Star Wars Day: Scientist reveals how to build a REAL lightsaber - but warns the ... trends now
They were famously described as 'an elegant weapon of a more civilized age' in the first ever Star Wars film back in 1977.
Ever since then, fans have dreamed of owning a real life lightsaber – the colourful weapon that can effortlessly cut through flesh or metal.
Despite some impressive attempts by engineers, the quest to create a version that's identical to the ones in the movies may seem outside the realm of reality.
One scientist thinks it may actually be possible, and has revealed his step-by-step guide to creating a lightsaber.
However, Dr Alex Baker, a chemist at the University of Warwick, warned MailOnline that the 'superheated stick of fiery death' may be too dangerous for members of the public to get their hands on.
Inside the handle, a battery near the bottom would pass electrical energy to a laser that would make light energy, which in turn would be focused by a crystal to ionise the gas to make the plasma
The blade of a lightsaber is made of 'plasma', the fourth state of matter after solid, liquid and gas.
According to Dr Baker, a real lightsaber would take gas from the surrounding air, which it could ionise to become plasma.
Plasma is an ionised gas, meaning its atoms or molecules are not neutral, but instead carry an electrical charge.
It can also be fired out in straight beams at very high temperatures, allowing it to cut through steel.
YouTubers have already tried to make their own plasma lightsabers, including Russia's Alex Burkan who made the world's first retractable one in 2022.
However, his creation doesn't look at all like the films and the blade only fires for 30 seconds.
Meanwhile, Canada's James Hobson created his own version with a longer-lasting blade, but that's only because it got its power source from a connected backpack.
'People have made devices that make a straight jet of plasma that eventually cools and deionises back to gas,' Dr Baker told MailOnline.
'The blade length is limited by how far they can spew out a jet of plasma – i.e. how far can you fire an ionised gas before it cools and the electrons recombine with their ions.'
The problem is that plasma tends to dissipate if it isn't contained in a magnetic field, so the blade would disappear shortly after the lightsaber is switched on.
Russian YouTuber Alex Burkan made the world's first retractable lightsaber in 2022. The blade has the ability to cut through steel, but it works for only 30 seconds and doesn't look much like the perfectly straight jet of colour like in the movies
Plasma is a stream of high ironized particles - so Burkan's lightsaber could also attract lightning and other high voltage charges
What's more, if they didn't have a magnetic field, two blades would just pass through each other instead of clashing against each other like in the movies.
Dr Baker says this all-important
