Anyone who’s ever watched the Star Wars movies walks away desiring not to traverse our majestic universe in a cool spaceship, rather they come out excited by the prospects of owning a real lightsaber. The lightsaber is an iconic light blade weapon that is a favorite choice of weapon for warring advanced civilizations. Nowadays, it is a ridiculously cool accessory for both nerds and nerds-at-heart. The science fiction inspired weapon obliterates the enemy by slicing them with a colored beam of a directed burst of light.
Real Lightsaber Quest
For the past 30 years, engineers and other star-wars enthusiasts have tried their best to build a real-life combat ready saber weapon. Many designers have come pretty close but, none is as famous as Allen Pan. Allen is an astute engineer who runs a popular science-fiction themed Youtube channel called Sufficiently Advanced. The inventor did a thrilling demonstration of his new futuristic device. His saber did almost all the things that those used in Star Wars did. For one, it made really cool noises and it even emitted fire upon coming into contact with a physical body.
Allen is a rock star as he has been responsible for also building Thor’s majestic hammer. To activate, and hence lift, the Pan’s hammer, users had to use unique fingerprints.
The big question on everyone’s mind now becomes: When are we going to have real-life sabers being sold in stores? To satisfactorily answer that question, allow us to explore the three major challenges hindering the creation of this iconic plasma weapon from the future.
- Accelerating light particles is easy, the problem lies in bringing them to a sudden halt. To make a functioning laser, you’ll need to stop the accelerated light from the saber’s handle using a piece of mirror. The added mirror would make the weapon cumbersome and impractical on the battlefield.
- To cut through physical objects like walls or aliens is an energy-intense process that requires a mind-boggling amount of energy. The saber weapon requires a voluminous power supply capable of releasing the necessary kilowatts of energy capable of slicing and dicing through materials.
- Laser beams tend to be invisible unless you stare at them down their axis. What’s more, laser beams don’t actually class as depicted in the movies rather they would pass through each other without anyone feeling the effect. That’s why clubs have to release smoke for the laser beams to be visible to the revelers.
Bright Future
In 2013, lightsaber enthusiasts and fans got a huge reprieve upon learning of the research findings by MIT and Harvard. The scientists had succeeded the world’s newest state of matter using light particles or photons. The researchers made it absolutely clear that they intended to apply their new scientific findings towards advancing quantum computing and most importantly, to us, to build the first-ever combat ready real lightsaber.