Five "Lasers" turn into one

[stillakid]

Speaking of the Death Star, I've always wondered how the multiple "lasers" that come from the edges of the concave dish manage to "converge" and redirect themselves outward into one singular "laserbeam" that heads straight out.

Since when does light that hits other light get moved into another direction? I'm beginning to think this whole "Star Wars" thing is pure fiction and didn't really happen "a long time ago..." :ermm:

[2-1B]

Shhhhhh, it says so in the Journal of the Whills so it has to be legitimate science. ;)

[Jargo]

always bugged the hell out of me since I first saw the movie. to be able to achieve it you'd need an orbiting focusing lens or something. sure light can be refracted but not without a lens or prism.

the only other way would be to have all those beams focused on the same target at long range and have them converge at that point but if that was the case why bother? one massive single beam would be enough as is proven by the main beam that hits the planet Alderaan. it's just whimsy as Lucas likes to call it. I call it stupid. what he should have had was one more stage to the firing of the lser, some focusing device detach from the dish and move out to that convergance point. the many lasers hit that and then the main beam shoots out. a little more drama perhaps. would have given the rebels a further target and if the focusing device was manouverable would have kept the rebels guessing where the laser would actually strike. maybe then the death star wouldn't look so much like a fat laser pointer pen.

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

It's f'in awesome and that's all you need to know.

[decadentdave]

Since when does light that hits other light get moved into another direction? I'm beginning to think this whole "Star Wars" thing is pure fiction and didn't really happen "a long time ago..." :ermm:

If the laws of physics applied to Star Wars, it wouldn't be so cool. We wouldn't have things like "Lightsabers" for example because it would not be possible to "refract" the blade length (come to think of it a lightsaber would be an extremely dangerous weapon and most Jedi's would accidentally maim themselves with it if they weren't too careful or extremely disciplined) nor would we have "blasters" that fire pulses of laser light and make such cool sounds that Ben Burtt engineered from striking a wrench on a telephone pole cable nor would ships like TIE Fighters make those cool flyby sounds. I think we should start a list of all of the scientific implausibilities of Star Wars.

[Kidhuman]

I think they were all running from Slickers mom&

[El Chuxter]

I think we should start a list of all of the scientific implausibilities of Star Wars.

No doubt! Let me add: Why do X-Wing Fighters have jet engines?

[Rocketboy]

And why do spaceships make noise in space?

[decadentdave]

And why is it that the gun turrets of the Millenium Falcon have no center of gravity while the cockpit and cargo hold do?

[JEDIpartner]

Blame Mama Cass... :ermm:

[JediTricks]

The Falcon's gunner stations are in a "gravity well", so says the lucasfilm explanation.


I think the beams converge on a single spot and build energy, then a different kind of central beam is fired and carries the converged energy with it towards the target - isn't the central beam shown in ROTJ? I would guess then the one in ANH was "invisible" (these aren't lasers, but if they were they'd be invisible anyway).

[Jedi_Master_Guyute]

and speaking of which, why can these people who have the power to "use the force" do weird things, like lift things with their minds, and shoot lightning from their hands?!?! And get even get me started on these "lightsabers" with a laser?!? Jesus! What a bunch of nonsense. :crazed:

[Kidhuman]

What had happened here is the 5 lasers joined otgether to form Voltron and then they formed a Blazing Sword that cut Alderaan to pieces&

[2-1B]

Jesus! What a bunch of nonsense. :crazed:

Leave that in the Rancor Pit, JMGuy. :p

:crazed: :crazed: :crazed:

[stillakid]

and speaking of which, why can these people who have the power to "use the force" do weird things, like lift things with their minds,
That, I get. See, "everything" in the Universe is made up of tiny strings of energy. Each string oscillates in a different pattern at different speeds. The various types of strings each combine to form specific particles. Those particles combine to form larger structures like atoms and such and so on and so on.

Anyway, because everything is made up of these strings of energy, even space/time itself, everything is inherently interconnected by this unending field of energy which is "the Universe." Some religions even call it "God" Himself. Anyhow, "the Force" is merely a different way to explain this concept. As we recall from Yoda's lesson in ESB, the Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.

So with that in mind, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that a being which is ultimately created from tiny strings of energy could somehow "be aware of" the strings at that subatomic level and "sense" the "field" that connects everything (which IS everything) and then manipulate objects that seem to be separated but really aren't.


and shoot lightning from their hands?!?!
Same explanation as above. Sort of.

And get even get me started on these "lightsabers" with a laser?!?
I've been informed that those aren't technically "lasers" or beams of pure light. Instead they are something like plasma encased in a photonic envelope. I'm not sure what that is exactly, but it sounds pretty fancy schmancy.

Jesus! What a bunch of nonsense. :crazed:
I think he was a real historical figure, so your conclusion isn't likely correct. However if we were to delve into the alleged activities of the individual, then perhaps you might be on the right track. But that's a discussion for another place and time.


:)

[El Chuxter]

What had happened here is the 5 lasers joined otgether to form Voltron and then they formed a Blazing Sword that cut Alderaan to pieces&

"You're far too trusting. [To Gunners] You may fire when ready. And I'll form the head!"

[LusiferSam]

Why do the suns of Tatoonie cast a single strong shadow? Or why do all the planets we see in the films have a G2 type class V star with a 78% nitrogen atmosphere? The physics of most Sci Fi is just plan bad. Your better off watching the movies and enjoy them then sitting around discussing the plot holes of 20 plus year old movies with a bunch of 20 somethings and 30 somethings who still buy toys.

[stillakid]

Death Star Superlasers
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ds/


fundamental nature
The precise nature of the Death Star prime weapon is undetermined. It certainly generates a great amount of possibly-monochromatic light, but the "superlaser" beams literally aren't lasers or light in any ordinary sense. (It is undoubtedly a high-powered version of the technology used in blasters and "laser cannons", and they aren't true lasers either.) The visible light is merely a by-product of the actual lethal emission, whatever the underlying physics of that energy may be. The Death Star's main weapon has also been named a "planetary proton beam generator" [The Technical Book of Science Fiction Films]. It is just as difficult to regard the emission literally as a proton beam as it is to imagine it being a laser. Lasers and proton beams are very different physical phenomena in any case. The true nature of the "superlaser" remains an undescribed piece of superphysics, and only its incidental effects have so far been named.

Careful observation of the firing process can yield indications about the underlying physical mechanism:

When the eight tributary beams meet at the weapon's focal point they do not pass through each other as genuine light beams would. Instead they come to a halt and energy apparently builds at that point until a critical moment when the final outbound beam is spontaneously released. Whatever force is involved in the "superlaser", it cannot be mere electromagnetism because non-disruptive superposition of beams is ruled out by the focal point behavior.

The direction of the composite beam is a simple vector sum of the directions of the eight tributaries. This suggests that no external force is in operation, and that the beam interactions conserve energy/momentum (neglecting wastage due to the lateral emission of green light). Thus the beams "feel" each other through an intrinsic interaction which is elastic.

The beam that struck Alderaan took less than a second to progate from the dish to the target. The range was about 75000km, which is about a quarter of a light-second. Thus the beam's speed is equal or approiximately equal to the speed of light.

During ignition the standing tributary beams exhibit bright pulsations which move at conspicuously subluminal speed. This does not contradict the fast propagation speed for the beam; the pulsations are slow-moving disturbances of the underlying beam. They are some kind of wave phenomenon, a collective behavior exhibited by whatever fundamental entities constitute the beam. The slow propagation of the pulses indicates involvement of something other than electromagnetic or gravitational waves, which travel at exactly lightspeed.

The initiator beams seen briefly in power shafts deep in each space station show characteristics which are absent or unobvious in the external beams. The visible puslations are at a smaller spacing: dozens of metres rather than the dozens of kilometers between pulses in the eight final large-scale external sub-beams. Perhaps there is a spectrum of pulsations, with the big ones being less common and therefore more widely spaced? There may be a dispersion relation, with disturbances of different wavelengths having different speeds. The superlaser beams in the shafts appear to be surrounded by a cylindrical set of rings. The role of these rings is mysterious, but they emerge after the beam first appears and before the first pulsations. They may be related to the force-field separating the beam from the air surrounding the nearby crewmen. The apparent size of the brilliant pulsations never seems to exceed the span of the rings.

The beams inside the shafts are less than a few metres thick, whereas the beams outside the station look as if they are at least a few hundred metres thick. The external beams could result from the union of clusters of many smaller beams which only exist in the Death Star's interior. Hundreds of metre-scale beams might give each beam of hundred-metre thickness. Alternatively, all of the superlaser beams might actually be microscopic, subatomic or even subnuclear in thickness. Variation in the apparent thickness would be due to differences of intensity and glare, and the behavior of the viewer's retina. A more powerful beam might be the same true thickness but dazzle the eye more effectively and thereby seem thicker.

The most basic consideration pointing towards some kind of superphysics is the magnitude of the device's energy output. The minimum necessary magitude of the blast that shattered Alderaan (calculated below) is roughly ten thousand times what would be released if the entire mass of the battle station's machinery was annihilated with an equivalent amount of antimatter. Yet the first Death Star was capable of generating a planet-destroying blast once per day. The power source must be much denser than ordinary matter or antimatter; probably involving compact forms of matter and energy like miniature black holes or neutronium. It may involve superphysics of an even more exotic kind. The mass of the empty station must be substantially less than that of its compact energy sources. The Death Star's power systems and prime weapon clearly rely on superphysics and superengineering far beyond simple fission, fusion or matter-antimatter annihilation.

In the Galactic Empire mundane technologies handle bizarre phenomena such as hyperspace, which are so far ourside present physical capabilities that we can only gauge their consequences and basic properties without hoping to guess the underlying details. The superlaser is an unusally large technological application. It therefore seems reasonable that Death Star design engineers understand energy fields and condensed forms of matter which are far beyond those which are encountered in the course of ordinary living. Questions of "how" the superlaser functions may be unanswerable, but we can determine useful limits on the capabilities of the technology.

The above considerations and observations lead to the following conclusions. The superlaser has a power source that is denser than ordinary matter or antimatter, or else it has a physical basis or energy source which is beyond mass-annihilation energy. The visible light of the superlaser is probably only a minor byproduct, and isn't actually the fundamental constituent of the beam. Beams propagate in straight lines like coherent light, at least under some circumstances and on distance scales of metres up to tens of kilometres. It propagates at lightspeed, or nearly so. On the other hand the physical forces underlying the superlaser have some seriously non-linear aspects. It does not obey superposition rules and can become unstable to the emergence of subordinate wave phenomena. The beams can spontaneously confine or enhance each other depending on the energy density or some other parameters.

[El Chuxter]

That's actually rather pathetic. While it's not pathetic to question such things, it is pathetic to write whole treatises to explain pseudo-science in a fictitiousional world. :rolleyes:

[2-1B]

That's actually rather pathetic. While it's not pathetic to question such things, it is pathetic to write whole treatises to explain pseudo-science in a fictitiousional world. :rolleyes:

So you're saying that such treatises are not awesome and not every home should have them? :confused:

Mine does. :(

[stillakid]

That's actually rather pathetic. While it's not pathetic to question such things, it is pathetic to write whole treatises to explain pseudo-science in a fictitiousional world. :rolleyes:

I'm not so sure. At first glance, it does seem like a stupendous waste of time. However, as I sit here and think about it, it occurs to me that truly revolutionary thought and advancement is borne out of considering the truly unbelievable. I mean, for centuries it was probably a foregone conclusion that man could not fly. It really seems silly to think about it now. But a bunch of people were on the fringes of rational thought and actually "wasted" valuable time trying to figure out if that "science fiction" could actually turn out to be something possible. And of course we know how that turned out.

So as we sit here with our scientific understanding of the universe in 2006, so many things "imagined" in Star Wars and other futuristic tales seem so outlandish that doing any more than making plastic toys out of them seems like a complete snipe hunt. Who knows, perhaps things like lightsabers or planet killing weapons are impossible. Lord knows, let's hope so! But maybe they are possible and one day humanity will have landspeeders and spaceships that don't need dangerous booster rockets that can explode if the outdoor temperature is too cold. These things are certainly fun in the movies and we definitely should enjoy them as a healthy diversion from the other more serious things we have to deal with in life. But it also doesn't hurt if someone out there goes that extra step to see if maybe those "impossible" things aren't so crazy afterall.

[JimJamBonds]

That's actually rather pathetic. While it's not pathetic to question such things, it is pathetic to write whole treatises to explain pseudo-science in a fictitiousional world. :rolleyes:

Well I was going to give you a copy of "The Science of Star Wars" as a (late) birthday gift but with that attitude I'll keep it for myself Sir! :D

[darthvyn]

the real question is why is stillakid checking out the plot-holes in the original trilogy? did he actually make it through EVERY plot-hole in the prequels???!!!

[JEDIpartner]

"That's right! Five! Five! Five! Five! Five...! Five lasers turn into one powerful laser! You can chop, dice and slice all of your favourite planets with this amazing new battle station! And that's not all!! You'll get a full set of TIE Fighters and a landing pad that will protect your army from harmful bacteria! But, wait! We're going to throw in a TIE Bomber just for good measure!!" :crazed:

[stillakid]

"That's right! Five! Five! Five! Five! Five...! Five lasers turn into one powerful laser! You can chop, dice and slice all of your favourite planets with this amazing new battle station! And that's not all!! You'll get a full set of TIE Fighters and a landing pad that will protect your army from harmful bacteria! But, wait! We're going to throw in a TIE Bomber just for good measure!!" :crazed:

Yeah, but shipping and handling will fu**ing kill ya. :hurt:

[stillakid]

the real question is why is stillakid checking out the plot-holes in the original trilogy? did he actually make it through EVERY plot-hole in the prequels???!!!

I don't know. The Prequels were boring the sh** out of me. I'll have to check out www.prequelplotholes.com to make sure. :)

[El Chuxter]

That's right! Five! Five! Five! Five! Five...! Five lasers turn into one powerful laser!

That made me think of Five five five! The Magnificent Five!

[Rocketboy]

I'm hearing The Count from Seasame Street.
"One! Ha ha!
Two! Ha ha!
Three! Ha ha!
Four! Ha ha!
Five! Ha ha!
FIVE LASERS!
HA HA HA HA HA!"

[decadentdave]

Reminds me of the MASS device from the original G.I. Joe mini-series where they had to obtain the 5 elements that generated the powerful ray beam.

[JEDIpartner]

Oh, the tangets on which we go!

[stillakid]

Oh, the tangets on which we go!

the tangets on which we go
Hi Ho the Derry Oh
the tangets on which we go!

[JEDIpartner]

...and many mo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ore!!! :o

:D

[BountyHunterScum]

If the laws of physics applied to Star Wars, it wouldn't be so cool. We wouldn't have things like "Lightsabers" for example because it would not be possible to "refract" the blade length (come to think of it a lightsaber would be an extremely dangerous weapon and most Jedi's would accidentally maim themselves with it if they weren't too careful or extremely disciplined) nor would we have "blasters" that fire pulses of laser light and make such cool sounds that Ben Burtt engineered from striking a wrench on a telephone pole cable nor would ships like TIE Fighters make those cool flyby sounds. I think we should start a list of all of the scientific implausibilities of Star Wars.


Not to mention that Star Destroyer naming and technical stuff people argue over. Trying to impose real life naval designations on ships of pure fantasy is dumb. Some people just don't get it and never will *coughsaxtonitescough*.