How a real, physics-obeying lightsabre would work.

[KOTORFanactic]

This may be a bit off the subject, but I just have to ask this, since the majority of you posters seem to have a pretty good understanding of physics and its ilk: What happens to an object (meaning, at the very broadest level of description, matter) when it goes into a blackhole? Is it atomized, obliterated, erased from existence, or is the result somewhere on the opposite side of the spectrum, like, is it made something "more" or "better" than it once was?

 

Or does nothing happen?........I'm also curious about wormholes...from a scientific perspective...preferably devoid of complex math equations.

 

Black Holes-Well, sucked in by enoumous gravitational pull, and crushed into oblivion, not a single atom survives.

 

Another theory is that if you fly in a circle, along the rim of a black hole, going in a slowly inward spiral, you would fly through into another dimension/reality and emerge from a white hole. A wormhole in itself.

 

Thats just my info. Others might say different.

Edited September 28, 2004 by KOTORFanactic

[Influence]

THESE POSTS ARE TOO DAMN LONG

[Influence]

Actually, the poster is totally justified in trying to figure out how a lightsaber would work.  For example, Lucas used the convention of Hyperspace, or extra-dimensional travel, to get around Einsteins general relativity.  Lucas knew nothing could travel faster than light according to normal physics, so he tried to conceive of a plausible way aroudn that limitation, something that is already conceived of by scientists, although loosely.  The point is, he made the effort to explain his universe.

 

This poster is doing the same thing in trying to explain limitations of a true "light" saber.  Light can't reflect objects with mass, but an EM field could, the heat of plasma could go through metal, etc.  It's also something that is already being tried in fusion reactors, it would produce that cool color, etc.  As for other ways of making a high-tech sword, can YOU think of another conceivable technology that could reflect energy bolts with accuracy?

 

In fact, his explanation is so good it really should become the Star Wars EU reference standard.

 

 

You guys need to realize that if there is no plausible explanation for a device in a science fiction setting, it ceases to be sci-fi and becomes purely fantasy.  If you don't need an explanation for how things work, that's perfectly fine, HOWEVER, some ppl like to think of Star Wars as adventures that might in the future some day be possible or nearly

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

GOod point mad skillz, and halastar or watever your name is, your nit picking too much. And as for teh poster, know one said we speak American. We are touhgt how to speak ENglsih in American schools and that is the language we speak.

 

-also the twin paradox is solved with time dialation and length contraction which i will nto get into a discusion about here.

 

-also its einstein's THEORy while i hold it to be the most reasonable and reliable theory there are a few scientists who see it does have great faults.

[ZeroDark9]

This is about traveling faster than light and hyperspace.

 

In an answer to something that was said earlier, yeah E=MC^2. So that way is not the way to go. But traveling through a different dimension would be possible. In Halo they use a system of faster than light travel that involves the opening of a hole into a thing that they called subspace. This subspace would be another dimension and there for could have a different set of laws WHEN APPLIED TO TRAVELING. In this case Subspace would be like hyperspace and for every light-minute in the sub dimension you could have traveled a light-year. But what i'm trying to say is that faster than light travel here my not be possible but going to a different dimension and going to faster than light may be possible. (Oh and I'm just a High school student, so please dont slam me if my idea is wrong)

[Influence]

WRONG! WRONG WRONG !

 

YOU JUST GOT SLAMMED

 

YOU GOT SERVED LIKE A FIVE STAR RESTAURANT BIZNATCH

 

 

 

 

lol just kidding point taken

 

P.S. im still in highschool too don be scerred

[nik_bg]

Just a small "joke" about higher-than-speed-of-light travelling. If you take the equation of mass

 

m = m0 / sqrt(1 - v^2 / c^2)

 

and you assume that there is a particle with imaginary mass m0 (the square of mass is negative), then for this particle the speed of light will be the MINIMUM speed, the maximum speed will be unlimited, the mass will decrease when increasing the speed going to zero when speed goes to infinity.

 

This "joke" is mathematically correct, and in physics it is called "tachyon". Ths problem is that if such particle can interact with our matter, the principle of causality is violetad - such particle could send information to its past that could change its future. As I know, this problem is not resolved yet.

[xG-9]

Just a small "joke" about higher-than-speed-of-light travelling. If you take the equation of mass

 

m = m0 / sqrt(1 - v^2 / c^2)

 

and you assume that there is a particle with imaginary mass m0 (the square of mass is negative), then for this particle the speed of light will be the MINIMUM speed, the maximum speed will be unlimited, the mass will decrease when increasing the speed going to zero when speed goes to infinity.

 

This "joke" is mathematically correct, and in physics it is called "tachyon". Ths problem is that if such particle can interact with our matter, the principle of causality is violetad - such particle could send information to its past that could change its future. As I know, this problem is not resolved yet.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Wow that's really interesting I never knew what Tachyons were before. (wow if they exist that'd be...pretty big) Nik, do you by chance know where I can find the solution to the formula to reach this conclusion?

 

I can't figure this out by just going off that equation. I'm of course assuming that v^2/c^2 > 1, and that of course puts us into having to deal with imaginary numbers when we sqrt a negative number, and I was never any good with dealing with those. I'd really like to see the solution...I just hope I can follow it.

 

 

=====

For those interested but going "huh?"

 

That formula he gave up there is the relativistic mass transformation, by the way. Mo is the resting mass of an object (like say what your ship would weigh on earth) and M is what it would actually weigh at speed v. You will notice that as your speed v approaches the speed of light c, your mass goes to infinity.

 

For those of you still in high school and calculating, say, the momentum of an object by using p=mu, you may have just realized that since mass is NOT a constant, and actually depends on velocity, that p=mu is actually wrong.

The formulas you use in highschool, like p=mu, etc, are called "Newtonian" ... like Newtonian momentum.

 

The actual formula to measure momentum is p = mov / sqrt (1 - v^2/c^2).

Where mo = resting mass. (thought it might look confusing in type as "mo") If you quickly run a couple test numbers through that though, you'll notice that the answer you get is really close to p=mu until you get reasonably close to the speed of light. And when you're measuring the momentum of your car, even if you're driving at 300km/h, the two forumulas give you the same answer.

 

There has been proof that Newton is wrong, and that Einstein is right. While it doesn't matter here on Earth, Einstein's equations have to be used for things like satelllites and space probes, unless you want your Mars lander to smash into the planet instead of landing on it. (or missing the planet entirely) Time dilation is also used to correct signals between satellites and the earth: there is enough time dilation that without using Einstein's equations to correct the signals, they get all messed up.

[nik_bg]

Good intro page is

 

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Part...r/tachyons.html

 

At the end there is another interesting link, follow it

[LoneWolf16]

So...basically, what your saying is...I think...that mass, once it reaches a certain velocity, no longer applys, in that the basic concept of matter then becomes moot, that it just sort of spreads out, or shrinks to infinite levels which the human mind can't even conceive?.............I'm confused...math and science aren't exactly my fields of expertise, use of vocabulary and other things relating to the spoken and written word are more to my liking...since I can understand, and have a certain amount of control over it.

 

This is what I get for sleeping during that damn psyhics class...but it was so boring! All those equations and numbers and letters and....AHHH!!! What I wouldn't have done for some dumbed down versions of what the guy was saying...

[Fearless_Jedi]

I am sure this topic would make a great physics paper but Star Wars is fiction so the author(GL) never really intended it to obey the laws of physics.

[GarethCarrots]

xg-9 did you ever get in touch with one of the wackier professors, sorry to bring this dead thread back to life but its so fascinating