsabers is that the blade is 'pure energy', which is not plasma. Energy, however, can take many different forms, and a graviton would indeed be a form of energy.

Hi I'm new here.

I was told that lightsabers are powered by some sort of crystal that gives off its own energy source, which is then concentrated by a mechanism inside the actual handle.

Does anyone know if I'm right?

Yup, I know they have to do something with crystals, but beyond that I'm baffled