Real, Working 'Star Wars' Lightsabers A Possibility But Only With Plasma, Queensland Physicist Reveals

A real and working lightsaber from "Star Wars" could possibly be recreated using plasma instead of lasers, a Queensland physicist reveals.

The iconic weapon from "Star Wars" is a nifty thing to have especially for hardcore fans. Replicas have been made using plastic tubing and LED lights but would it be possible to recreate it in real life? Physicists at the Univesity of Queensland (UQ) are doubtful because science says lasers and light cannot support it.

"The biggest problem with the lightsaber is that light doesn't just stop at the end," said research physicist Martin Ringbauer, via the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "You can't just make a laser stop without it hitting something solid or being reflected back on itself with a mirror."

He adds that beams of light naturally pass at each other instead of hit which we during lightsaber fights in the films.

"Light doesn't like to interact with itself, so two beams of light would actually pass through each other, which wouldn't be very useful in a fight," Ringbauer explained.

This was supported by another physics researcher named James Bennett who is a big fan of the franchise.

"It is difficult to know what is going to happen, but if we understand what we think we understand, then it is unrealistic to have a lightsaber that looks and acts like the one in Star Wars," he said via Brisbane Times.

According to him, the lightsaber which was originally named the laser-sword is supposed to be made out of plasma with its electrons taken out. Since plasma is a gas, it would be hard to contain it much less turn it into a sword with a push of a button. Bennett says that a casing would be needed and some very strong magnets.

"It is possible to trap plasma: the way you do that is by using strong magnetic fields; charged particles like to move in spirals when they are trapped in magnetic fields," he explained.

The closest thing possible in real life that we can make is a "light-hacksaw," but it would pretty much contain you into one place because it needs incredible energy to operate.

"You would have to have an incredibly dense power source, a battery that could store a phenomenal amount of energy. That would be one big hurdle," Bennet said. "The next would be some way of trapping light and making it interact with other light, so some way of confining plasma in a tube, which at the moment we can't do without an end on that tube."

The light-hacksaw wouldn't make noises too so Bennett adds that it would be installed with a speaker if you want it to have sounds.

Could we build a Star Wars lightsaber? from The University of Queensland on Vimeo.