(pseudo)Science reveals what would happen with lightsabers

[Michael Mozina]

I found this funny article on the internet today. Apparently they're trying to use pseudoscience to disprove a 'sci-fi" concept.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filt ... aber-batt/

"There's a fundamental plasma process called magnetic reconnection," Archer says. "[This] can cause a huge amount of energy when plasma with different magnetic fields collide."

Plasma is way more than just an ionised gas, I explain more https://t.co/iOfUtF8mPH
— Dr Martin Archer (@martinarcher) April 7, 2016

Archer, who has also taken on Game of Thrones and Superman, continues: "If you had a lightsaber fight, you'd pretty much get reconnection going on all the time unless you could get them exactly aligned when they clash."

"So the clash of two lightsaber blades, huge amounts of hot plasma are going to be ejected at explosive velocities, and they're going to vaporise your hands, legs and face off."

The reality of course is that the heat source of the plasma would necessarily be electricity, not magnetic fields, and the two current channels would not be likely to electrically interact with one another since they have two different power sources. Granted, the direction of the current streams would dictate whether the magnetic field alignments attracted or repelled each other as the sabers clashed together, and hot plasma would probably fly everywhere, but it's kinda funny to be using pseudoscience to diss on sci-fi concepts.

[comingfrom]

They don't think it is pseudoscience though.

Dr. Martin also didn't take into account the Force, that be with the knights who wield light sabers.
May the Force be with him.

~Paul

[Metryq]

It's worse than pseudo-science. It is a straw man argument. (Putting words into an opponent's mouth in order to knock him down.)

I've seen lots of these "science of" STAR TREK, STAR WARS, SUPERMAN, X-MEN, etc. books and articles. And I've seen other takes on the lightsaber thing. One argument was: "Lasers would not stop at 1 meter in length, nor would lasers bounce off each other." Well, no one in the movies ever called them "laser swords."

Likewise, no one in the movies explains the function of lightsabers. (I admit to not having seen all of them. But it would seem out of character. TREK spin-offs do techno-babble.) So, whipping out the magnetically bottled plasma arguments are also nonsense. To the best of my knowledge, it is the fans who explain lightsabers as plasma. The earliest example I've seen is the WEAPONS AND FIELD EQUIPMENT TECHNICAL REFERENCE MANUAL by Shane Johnson (copyright 1984). Although it is possible there is an earlier example—maybe Alan Dean Foster's SPLINTER OF THE MIND'S EYE, or other spin-off novel.

Just the same, I agree with those above. The authors are actually pushing their bad science of magnetic reconnection, not debunking lightsabers. Lightsabers must be accepted at face value—or with a grain of salt, like the rest of the franchise.

Comingfrom, I considered that lightsabers may actually be tools for focusing a Jedi's "Force," like a magnifying glass focusing the Sun. However, we see untrained people handling the weapons in the movies (e.g. Luke when he first casually turns on Anakin's saber, and Han when he cuts open the tauntaun). Ergo, they appear to be self-powered.

EDIT: This gets even better. (I had to dig back into my files.) Johnson's book describes the blade as antimatter, with the power released from annihilation "recharging" the saber.

(Image larger than forum limit, so you'll have to go there.)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v252/ ... ons_51.jpg