Lightsaber calculations

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

By demand of @Phsccarvalho I had created this blog in order to find how powerful a lightsaber is on it's own.

However there was an issue that I assumed temperatures for the heating of the steel not in accordance to this blog

I had explained in my reasoning for at least the high ball of 150,000,000 K that it was based on how Kyle Hill in his videos on lightsabers approximated them to miniature Tokamaks as in order for the lightsaber to act as a blade and not a giant torch, Kyle Hill surmised the lightsaber is a ring of plasma contained in a powerful helical magnetic field.

I also found two different values for lightsaber temperature based on calculating for plasma and the heat of fusion, and this article has found its own value for lightsaber temperature.

These are the values listed below:

Steel/Iron Melting temperature: 1811 K

Medium Article value: 20566 K

Blog accepted value: 28000 C

Lightning Temperature: 30000 K

ITER Tokamak temperature: 150000000 K

Kyle Hill's videos:

 

[Phsccarvalho]

The currently accepted value is 28,000 degrees Celsius, not Kelvin. Kelvin is higher.

Anyway, that's all I have to say, I can't add anything else to the discussion. I'll call a staff member.

 

[Lilybitdun]

I believe you have to actually give reasoning to use Tokamaks temperature instead of linking several YouTube videos

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[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

@Lilybitdun I gave Kyle Hill's reasoning in the OP

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

The currently accepted value is 28,000 degrees Celsius, not Kelvin. Kelvin is higher.

Anyway, that's all I have to say, I can't add anything else to the discussion. I'll call a staff member.

I agree with this, not sure what justifies anything higher than the other lists. Or at best, I can see why someone would think it's hotter than lightning.

 

[Phsccarvalho]

@Lilybitdun I gave Kyle Hill's reasoning in the OP

Hagane, I think you didn't understand. It's against the rules to just upload a video to YouTube and tell people to watch it. You can't make a CRT where the explanation is in someone else's video or Reddit thread. You have to explain in your own words why a Tokamak should be used/is more accurate for a lightsaber.

I agree with this, not sure what justifies anything higher than the other lists. Or at best, I can see why someone would think it's hotter than lightning.

I think part of Hagane's calculation is him trying to calculate the heat of the lightsaber using the one from the door in Episode 1. The only thing I can disagree with here is the part of the calculation that assumes the heat is calculated using the Tokamak, because well, he didn't explain why that should be used. But I think the rest of the calculation is just trying to calculate the heat.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I do not agree with Tokamak example either, but where is this number, "Calculated from plasma: 7873931.915 K" sourced?

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

"Calculated from plasma: 7873931.915 K" sourced?

The AP of a lightsaber

vsbattles.fandom.com

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Pretty sure that's calc stacking.

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

Hagane, I think you didn't understand. It's against the rules to just upload a video to YouTube and tell people to watch it. You can't make a CRT where the explanation is in someone else's video or Reddit thread. You have to explain in your own words why a Tokamak should be used/is more accurate for a lightsaber.

No, I literally did edit the explaination in when @Lilybitdun ask me to do so, I wasn't suggesting to watch the videos, but I was linking them as the source for my reasoning.

I really should ask if you think a lightsaber is just a glorified torch or not.

 

[Phsccarvalho]

Pretty sure that's calc stacking.

Is this correct?

I originally asked Hage to either calculate the lightsaber's AP based on the accepted heat (28000 C) or calculate the temperature plus the AP based on it.

Could you ping a member of the CalC team or a user with more experience in temperature and plasma calculations?

No, I literally did edit the explaination in @Lilybitdun ask me to do so, I wasn't suggesting to watch the videos, but I was linking them as the source for my reasoning.

I really should ask if you think a lightsaber is just a glorified torch or not.

ok

I don't know. That's why in my original post I gave several temperature suggestions so we'd have something concrete on the page since we didn't have a calculation to find the temperature.

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

Pretty sure that's calc stacking.

I thought calc stacking only applied if someone was using a previous calc for the results of their own calc.

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

Is this correct?

I originally asked Hage to either calculate the lightsaber's AP based on the accepted heat (28000 C) or calculate the temperature plus the AP based on it.

Could you ping a member of the CalC team or a user with more experience in temperature and plasma calculations?

You know, I think the main problem is that we don't know the exact temperature at with the steel is being heated up here, and honestly, I think I might just recalcuate the lightsaber temperature values using the medium article's method.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

The AP of a lightsaber

vsbattles.fandom.com

Oh, actually I see the issue now, it looks like some of the decimal places are off here and there.

 

[KLOL506]

@Mr. Bambu @Agnaa @DontTalkDT @Executor_N0 @Flashlight237 @SeijiSetto Thoughts on this?

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

@Phsccarvalho @DarkDragonMedeus I ended up overhauling the calc for the Lightsaber temperatures section

 

[DontTalkDT]

None of the temperature / energy density assumptions seem sufficiently justified.

 

[Phsccarvalho]

None of the temperature / energy density assumptions seem sufficiently justified.

And what do you suggest? Because this can't be left without any temperature value. Furthermore, you didn't say anything about calculating the temperature based on the door.

 

[DontTalkDT]

this can't be left without any temperature value.

Yes it can.

Furthermore, you didn't say anything about calculating the temperature based on the door.

Steel melting point is the only justified assumption. I have no idea what that formula you use for volume is supposed to be or where you have the w2 value from. It also looks like you didn't put in the w2 value into the formula, as the two occurrences of it have differing values.
And then you could just using the melting value we have for steel instead of bothering with the whole mol route.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Yes it can.

Steel melting point is the only justified assumption. I have no idea what that formula you use for volume is supposed to be or where you have the w2 value from. It also looks like you didn't put in the w2 value into the formula, as the two occurrences of it have differing values.
And then you could just using the melting value we have for steel instead of bothering with the whole mol route.

IIRC, there was a thread comparing Lightsabers to the world's most advanced RL Plasma cutter. Which I also kind of found reasonable, but I do agree everything else is iffy.

 

[Phsccarvalho]

IIRC, there was a thread comparing Lightsabers to the world's most advanced RL Plasma cutter. Which I also kind of found reasonable, but I do agree everything else is iffy.

This was the original CRT I made when there were no calculations for the lightsaber. It's linked in the OP.

Steel melting point is the only justified assumption. I have no idea what that formula you use for volume is supposed to be or where you have the w2 value from. It also looks like you didn't put in the w2 value into the formula, as the two occurrences of it have differing values.
And then you could just using the melting value we have for steel instead of bothering with the whole mol route

[

.

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

Steel melting point is the only justified assumption. I have no idea what that formula you use for volume is supposed to be or where you have the w2 value from. It also looks like you didn't put in the w2 value into the formula, as the two occurrences of it have differing values.

I corrected it now

w1 = width of the the door panel

w2 = width of the lightsaber

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

IIRC, there was a thread comparing Lightsabers to the world's most advanced RL Plasma cutter. Which I also kind of found reasonable, but I do agree everything else is iffy.

But a plasma cutter is more of a blowtorch and that definitely does not act like a blade or solid object like we see with a lightsaber

Edit: I also trust Kyle Hill more on him saying that lightsabers are a miniature tokamak as his videos show that he knows a lot about nuclear physics and plasma physics.

 

[Flashlight237]

There seems to be some contention over the temperature values here, and, well, there were actual attempts at making irl lightsabers. I have no idea how far it progressed, but as of three years ago, a build which fans acknowledged was (in Legends media at least) actually how OLD lightsabers in Star Wars worked is rated at 4500°F (2482°C):


These guys are the ones making an attempt to make an actual irl lightsaber, so seeing a fully-functional Old Republic lightsaber irl should be a sign that the temperature is less of an assumption and more legit. This bearing in mind a weaker 4000° model can cut through blast doors.

 

[Phsccarvalho]

There seems to be some contention over the temperature values here, and, well, there were actual attempts at making irl lightsabers. I have no idea how far it progressed, but as of three years ago, a build which fans acknowledged was (in Legends media at least) actually how OLD lightsabers in Star Wars worked is rated at 4500°F (2482°C):


These guys are the ones making an attempt to make an actual irl lightsaber, so seeing a fully-functional Old Republic lightsaber irl should be a sign that the temperature is less of an assumption and more legit. This bearing in mind a weaker 4000° model can cut through blast doors.

Have lightsabers always worked the same way? Also, there's no Old Republic content in the canon (this CRT refers to canon; Legends already has a declared temperature).

Is the 4000°C capable of doing that?

 

[Chariot190]

Just calc the heat directly off of the billion evaporating metal feats.

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

Have lightsabers always worked the same way? Also, there's no Old Republic content in the canon (this CRT refers to canon; Legends already has a declared temperature).

Is the 4000°C capable of doing that?

Iron - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Please don't tell me you don't know what a melting point and boiling point are

I would say that this thread applies to both Disney and Expanded Universe considering The Phantom Menace is canon to both.

Edit: although in all honestly, multiple Expanded Universe guides repeatedly say that the blade of the lightsaber produces no heat itself, the heat is actually generated by the friction between the lightsaber and the material it's cutting

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

There seems to be some contention over the temperature values here, and, well, there were actual attempts at making irl lightsabers. I have no idea how far it progressed, but as of three years ago, a build which fans acknowledged was (in Legends media at least) actually how OLD lightsabers in Star Wars worked is rated at 4500°F (2482°C)

I am aware of these videos, but I didn't think it was necessary to bring them up as I keep saying that lightsabers don't behave like blowtorches, which is essentially what plasma cutters and Hacksmith's "lightsabers" currently are. If you don't agree, try pressing a blowtorch again a meter thick piece of steel and see what happens.

While I am impressed by the progress Hacksmith has made so far, they wouldn't act like lightsabers in being solid object when they interact with each other, they would instead just pass through each other due to the "blades" being giant flames.

Edit: Also to answer your question, there haven't been any updates since 2 years ago where they developed a lightsaber staff

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

I wonder if I should've linked this video too:



In it Kyle Explains that because the lightsaber has a its own magnetic force field, it allows FN-2199 to be able to block it with the Z6 riot control baton due to the electric current generating their own magnetic force field for the baton.

 

[Phsccarvalho]

Please don't tell me you don't know what a melting point and boiling point are

I know what melting point is, but I think if that were the most accurate way to describe it, almost everyone I asked would have told me that. (Like, I asked Chariot, Epyriel, You, etc., and nobody told me that; they all said that through calculations, it would be in the tens of thousands)

I would say that this thread applies to both Disney and Expanded Universe considering The Phantom Menace is canon to both.

It doesn't affect Legends because Legends has the statement that lightsabers are as hot as the core of a star.

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

It doesn't affect Legends because Legends has the statement that lightsabers are as hot as the core of a star.

Could we maybe take a look at the statement along with its source?

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

Corridor Crew also made these videos:





They make their own lightsaber fight, and for it this was their logic for their lightsabers, and they even had a stuntman give his own take on how lightsaber fights should work:

"The problem is you've now created the simplest and most complex weapon in the history of films do you ever notice when these guys all swing really hard they make these power swings the blade's made out of light it doesn't weigh anything why would you have to swing it hard the bottom line is it's a lightsaber it's a laser it's made out of light it wouldn't weigh anything."

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

Action lab also make a video where it was discussed on how a lightsaber could be possible:



In it he says in order to make a true light saber you would need something that's able to contain the light just within this beam area and not have it fly outside of it. It's actually not as far-fetched as you think, recently researchers at Harvard and MIT stumbled upon something that they called a photonic molecule so normally photons are completely massless but they found a state that they can be in where they seem like they have mass basically using some quantum interactions they're able to get two photons to interact with each other and that's pretty cool because normally photons don't interact at all. Scientists were able to get these photons to interact with each other by using something called a Rydberg blockade.

They made some rubidium atoms and they made these atoms such that they have a radius that's extremely large so the electrons on the outside are extremely far from the center of it and so they shoot two photons in at the same time and basically what happens is one of the photons will interact with the first atom that it hits and it will basically knock up the electron to a higher energy. State but the second photon can't interact with any neighboring atom because the electron orbital from the one excited atom is overlapping this atom and there's a rule that says there can't be two electrons in the same space at the same time in the same state and so it's forbidden quantum mechanics so basically this photon has to wait for this excited atom to decay back down to its original state before it can excite this atom and so basically it keeps these photons in a pair together such that they have to move through the material at the same time and then they exit together so basically these two incoming photons kind of push and pull each other through the medium and then they exit together and so by using the Rydberg blockade or by using Rydberg atoms you're able to keep photons contained and you're able to make them as though they have some mass or act like molecules that stick together and this type of technology will eventually be used in quantum computing but the researchers that have been working on this have said that it could likely build a 3d structure of these photonic molecules so basically using these Rydberg atoms as a medium we would be able to construct photonic molecules in a 3d structure, but the problem with this setup is in order to keep these atoms as Rydberg atoms you have to hit them with lasers and cool them to almost absolute zero and keep them that way, but hey maybe Jedi's have figured out of a way to make Rydberg atoms using only the force and that's how they contain the light in their lightsabers.

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

Edit: although in all honestly, multiple Expanded Universe guides repeatedly say that the blade of the lightsaber produces no heat itself, the heat is actually generated by the friction between the lightsaber and the material it's cutting

Minor Star Wars Upgrades/Additions (Legends/Canon)

Legends Lightsabers Throughout the generations, lightsaber technology was refined from those first high-maintenance 'captive bolt' lightsabers to the lightweight modern lightsabers, which utilizes a stablized, massless plasma beam that burns as hot and bright as the core of a star. - SW: Force...

vsbattles.com

 

[Phsccarvalho]

Edit: although in all honestly, multiple Expanded Universe guides repeatedly say that the blade of the lightsaber produces no heat itself, the heat is actually generated by the friction between the lightsaber and the material it's cutting

Minor Star Wars Upgrades/Additions (Legends/Canon)

Legends Lightsabers Throughout the generations, lightsaber technology was refined from those first high-maintenance 'captive bolt' lightsabers to the lightweight modern lightsabers, which utilizes a stablized, massless plasma beam that burns as hot and bright as the core of a star. - SW: Force...

vsbattles.com

I already said that doesn't matter, this thread is only about canon, since Legends already has an established temperature.

So stop bringing this stuff here.

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

I already said that doesn't matter, this thread is only about canon, since Legends already has an established temperature.

It's the same feat in question though, what's the issue?

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

IIRC, there was a thread comparing Lightsabers to the world's most advanced RL Plasma cutter.

 

[Random-Helper323]

The blades are made of plasma, and they have multiple metal melting feats. These are solid. I'm not clear on where this stuff about being 150M°C comes from. We'd need more evidence than a theory that they resemble Tokamaks.

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

I'm not clear on where this stuff about being 150M°C comes from.

Facts & Figures

If you haven't heard about ITER, the facts and figures on this page will surprise you. The scale and scope of the ITER project rank it among the most ambitious science endeavors of our time. Machine assembly is underway at the centre of the ITER scientific installation in Saint Paul-lez-Durance...

www.iter.org

 

[Hagane_no_Saiyajin]

We'd need more evidence than a theory that they resemble Tokamaks.

I wonder if I should've linked this video too:



In it Kyle Explains that because the lightsaber has a its own magnetic force field, it allows FN-2199 to be able to block it with the Z6 riot control baton due to the electric current generating their own magnetic force field for the baton.

Tokamaks work to contain plasma in a magnetic field after all

And it's clear that they aren't like IRL plasma cutters or anything adjacent to a blowtorch, at all!