WEBVTT - The Physics of Star Wars 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.520 Technology with tech Stuff from staff works dot com. Hey there, 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.520 and welcome to text Stuff. I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:20.479 I'm an executive producer here at How Stuff Works. And 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.560 I love technology, and I love science fiction, and I 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.960 love fantasy uh and I love the technology of science 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:30.200 fiction and fantasy worlds, and you guys do too. I 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:32.879 was just talking with one of the folks on our 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.400 team and she was telling me about how the tech 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.000 of episodes are some of the favorites of people out there, 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.800 and so I wanted to do another one. And the 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:46.920 day this show publishes should be the day that Star Wars, 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.840 the Last Jedi, hits theaters in the United States. And that, 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.360 coupled with a book that I received in the mail 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.720 that is titled The Physics of Star Wars, written by 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:00.680 Dr Patrick Johnson, inspired me to do another one of 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.160 these tech of episodes, this time, of course, the Tech 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.440 of Star Wars. And I say another Tech of Star 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:14.760 Wars because way back in Two Holy Cats seven years ago, 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:19.560 Chris Pallette and I tackled the concept of lightsabers and 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.680 how they work both within the Star Wars universe and 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:27.040 also how the actual effects were done in movies we 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.399 even talked a little bit about whether it might be 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.400 possible to ever build a similar device in our world. 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.280 I did a rerun with an update for that episode 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:37.800 in two thousand and fourteen. I also did a show 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.760 back in twenty thirteen titled tech Stuff Leaps into Hyperspace 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.760 to talk about the faster than light travel tech of 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:47.960 Star Wars. I'll touch on both of those things again 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.680 in this episode, because I think it's safe to say 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:56.680 that without the concepts of hyper drive and especially lightsabers, 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.520 you can't really call it Star Wars. So we're gonna 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.040 touch on those, but we won't go into as much 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:05.160 detail as those previous episodes. So if what I say 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.800 to you is interesting and you really want to learn more, 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:10.919 I recommend you look at the backlog of Tech Stuff 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:13.239 episodes and find those and you can check them out. 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:15.720 Let's get some basics out of the way before we 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:19.280 jump into any of the technology. Now, I'm fairly certain 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.359 almost all of you out there have at least heard 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:27.400 of Star Wars, if not seen all the major movies. 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.399 Some of you are probably hardcore fans who have seen 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.800 all the movies, read the comic books, you've watched the 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:37.280 television series, the animated series. You've got your own DVD 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:41.639 of the Star Wars Holiday Special, which George Lucas famously 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.520 wanted to destroy. You might have all the toys, you 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.080 might know the names of every single character, no matter 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:52.800 how minor or how briefly they appeared on screen. But 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.200 this episode is going to be for everybody. So if 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.359 you are a hardcore fan, just let me get through 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:01.400 this next little bit. So, the first film came out 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.919 in nineteen seventy seven, and after it came out. When 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:06.640 it first came out, it was just called Star Wars. 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.000 After it came out, it was later given the subtitle 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:15.359 Episode for a New Hope. After nineteen three, it seemed 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.320 like we were only going to get three movies. It 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.040 was just gonna be a trilogy. That would be Episode four, 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:22.480 A New Hope, Episode five, The Empire Strikes Back, an 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.280 episode six, Return of the Jedi, originally going to be 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:29.520 called Revenge of the Jedi. So for years we thought 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:32.320 that was all we're gonna get, at least officially. We 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:37.200 did get all these other supplemental pieces of media, including 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:41.000 comic books. There were some specials. There were a couple 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:45.400 of Ewok movies, the less said about the better, and uh, 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.000 then you had the sort of splintering of the Star 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.240 Wars universe. You had what most people considered canon, which 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.120 is the stuff that appears in the films, that's all 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:57.320 the official this is definitely part of the Star Wars 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.200 universe stuff. And then you had everything else that was 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.920 in the expanded universe that might or might not be 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.360 part of the official Star Wars universe. Some things might 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:10.920 get incorporated into stories, some things might be completely disregarded, 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.160 and there are also contradictions within that as well. But 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:18.560 generally speaking, fans like myself consider the things in the 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:22.440 films to be cannon and everything else is apocryphal. So 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.160 it might be true, but there's nothing until it's in 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:29.360 a movie, it's not. It's not law. Fast forward to today, 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.159 and now we've got a dang Star Wars movie coming 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.920 out every single year. Whether that's a good thing or not, 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.640 I'm going to leave it for some pop culture podcast. 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.000 That's not for me to say. I'm just going to 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.120 look at some of the science and tech within the 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.440 Star Wars universe. And that's where I turned to Dr 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.520 Patrick Johnson. Now, as I mentioned a moment ago, I 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.400 received a book written by him titled The Physics of 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.480 Star Wars and as the extremely cute tagline of may 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.799 the F equals m A be with you. F equals 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:03.440 in a being the formula to show force, So may 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:05.440 the force be with you. I'm sure you all picked 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.120 up on that. The book covers lots of different aspects 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.520 of physics and and technology. It covers stuff like time 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:17.080 dilation and planetary physics, so there's a ton of information 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.400 in the book. It's really easy to read, and it's 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:23.080 laid out in a way where it gives you the 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:27.440 context of the technology or concept in science within the 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.839 Star Wars universe. It then explains how that must work 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.799 within the Star Wars universe, and then there's a section 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.599 about how close are we able to match that in 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:43.560 our world, whether it is a process or a technology 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.160 or whatever. And uh, I really enjoy it, so if 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:48.960 you get a chance to check it out, you should. 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.520 So I used that as my primary source of research 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.520 for this episode. I'm going to focus on the tech. Obviously, 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:57.440 I could talk a lot about the physics and stuff 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.000 if I really wanted to, and some of the physics 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:04.440 information will come into this, but this is tech stuff. 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:06.600 Not stuff to blow your mind. So we're gonna focus 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.240 mostly on the technology part, knowing that technology is really 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.200 just applied science, right, you just take take that scientific 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:18.359 knowledge and you make it into something. So where to begin, Well, 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:20.760 I've done a full episode on it, and I even 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.680 did a rerun with some updates, But I think you 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.000 have to begin with lightsabers because I would argue it 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.960 is the most iconic out of all the technologies that 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:34.400 are related to Star Wars. Uh. It was something that 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:39.360 really struck a chord in viewers, and it makes sense. 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.279 You've got a hero who's wielding essentially a magic sword. 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.040 That's what George Lucas called lightsabers. He didn't really refer 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.360 to them as lightsabers that much. In casual conversation. You 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.960 talk about magic swords and bad guy's got a magic swords. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.280 You get to have these great cool sword fights, which, 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:58.880 again in the early versions of Star Wars that the 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:04.200 original trilogy, there are a lot less acrobatic than later 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.560 sword lightsaber duels, but still pretty darn cool if you 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:10.880 happen to be a kid growing up and watching it 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:13.440 for the first time. Now, in the world of Star Wars, 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:17.960 lightsabers are a Jedi's weapon. Jedi are the force wielding 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.720 warriors that are able to control these mystical powers. Other 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.840 people can try to use lightsabers, but there's at least 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:28.360 an implication there that Jedi are the only ones who 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.200 are really able to be proficient with them, that perhaps 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.440 an affinity with the Force is necessary for you to 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.040 be able to use a lightsaber effectively, and not, I 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:41.800 don't know, lop your own limbs off. Lightsabers are never 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.840 really described in great detail in the films. We know 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:50.440 that Jedi build them because we know that Luke's father 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.560 built a lightsaber, than then Luke has and then Luke 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:55.680 himself has to go and build a lightsaber later on 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.840 in that original trilogy, but it doesn't really go into 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.360 the details of what makes up a lightsaber in the movies. Now, 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:06.000 the expanded Universe definitely addresses this, and some of that 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.640 element gets kind of leaked into the movies and little 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.000 casual bits and pieces, But again it depends on what 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:18.680 your tolerance is for apocryphal versus cannon. There's more information 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:23.120 like a power source essentially a battery pack, a crystal 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.280 that focuses energy and emitter that allows the blade to 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.840 come out of the hilt. But really, what you just 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.000 need to know is that a lightsaber is a weapon, 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:38.920 a blade made out of some form of luminescent energy. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.520 So the blades tend to be about three ft long. 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.360 That varies depending upon the Jedi. I'm sure Yodas is 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.439 more like two and a half feet long. The blades 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.600 can be found in various colors. Jedi colors tend to 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.040 be blue or green, although Mace wind Up famously wields 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.760 a purple lightsaber. And Sith sabers as in the Bad 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.440 Guy Eyes Dark Jedi, well, let's not get two technical 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.520 Sith and dark Jedi are not synonymous. But Sith sabers 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.599 tend to be read and lightsabers can block blaster or 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.800 fire we'll talk more about blasters and just a little bit. 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:17.480 And they also will collide with other lightsabers. You can 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.040 have a duel with someone else and if your lightsaber 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.280 contacts their lightsaber, there's physical contact, as if you were 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.080 holding like a physical blade and it came into contact 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:31.000 with someone else's physical blade. So that presents itself some 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.720 challenges when you try to figure out how to explain 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:37.560 how this stuff actually works. Lightsabers can cut through metal, 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:42.320 they can cauterize wounds. They are clearly hot, the blade 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.560 itself is hot, or else it wouldn't make any sense. 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.000 Various sources in the Star Wars universe refer to them 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:53.079 as things like laser swords or plasma swords, which are 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:58.040 two very different things and both of them present very 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.360 complicated issues. If you want to talk about an actual 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.800 handheld weapon that can form a blade that you can 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:09.240 then use to cut through a metal door or lop 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:15.959 off snaughty little teenager's arms, I guess Anakin at that 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.200 point was actually probably older than a teenager. But anyway, 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.439 so if it's a laser sword, that's tricky because we're 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.800 not really good at getting light to stop at a 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.920 specific point three feet out from the hilt of an emitter. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.520 Imagine having a flashlight and turning it on and just thinking, well, 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.080 I want the flashlight to only extend three ft and 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.679 then I want to stop. How do you do that? 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:42.040 How do you get the light to not continue on? 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.920 One way you could get around this is if you 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.960 had some sort of system that would hold a mirror 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.120 about three feet out from the hilt from the emitter 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.920 on your handle, and it would reflect the light back 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.680 down into the emitter and allow that light to bounce 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.680 back and forth between a mid and mirror. Uh, but 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.079 the movies don't seem to have that mirror. It's kind 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:07.520 of a moot point. You can actually see the when 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.640 a lightsaber is is sort of pointed directly at the camera, 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:12.840 there's a point of light there, So clearly there's not 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.680 some sort of dark spot, So it doesn't really work 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:17.960 in that case. Plus, a laser that's strong enough to 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:22.280 cut metal and cause massive damage would require a great 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:27.200 deal of power. The lasers you find and laser pointers 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:30.640 are not strong enough typically to cause very much damage, 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:32.960 although you can buy some that are strong enough to 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.240 maybe set fire to some matches or or maybe even 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.600 do some more severe damage to stuff if it's left 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.800 on a flammable surface long enough, if you if you've 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:47.120 concentrated the light on that spot long enough. But if 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.520 you want something that's gonna be so strong that can 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.640 do that sort of instantaneous damage, you're talking about a 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:56.560 massive requirement for power, and you would need a really 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:01.280 big cooling system something to keep all all that equipment 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.400 cool so that you could continue to use it. That's 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.839 probably not something that you really want with a handheld 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:12.560 blade system. So laser is also another big problem. They 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:16.160 can't physically stop other forms of energy like blaster fire 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:20.080 or lightsabers from passing through the blade. Again, if I 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.640 have a flashlight and you have a flashlight, and we 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.840 swing our flashlights and arcs so that the actual beams 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.080 would come into contact with one another, we don't feel 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.839 any resistance. The beams just pass right through. There's no 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:36.600 collision there. So if a lightsabers mail of a laser, 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.840 then you don't have this physical contact element that lightsabers 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:45.120 clearly have in the movies, so we can't really describe 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.360 it as a laser. And keeping in mind, yes, these 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:51.319 are fictional movies, obviously, right, it's fantasy. If you really 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:53.080 want to get down to it, it's more of a 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.880 fantasy film than a science fiction film. And there's nothing 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:58.920 wrong with that. We're just talking about if we wanted 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:01.360 to make one in the real world, could we do it? 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.040 So let's say that, all right, Well, lasers are clearly 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.320 a no go. What about plasma plasma is a real thing? 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:13.080 We can make plasma plasma being ionized gas, not the 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:17.319 component in our blood, but an ionized gas. It's it's 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:21.480 the most plentiful form of matter in the universe. Stars 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:26.720 are made of plasma, and ionized gas just means that 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.400 the gas is made up of charged particles. The atoms 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:34.079 have had electrons stripped from them, which means you've got 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:38.319 free flowing electrons within that gas. You've got charged particles 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.280 flowing within that gas. Typically, the way we do this 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:43.000 is that we can put it under a lot of 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:44.960 pressure and heat it up a whole bunch, and that 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.240 strips the electrons from these atoms and causes them to 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:51.360 move like crazy. When you add heat to material, you 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:56.040 cause more atomic motion. And so this is very fast 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:00.920 moving particles within a a gas, a big ionized hot, 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.040 hot gas, and we're talking about hundreds of thousands of 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:07.760 degrees in fahrenheit, like two degrees fahrenheit something like that. 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:12.040 In order to get the gas temperature where you're stripping 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.960 it and you've made this ionized format. That temperature is 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:20.160 definitely high enough to cut metal or to cauterize wounds. 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.520 There's no question about it. If you did get plasma, 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:27.680 then you could you could cause some serious damage, but 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.360 you also wouldn't be able to hold the lightsaber, because 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.360 it would be as if you're holding a handle from 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:39.600 which a substance that is the temperature of the surface 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.520 of the sun is coming out. You would have to 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.640 have some sort of incredible protection so that you don't 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:48.640 immediately get burned by it. Not to mention, there'd be 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:52.560 other forms of radiation besides just heat that you would 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:56.400 have to deal with. Potentially, so you might be able 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:00.400 to contain the blade using electro magnets. Because a ionized 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.960 gas having a charge, it does respond to magnetic fields. 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.960 In fact, that's actually a big problem because if it 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:11.240 comes into any range of any magnetic field of consequence, 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.320 it's going that magnetic field is going to uh to 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:19.240 bend the blade. If you're on a planet that has 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.800 a magnetic field, for example, Earth has one, then that's 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.680 anitial that's a problem. Immediately, the magnetic field of the 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:28.120 plant alone would distort the blade to the point where 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.760 you wouldn't be able to have an actual sword pop 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.840 out of the heilt. You might be able to have 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.520 it stop where you want it to using electro magnets, 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.080 so unlike lasers, where it's just going to shoot out 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.440 and keep going. Using electromagnetism, you might be able to 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:48.240 create like a cylinder, essentially a loop of plasma flow, 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.560 so that you have kind of this glowing torch of plasma, 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.760 and you could simulate having a blade that way. However, 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.680 just like lasers, you wouldn't be able to use this 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:04.320 aid to stop things from hitting you, like other lightsabers 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:09.760 or blaster fire. Uh. Dr Johnson and his book describes 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.000 it like this. If you think of plasma, plasma is 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.520 really kind of a soupy sort of substance. It's a 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.720 soupy substance of particles. So if you had two lightsabers 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:21.880 and a duel, it would be like two blades of 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:25.440 soup hitting each other. They don't clash, they would just 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:30.360 gloop in. Also, because they would both have these electromagnetic 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.240 fields around them, instead of it bouncing off of each other, 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.320 they more likely meld into one. You would have the 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.000 electromagnetic field twist in such a way where it becomes 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:43.240 one field instead of two, and you would end up 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.640 having your two blades merge into a single plasma mess, 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:51.440 which is more like something that happens in spaceballs than 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:55.480 in star Wars. But yeah, it would not work the 0:16:55.520 --> 0:17:00.200 way it does in the movies, and so really the 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.560 final verdict is that lightsabers are works of fiction through 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:08.040 and through with only the most tangential relationships with real 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.320 gadgets and science. But we do have stuff that can 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:15.119 do some really impressive cutting or cauterizing. It's just that 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:20.440 it's not in that laser sword format. It's less visually 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.720 impressive than that. So we do have stuff that can 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.000 do some amazing things, but it's not like a light 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.560 sword that'll uh, really impress people when you turn it on, 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:32.960 and it certainly doesn't make that cool boom boom noise. 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:36.840 Blasters kind of a similar story, uh. In Star Wars, 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.440 blasters are guns. They can be cannon or they can 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:44.320 be handheld blasters, rifles, that sort of thing. They fire 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:48.119 out brightly lit projectiles. When I was a kid, I 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:50.000 just thought of them as laser guns. I just thought, no, 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.440 it's a laser gun. Even though they call them blasters 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.400 in the movies, I think in the scripts they refer 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:56.280 to them as laser guns. At least in some of 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:00.400 the early screenplays. They look a little like laser beams. 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.159 They're truncated. You can you get these kind of like 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.160 tiny dashes, So think of them maybe like as much 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.680 as a meter long and some shots, but usually it's 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:11.960 less than that. And they're just coming out of these 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.800 guns and you can see them. You can see this 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:20.320 distinct dash like line. Uh. They don't move like laser beams, 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:22.879 so they can't really be laser guns because if they 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.600 move like laser beams, they'd move at the speed of light, 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:28.760 which means we wouldn't be able to follow their progress. 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.639 We see if they were on or off, but we 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.080 wouldn't be able to see them move across the place 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.280 because light travels too fast for us to perceive it 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:39.840 that way. If you turn on a flashlight, you cannot 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.919 actually follow the beam as it leaves the flashlight and 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:46.280 heads out into the environment. For example, you know if 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.040 if you turn it on, it looks like the end 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:50.920 of the flashlight. Let's say that you're pointing out a 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:53.919 wall that's fifty ft away. You turn the flashlight on, 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:57.320 it looks like the light has instantaneously come on as 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.600 far as the onto the wall, so you didn't actually 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:02.800 see the light travel from the flashlight all the way 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.720 to the wall. It goes way too fast for that. Clearly, 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.359 blasters do not fire projectiles at that speed because we 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:12.199 can actually follow them with their eyes. In fact, not 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.320 only can we follow them, but characters can and do 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:20.000 dodge them or block them with lightsabers. So Jedi will 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.080 use their lightsabers to block blaster fire, and in at 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.960 least one altered scene we see a character dodge blaster 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:33.320 fire from just a few feet away. That would be 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:37.239 the awful retroactive edit to a New Hope, which I 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:41.080 don't like, and I don't know why you even brought 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:43.000 it up. It was tacky of you to do it. 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:47.080 You should know that that particular edit it really upsets me. 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:52.480 Han shot first, So, like lightsabers, blasters are not really 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:57.080 comparable to any real world technologies today. I mean, if 0:19:57.119 --> 0:19:59.600 you think of it as something again like a plasma 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.080 weapon instead of a laser weapon, you run into some 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:04.320 of those same problems I was talking about with lightsabers, 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.280 mainly the idea that if you come into contact with 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:11.959 any magnetic field at all, it's going to warp the fire. 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.760 You can't you can't reliably hit anything, which I guess 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.040 could explain why stormtroopers are so bad at shooting stuff, 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.720 because the weapons they use are being affected by magnetic 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:28.600 fields of other materials, and therefore they are random, the 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:34.720 way Obi Wan refers to blasters, random and crude, unlike 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.960 a lightsaber, which would be just as random in the 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:40.760 face of magnetic fields if it too was made of plasma. 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.120 Lasers are used in weapons systems today, but they're more 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.920 frequently used for guidance and aiming. There are some militarized 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.920 lasers that can cause damage, but typically these are ones 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:56.640 that are mounted onto large mobile stations, like a trailer 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.640 that you would tow behind another vehicle, or sometimes mounted 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:03.720 to a militarized vehicle. Because they require so much energy 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:07.760 to operate and they're so heavy that you can't carry 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.240 them around by hand. Uh And even these are much 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.800 more limited obviously than anything we see in Star Wars. Plasma, 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.080 again as different, is difficult. If you were to shoot plasma, 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:20.240 I don't know how you would keep it in a 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:24.200 coherent beam the way the blaster fire is in Star Wars. 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:27.000 I don't think that that would really be possible. You 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:28.760 could get a blob of plasma and it could be 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:32.280 pretty dangerous. Propelling it at high speed would be a 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.320 little bit of a challenge. You could use electromagnetism, and 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:38.720 that would help a lot. But again, unless you had 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:43.719 some way of containing a very tight, narrow magnetic field 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.440 through which the plasma would travel, I don't know how 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:51.359 you would make it maintain its shape. And plasma once 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.000 it leaves the source of its energy loses energy very 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:59.119 very quickly. It starts to cool down immediately, so it 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.560 would not be a very destructive force for very long 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:07.160 once it left that source of energy. So again an 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:11.200 element of fantasy, but still pretty fascinating. Now this takes 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:16.840 us to another iconic piece of technology within the Star 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:21.960 Wars universe. It's no moon, it's a space station. Talking 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:26.199 about the Death Star, Dr Johnson did some calculations to 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:28.639 determine how much energy the Death Star would have to 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:33.160 emit in order to destroy a planet, and he did 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:36.399 this by comparing the amount of damage it would need 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.920 to do to destroy something like Alderon, which spoiler alert 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.760 if you haven't watched episode four, it gets blowed up. 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:48.560 He said, well, let's take a look at the largest 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:53.040 collision we have on record of anything, and that would 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:57.280 have been a fragment of the comet shoemaker late Levi nine. 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:00.800 When't it collided with Jupiter, and according to Dr Johnson, 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:03.280 to match the power of that impact, the Death Star 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:05.960 would need to fire a beam of three times ten 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:10.680 to the forty five power photons with an energy level 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:13.679 of one point one two times ten to the twenty 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:17.760 seven power jewels, which is about the same amount of 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:20.800 energy that our son omits in three seconds. Or, as 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:23.879 he points out, if you were to take the average 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:27.760 consumption rate that humans set in the year two thousand thirteen, 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:31.320 it would take three million years of human consumption to 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:35.280