WEBVTT - Could we make a real lightsaber? 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:15.520 Forward Thinking, Hayter, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:19.520 that looks at the future. And says cha tung Ima 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.760 ch Chu Ron Tanny e Chu. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.960 Lauren Paul Obama, and I'm Joe McCormick. I recognize that 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.800 as some form of alien language, and I don't think 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:33.880 it's cling on. No, it's the opening line to the 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:39.920 immortal classic Jedi Rocks from the special edition of Return 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:42.520 of the Jedi. The less said about that, the better, 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:44.599 So let's move on. I could have gone a yev 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.000 nub Oh, I love ye n I'm I'm actually a 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.640 much bigger fan of you. We got yev nub. Yeah, 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.360 but you know that there is there's actually a translation 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.240 of those lyrics available online. I found the sheet music 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.440 one time. Of course there is. You might guess from 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.400 the way we're prattling on about Star Wars music that 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:06.319 today is a Star Wars related topic. Yeah. So, of course, 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:10.039 the trailer for Star Wars episode seven, The Force Awakens, 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.360 came out, and um, I don't know about you, guys, 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.920 I thought it was a very exciting teaser based upon 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:19.560 the fact that it gives us no information at all 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.000 about the story, but it felt Star Wars e to 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:26.920 me visually it was very exciting. Yeah. Yeah, you know, 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:30.240 I I am cautious about my expectations for this movie, 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:32.720 but I have to admit the trailer gave me a thrill. 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.800 Especially it was the moment of seeing the storm Troopers 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.920 in the sort of like dark lighting and loading from 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.679 some kind of transport. I was like, Wow, this is 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:45.200 the Empire again, and I felt excited. X Wings skimming 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.000 over the water was really exciting. Yeah, it was. It 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.720 was the soundtrack for me, it's soundtrack that always gets me. 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.360 And but of course we should get to the most 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:58.000 contentious part of the trailer, which is of course the 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.320 broadsword light saber. Yes, yes, the lightsaber that has a 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.680 cross guard on it. Uh, well, not just a cross guard. 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:08.880 It is a cross guard made of the lightsaber energy material, 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.639 whatever you call that. Yeah. So obviously one of those 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.320 things that was going to be divisive. I mean, anytime 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.919 you drift away from a design that is considered iconic, 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.519 people are going to have a lot to say about it. Personally, 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.040 I'm like, bring it on. I I love to see 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.960 the different variations of lightsabers. I don't care if you 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.160 can make it work in the context of the story. 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.360 I don't care about that initial Well, that's weird. I 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.320 can get over that. Yeah, I don't really have a 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:39.720 feeling about it one way or another yet. I've just 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.800 noticed that a lot of times nerds don't like change. Yeah. 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:45.240 I've never fought with a sword with a cross guard, 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.400 so I'm not sure what function they actually play. Yeah, 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.000 it's to protect the hand. Um. I fought with a 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.639 sword with a cross guard, opposite of protecting the hand, 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.880 so that if the other lightsaber blade were to go down, 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:01.799 your blade contexts your hand from getting Yeah, you noticed 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.760 that a lot of Jedi are missing an arm. That's 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.919 not a big that's not a big surprise. Um. Yeah, 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.440 I mean it's the difference between the katana tiny little 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:15.760 cross guard and the broadsword broad cross guard. Let's try 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.000 to bring this a little bit into the real world 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.480 and whether it's a lightsaber with a cross guard or 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.440 without one. Could we ever make something like a lightsaber 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:27.880 in the real world and to really understand this. I 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.119 thought first it would be kind of fun, also kind 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.800 of silly to talk about how lightsabers work within the 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.880 Star Wars universe, just to understand what they are in 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:42.360 that fictional world. What's the techno mythology? Right? And uh, well, 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:44.880 first we have to say that if you're going by 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:49.640 Cannon and canonical Star Wars is merely the stuff that 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.040 appears in the movies. That's that's the way, and then 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.400 some Clone Wars stuff too. But but Lucas opposite of 0:03:55.440 --> 0:04:01.040 heretical Lucas Lucas Head always maintained that the movies were 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.080 that was Star Wars and that all the expanded universe 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:10.200 stuff was interesting, but it didn't didn't impact the mythology 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.120 laid out in the film exactly. It wasn't it wasn't 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:15.960 meant to be taken as this is actually what happened 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.320 either before after or at the same time as the 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.599 stuff that was going on in the movies. The movies 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.599 are it, and then everything else is just kind of 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:29.279 you know, superfluous. Yeah yeah, so he um, you know, 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.479 he never really got into how lightsabers are constructed. Now, 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.080 it's definitely part of your training as a Jedi. We 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:38.880 do here that you have constructed your own lightsaber. Your 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.039 training as a Jedi is complete, So that's considered the 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.680 I guess the graduation, like this is your thesis is 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.240 your lightsaber, So we know that much. So what do 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.000 you what do you use for your lightsaber training while 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.719 you're in training? Usually I guess he would use a 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:59.200 loaner lightsaber. I mean they've got a lightsaber, pool wouldn't 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:04.280 lightsaber that they do in Japanese. You know, Luke used 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:07.320 his father's I mean that was Anakin's lightsaber that he 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:12.279 used until until he lost it investment um, along with 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.400 the hand that was holding it. But uh so, the 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.640 rules for Star Wars in general, this is laid out 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:24.080 in the somewhat apocryphal Expanded Universe, are that the lightsabers 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.880 have to be made by a Jedi. In order to 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:29.640 focus the blade, you have to have the force or yeah, yeah, 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:31.520 you at least have to be very strong in the force, 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.520 because not all people strong in the Force are Jedi. 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:36.720 That's true. You have to at least be able to 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.960 use the force to construct the lightsaber, even if you 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:44.760 are incredibly adept with technology. The story is that unless 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.560 you have the force, you cannot create a lightsaber without 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.160 the danger of it exploding in your hand. Yeah yeah, 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.040 that's because it's driven by a couple of crystals and 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.560 you have to align them so precisely otherwise yes, exploding 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.800 times right, So only someone, only someone trained in the 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.880 worse can get those to be in perfect alignment. Uh 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.520 so because they have incredible press prosthetics in this past 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.800 future science region, but they don't have quantum mechanics. That's okay. 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.200 You know, in the original Star Wars, before the prequels 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.800 came out, it was all mysticism, and mysticism doesn't need 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.360 to follow the rules of science. It's only when we 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.040 get into the prequels with medicicloreans that we okay, I'm 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:29.440 not gonna go we no bleep that out. Oh yeah, 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:33.200 that that is a bliepable word. So at any rate, Uh, 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:37.080 they are The blades themselves are of pure plasma that's 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.279 contained within a force field. So the force field is 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:41.920 meant to do two things. It's meant to keep the 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:44.440 plasma in the right shape, which is the shape of 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.880 a blade. Uh. And it's also meant to contain that 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.599 intense heat to the blade itself so that the person 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:55.320 wielding the blade doesn't get burned in the process. Uh. 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.280 Two very important things now plasma, for those of you 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.320 who are not familiar, that's an anized gas. It is 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.960 the most plentiful form of matter in the universe. It's 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.359 what stars are made of. Not so much here on Earth. Yeah, 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.280 I mean we've got some, but it's not you know, 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.440 we're used to solid or liquid or gas. But plasma 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.840 is in fact the most the most plentiful version, and 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.320 it is an ionized gas. Right. So that means that 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.600 the atomic nuclei, the protons and neutrons at the middle 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.640 of the atom, have become separated from their electrons or 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:29.960 they've gained more because technically you could have a plasma 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:32.960 where you have more electrons. But either way they are 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:37.000 they are conductive, electrically conductive. So that's and that's the 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.040 cool thing about plasma is that because they're electrically conductive, 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.760 we can do some neat stuff with it. Uh. Some 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.040 of the things we do with plasma tend to be 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.680 pretty intense, like creating plasma cutters that can cut through 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:54.080 sheet metal with like very little effort, which is awesome. 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.560 And we've also talked on this show about the potential 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.760 for plasma waste converters that would use the intense heat 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.560 of plasma to break down the molecular bonds in trash 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.320 so that it either turns into a gas form that 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:08.320 you can then turn into sin gas, which can use 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.360 as fuel, or it turns into slag liquid slag that 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.320 you can drain off and then it kind of drives 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.680 into what looks like volcanic rock. Also, on a much 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.600 smaller level, the fluorescent lights that exist are are all 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.240 filled with basically plasma. Once you turn them on, it 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.160 ionizes gas inside of the inside of the tube, and 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:29.560 that is how the light has created a few steps 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:31.760 down the road, right exactly, you've got some other stuff 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:34.200 that fluoresces once it's impacted by that light. You are 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.040 exactly right. So these are all things that we use 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.400 plasma for. But getting back to Star Wars, you've got 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:42.679 these crystals that Lauren was talking about. You have the 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:46.440 primary crystal. This is the thing that forms the blade um. Also, 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.280 depending upon the version that you're reading or playing or whatever, 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.040 it's what determines the color of the blade. And then 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:58.040 you've got the focusing crystal that creates the proper blade 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:02.520 shape within that force field um. Within the lore of 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.559 the Jedi, the Jedi tend to harvest their crystals from 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:09.320 natural formations. You have to go on some kind of 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.160 like vision quest to find their crystal or something. Yeah, 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.200 the specific planet they have to go there is a 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:19.000 planet that has like giant caverns filled with crystals, and 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.959 the two most common types are blue and green, although 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.440 there are other versions that are found throughout the Star 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:28.960 Wars universe as well. Of course, you've got mace windows 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.840 purple lightsaber, which as far as I know is the only, 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.600 uh time that you ever see one like that. The 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.480 original story that George Lucas had, they were just gonna 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.800 be silver, but then he found that different colors showed 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.040 up better against the backgrounds, and so it was a 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.560 purely practical decision to make them different colors. Now and 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.200 they look they look great. I'm very glad they were 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:54.360 not just plain silver me too, although it doesn't versus orange. Yeah, 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:57.960 I think it's pretty funny that that people had to 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:01.000 invent reasons for the different color other than the fact 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.520 that it was a practical film effect. Yeah. Yeah. Another 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.439 the fact that, like for example, Samuel L. Jackson really 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.560 wanted a purple light right right, and the Sith they 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:13.920 use red ones because those crystals are uh, synthetic. They 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.839 grow those crystals, they manufacture them, and it's meant to 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.040 make the blade more aggressive. I don't know what that 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.120 specifically means, but anyway, it's not sure that if you're 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.680 synthetically creating, a crystal can be more pure and therefore 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:31.160 confunction better. That's kind of that's sort of weird, like 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:35.200 anti technology that that's fine. No, no no, no, no, coming 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:37.160 back from it, wouldn't it be so much worse to 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.560 get cut in half by a red lightsaber than a 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.920 blue lightsaber? I I dread the day when I'm cut 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:46.080 in half with a red lightsaber. It's did you guys 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:48.080 get to see the video where I talked about lightsabers, 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:50.199 I got to wield a blue one. It was awesome. 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:54.600 I was so pleased. All right, So, anyway, there's some 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.400 things that lightsabers can't cut through within the lore of 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:01.360 Star Wars. Again, this is in the expanded universe, so essentially, 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:03.480 it's whatever is important to the plot. Is kind of 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.199 like Dr Who's sonic screwdriver. Oh no, the sonic screwdriver 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.400 can't do that, nothing but that. Yeah, yeah, if only, 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.040 if only it didn't have a whatever kind of lock 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.360 it is it's just like how the replicator can't recreate 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:21.920 just a few things that latinum. Yeah, so same sort 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.800 of deal. The idea that this plasma thing, there's certain 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.000 things that just resist it. But anyway, that's how they 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.080 work in in the Star Wars universe, however, are at 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:33.480 least according to the Expanding universe, if you were to 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:37.040 just watch the movies, you wouldn't get any of this stuff. 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:39.319 It doesn't look like a plasma blade at all. It 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.120 doesn't look like it's plasma. It looks like it's some 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.000 sort of laser sword that just ends like three ft 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.960 from the end of the hilt. Yeah. And furthermore, I 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:52.360 mean their description of the of the techno science that 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.240 that happens in order to make lightsabers function. What they're 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:57.959 describing is is way more like a like a laser 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.160 than like a plasma creator. Right right, If you wanted 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.800 to create plasma, then you would need to run a 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:08.080 high voltage electrical current and then pass some sort of 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.719 gas through that in order to ionize it, right right, 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.800 You use an arc and ectric arc and and the 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.200 sound that that lightsabers make is indeed an arc wave 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:21.839 noise um. But but it looks more like looks like 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.840 a laser. So so what about lasers? I mean they 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.160 can cut stuff in real life, we have laser cutters. Yeah, 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:31.280 so why don't we have lightsabers? So the biggest problem 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:34.880 is um figuring out how to make those lightsabers coalesced 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.720 into a shape and stay that way. But to understand that, 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.240 we've got to talk about the nature of light. Right, 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.760 What what is it about light that makes it so 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.800 difficult for us to force it into and I don't 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.600 mean force in the JETI sense into a specific shape. Well, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:53.959 I mean one of the things about light is that 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.080 in a vacuum at least, light always travels at a 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.120 constant speed, which is the speed of light. Right, And 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.080 so it's not like a piece of matter that you 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.600 can put down on table and put into the shape 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.040 you want it. I mean, it's traveling at the speed 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.080 of light. Now, that speed varies in different media, like 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.720 in a certain gas atmosphere mixture or through glass or 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.360 something like that. But even then, it's got a constant 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:18.920 rate of travel and it doesn't want to slow down 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.560 except under some very bizarre physical conditions that we can create, 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.000 right yeah. Yeah, And basically like like we don't have 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:32.439 a force field material that is air, right, that that 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.560 can hold light within it. Yeah. Yeah, that's another big issue. 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.800 And also light it's made up of photons, right, that's 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:43.160 the that's the force carrying particle of light, which is, 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.480 to all intents and purposes, massless. I mean you can 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.160 talk about how it has a relativistic mass, has arrest 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:56.640 zero mass state. So it's it's this particle that doesn't 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.600 have mass the way we would think of physical particles 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.960 having it. One result of that is that you cannot 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.760 clash to two beams of light, two lasers, for example, 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:12.520 together and and have them interact, right, Well, you could, 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.240 You can't have a lightsaber duel you would. They would 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.360 just pass right through each other when you slam them together. Right, 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:22.360 Photons don't interact with one another under regular conditions. They 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.200 will pass directly through them. If we were to have 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.040 these laser beams or lights or whatever, you wouldn't see 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.880 this interruption. I mean you it might look weird where 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.160 the two beams crossed, but they would continue on their 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.920 path as if nothing had happened. There's not like some 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:40.040 sort of weird divergence because of them. Speaking of continuing 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.880 on their path. That's another problem with trying to make 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:46.840 a real lightsaber with a laser. A laser, you can't 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.880 make a laser that's just okay, go three feet out 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:54.200 and then stop right there. Light continues to travel until 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.400 it reflects off of something. Yeah, it could be absorbed 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:00.800 by something, reflect off something, but but but your way. Basically, 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.800 every time that Luke turns his lightsaber on, it's just 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:05.600 going to like go through the whole of the of 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:09.200 the Millennium falcon, right, and then yeah, the ship implodes 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.240 out we all die. It was even written on the handle. 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.880 I shouldn't have done that. Um yeah, it's it's a problem. 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:21.080 So these are all really difficult issues. That are These 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:23.600 are non trivial problems, right if you wanted to make 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:27.000 your own lightsaber and you want to make it light. 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:29.880 This is why Jonathan does not have one. Yeah, one 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:31.920 of the many reasons I probably wouldn't be allowed to 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.680 have one if we could make one, But I certainly 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.840 can't have one because of the laws of business. Um. 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:41.120 But I wanted to talk about an experiment that happened 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:45.200 in two thousand thirteen that's really cool. It actually has 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.640 photons behaving in a way that's similar to what you 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.360 would see in a lightsaber. In fact, that was the 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.840 analogy that almost every press release used to talk about 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.840 this experiment. They talked about two things. That the light 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.320 would behave like atoms in a molecule. They would clump. 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:06.480 The photons would clump together in this experiment already, and 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.000 that they could push against each other so that there 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.040 could be a physical interaction between photons which normally would 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.160 never happen. That's similar to how you can think of 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.440 it in one of two ways, how a lightsaber holds 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:23.520 together or how to lightsabers can have this impact. And right, 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.240 So here's the experiment. It took place, and this is 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.680 the best name for a center I have ever read, 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:35.360 at the Harvard M. I. T. Center for Ultra Cold Atoms. Uh, 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:45.040 that's a very specific center, the KUA. Yeah, so they 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:51.320 excuse me, Yeah, I didn't mean to leave hardh Uh. 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.040 That that sounds like that could be an alien race 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.760 from Star Wars, the Hammat Kua. At any rate, the 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.800 researchers super cooled some gas it out of rubidium atoms, 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:04.359 and they used the laser to do it. Which first, 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.439 when I read this, I had heard about laser cooling before, 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.280 but I really wanted to know how it worked because 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:15.840 it seems so counterintuitive. Exactly, Usually, photons excite atoms that 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.439 they hit and uh and make them move faster and 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:22.320 if anything, heat them up, if if nothing, have no effect, 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.400 right exactly, Yeah, you would think of a laser generally 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:27.920 being like something that if it's powerful enough and you 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.080 pointed at something that's flammable, that something's gonna catch fire. 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:33.600 You don't think of it as cooling it down. So 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:37.280 what actually is going on here? Well, now we get 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:41.400 into another weird thing about photons. So photons don't really 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:45.240 have mass, but they do have momentum, and momentum means 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:47.240 that they have some energy that they can impart to 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:51.280 other particles. So imagine that you've gone adam moving in 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:55.080 a straight line and in opposite direction, you mount a 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.199 laser pointed at that atom and you fire the laser. 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.280 The momentum of those photons, we'll start to slow that 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:05.119 atom down. Now, Ultimately, like you were saying, Lauren, heat 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:08.280 is really a tomic movement or a molecular movement. It's 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.800 it's the movement of particles. So if you slow a 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.480 particle down you are cooling it down. And if you 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:15.080 get it to the point where it's not moving at all, 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.120 it's at zero kelvin. Right, That's that's absolute zero, where 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.199 there's no molecular movement and it's as cold as it 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:26.080 can get um barring the negative kelvin stories that we've 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:28.760 seen in scientific experiments that are too confusing to go 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:32.080 into right now. But at then your eight um. If 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:34.560 you use lasers in this way, you can actually slow 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:36.400 down atoms. You have to keep hitting them the right 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.719 way to cool them and cool them and cool them 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.720 until they are ultra cold. So once I figured that 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:44.800 part out, and but I figured that part out, I 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:47.200 mean read about other people who figured this stuff out 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:49.879 long before I ever even knew it existed. I didn't 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:53.480 come up with this obviously. Uh. Once I once I 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.919 learned that part, I thought, all right, so what is 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.560 going on? Once these rubidium atoms are ultra cold and 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.399 you've got gas cloud of ultra cold atoms, Well, at 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.960 that point they would introduce a photon into the gas cloud. 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.399 Now we're talking about single photon in this case. The 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.600 photon would enter the gas cloud, transfer some of its energy, 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.800 the momentum that it has to some of the rubidium 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.520 atoms and the light would slow down. This is what 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.439 you were talking about, Joe, how light travels at different 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:24.720 speeds through different media. So it's technically going slower than 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:26.840 the speed of light because we tend to mean the 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.480 speed of light as the speed of light through a vacuum, 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.280 so it goes a little slower than that. But once 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.520 it escapes out the other side of the gas cloud, 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.640 that energy rejoins with the photon, so it now is traveling. 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.080 It doesn't continue to travel at that slower speed. It's 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.159 now moving through the normal speed it would through whatever 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.480 medium it's going through at this point. So everything in 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.399 the balance, right, you don't have an imbalance of the universe. 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:51.960 And suddenly there's a black hole in the m I 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.600 T is like whoops, so um, so what happens if 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:58.560 you put to photons in this? And this is where 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:04.240 we get into another really odd physics. The experimenters were 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.360 expecting this at all. It's certainly something that that had 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.960 been theorized before but never directly observed. And the idea 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:14.080 is called the read Berg blockade, which is sounds like 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.080 some sounds like something from Star Wars, right. The read 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:21.159 blockade runner. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what caused the 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.640 prequels to happen, right, there was the whole red bird 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.359 blockade around the boo um. You know what the reaper 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.520 blockade is in physics is this concept that let's say 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:34.320 you've got uh several atoms together, uh at like in 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.960 a gas of let's say ultracoled rubidium, for example, if 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:41.320 you were to excite one of those atoms, you could 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:45.480 not excite the neighboring atoms to that same degree. You 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:47.560 could not add as much energy as you did to 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.280 that first atom to the surrounding atoms. So it's it's 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.840 almost like there's a saturation there. So when two photons 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.719 would enter this gas cloud, there would be this kind 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:01.199 of push poll relationship between the photo atons that was 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:04.639 limited by the fact that once one photon passed on 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:07.000 energy to a rubidium atom, the other one couldn't do 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.280 the same with the other nearby rubidium atoms. Right. It's 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.960 like that that second photon needs the first photon to 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:15.200 move out of the way to go ahead and move 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.480 forward before the second one can go on and affect 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:21.080 the particles to to lose that energy into the particles 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:24.560 around it, right, Um, so it winds up being the 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:26.920 sort of like like leap frog sort of action where 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:30.200 where each one is pushing and pulling the other until 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:35.680 they both exit the cloud as a single mushy photon unit. Yeah, 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:38.240 it's kind of kind of crazy, like a photon molecule. 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:41.480 This is so nuts, is Bunkers. Now. They referred to 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:44.800 it specifically as a photonic interaction that's mediated by the 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:49.680 atomic interaction, meaning that normally, under regular circumstances, these two 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:53.040 photons wouldn't even have any interaction with one another. It's 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:58.159 only because of this particular effect, the red bird blockade, 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:00.440 that this is happening at all. It's are like two 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:02.680 people talking to each other at a party who otherwise 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:04.840 would never have anything to do with one happen. It's 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:08.840 exactly like that. That's but only because after the first 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.080