Being the nerdy person I am, I have been reading about particle physics, and an alarming truth has been called to my attention.
All particles are either Bosons or Fermions. Fermions have to obey the exclusionary principle, meaning to Fermions can't be in the same place at once or pass through each other or anything (the same way I can't move my hand through the book or walk through walls). Bosons, however, don't have to obey such an exclusionary principle.
If you shine a laser in the air and shine another laser through it, because photons are Bosons, the beams will pass through each other.
Therefore, if light sabers are really concentrated beams of photons (as can be assumed by the word light in their name), it doesn't matter how advanced the technology is, physical laws demand that the beams of the light sabers would pass through each other rather than clash. They could still be dangerous to flesh the way that lasers are, but they would be terrible weapons because you wouldn't be able to block a blow or do any of those cool Star Wars moves.
It's so sad the way illusion dies. :-)
Anyway, I'm going to Boston tomorrow morning. I'm nervous, but I'm also really excited. I'll be there until Sunday night.
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6 comments:
Oh.
Wow.
Maybe that's what you can become famous for. The person who manages to rectify this universal injustice in order to successfully invent the lightsaber. Because that would just be uber-cool.
blasphemy! ;)
but in addition to the light thing, there's the sound thing. and the stopping at a consistent distance from the hilt and not dispersing thing. makes one suspect that lightsabers aren't just light, eh?
regardless, the theoretical physics path is calling you to correct this malicious state of affairs. then we could completely dominate a star wars convention and it would indeed be spectacularly cool.
Well if we trust Einstein, you'd see that E=Mc2, (Energy = Mass * speed of light squared)
1. E = hf where h is Planck's constant and f is the frequency of the photon
2. Energy does have mass
Thus, you can interpret it to mean that energy is the same thing as mass except for a conversion factor equal to the square of the speed of light
Also a photon has momentum, and momentum (p) is related to mass (m) by p = mv
The problem is energy. How do you get enough photons to move through a short distance that would be able to interact with it's environment the way the movies show? Even NASA says the physics can work, it's just a power issue.
"then we could completely dominate a star wars convention and it would indeed be spectacularly cool."
No way. I am not going to a Star Wars convention.
Ever.
well, technically energy does have mass, but light doesn't change to mass at the speed of light, because it *is* light, right? so photons can never become fermions, although i could potentially become energy at the speed of light, i think. :-P
feel free to battle me with einstein's coolness. :-)
shea, you are coming to that convention and you are going to love it.
Lindsay, you are correct, but as I see it, photons cannot potentially aquire "Relative Mass" until it moves past the speed of light.
That's a very interesting thought tho :) Thank you for helping me dust off my physics grey matter!
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