4000° LIGHTSABER vs HAND?!?

Should I try it? Should she just reach out? You didn't think she was going to show you that in the first five seconds of the video... Don't worry, it happens though. So in case you've been living under a rock, Disney recently announced that it created the world's first retractable

lightsaber

, which is a little strange considering I have a certificate here from last year. Ok, ours is still technically a prototype

lightsaber

since it requires a backpack, but we're actually working on a newer version that could be fully self-contained in the hilt. But we'll talk about that later.

So has Disney really done a real job, completely on the

hand

le, damn it, laser beam, plasma cutting, lightsaber? Well, probably not, actually it's probably similar to the toy lightsabers I grew up with. They actually filed a patent a few years ago about it, but of course patents are always a little confusing to read. And if you look at this with an untrained eye, you might say "yeah, this is a lightsaber, cool", but if you look a little closer, it's pretty obvious that it won't be cutting through anything anytime soon. Fortunately, benriddout on Twitter created an animation that explains the rough concept of this patent.

And it's great. I just hope the LEDs they are using are super bright because if they are, it will be the most realistic and coolest extendable lightsaber on the market. Anyway, let's talk about the closest thing to a real lightsaber on the market. Well, I guess it's not really on the market since we're not willing to sell it... But I'm talking about our current proto saber. To celebrate May 4th being with you, we thought this would be a good time to answer a few more questions about our lightsaber and maybe try some new tests, including running your

hand

through it.

Which we will do at some point in this video. Our original lightsaber video is now our fourth most viewed video on the channel with over 31 million views! That's absolutely crazy! If you add up all the views on all of our lightsaber videos, that's over a hundred million views! You guys must like lightsabers or something. So let's dig in and talk a little more about how this actually works, what it can and can't do, and how we're going to improve it for the future. As we mentioned in the build video, the basic principle of a proto-saber is to burn a laminar flow gas mixture.

In this case propane and oxygen. No pure plasma is created, but there is a certain amount of plasma in the burning blade. What makes it possible is the laminar flow nozzle that comes from GTT glass torch technologies. That's right, the secret to our proto-saber is a piece of technology that's been around for decades! And I guarantee that anyone who has ever used or seen a glass blowing torch has probably waved it while whizzing lightsaber sounds. The cool thing is that we're actually going to be working with GTT to develop a new type of flashlight more suitable for our lightsaber-like application, which could be the key to being able to make one of these completely wireless... maybe.

Either way be sure to subscribe. So what are the biggest problems with our design? Well, for starters, it's a proto-saver and having a cable is a bit boring. But we've explained in previous episodes that one of the biggest problems with a real lightsaber is getting enough power into such a small hilt. It's just one of those things that you know is limited by our technology of the time. Maybe someday. The other big problem that many people pointed out is how the length of the blade varies. Since it is a blowtorch flame, it is susceptible to gas flow being interrupted in this way.

When pointing straight up, we can get a blade length of almost three feet or around 100 centimeters, but when moving fast the blade can shrink up to a foot or around 30 centimeters, making swinging a lightsaber a pain. little difficult. Now what I'm curious is if it's air resistance that causes this, what happens if I use this lightsaber in outer space? I probably won't be able to try it anytime soon, but what if I could try it in a large enough vacuum chamber? Hypothetically, since this lightsaber supplies its own oxygen, it doesn't need air to function, and if it's the surrounding air causing this gas disruption, you might be able to move it in a vacuum chamber without the blade changing at all, which would be really cool.

The question is, where do we find a giant vacuum chamber we can put this in besides like at NASA? Seriously, if any of you know of a vacuum chamber that can be tested in, please let us know and email us at [email protected]. A lot of people also asked what lightsaber sounds are like without any lightsaber sounds added... and well, that's what it sounds like... it basically sounds like a louder version of a mini saber blowtorch. Honestly, that's probably what a real lightsaber would sound like if a real lightsaber was actually plasma. It would make some noises similar to a real lightsaber.

In fact, a laser probably wouldn't make any sound. Okay, what's up with the power outage? In movies, lightsabers can cut through things quickly and cut them down instantly. Unfortunately, in real life we ​​have to deal with a branch of physics called thermodynamics. Specifically heat transfer. Have I already lost you? Let's start with a basic example. Take a teapot as an example. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. The heating element of a kettle can heat up to 100 degrees Celsius, but the water does not boil instantly when you turn on the kettle or when you turn on the fire.

You see, it takes a few minutes. This is because the heat created by the element must be transferred to the water. To heat it up or in the case of a lightsaber, how long does it take for the heat from the lightsaber to heat the material to its melting point, at which point it would begin cutting? So how do we calculate how long it takes to use specific heat capacity? The specific heat capacity of a material is the energy required to raise one kilogram of material by one degree Celsius. The specific heat capacity of water is about 4180 joules per kilogram Celsius.

One watt is one joule per second, how long does it take to boil water? Well, let's try the calculation. If we take one kilogram of water, it would be one liter, since water has a density of one kilogram per liter and has a specific heat capacity of 4180 joules per kilogram Celsius. We want to reach 100 degrees Celsius and it starts at room temperature or about 20 degrees. So the calculation is one kilogram multiplied by 4,180 multiplied by 80 degrees Celsius, which equals 334,400 joules, which means that for a kettle to boil a liter of water in just one second, you would need 334.4 kilowatts of heating power.

Remember that the average North American home only has about 48 kilowatts of power for the entire home. Luckily, no one needs to boil water instantly. Even our original tungsten-titanium lightsaber prototype, which was essentially a giant 20 kilowatt heating element, would take those 16.7 seconds to boil a liter of water. It's fast but it's definitely not instantaneous so if you want to boil a liter of water in one minute we can divide this total power by 60 seconds, which will be only 5.56 kilowatts. It's a little more reasonable, but the average kettle is only 1.5 kilowatts due to the limitation of one outlet.

With 1.5 kilowatts of heating power, an average kettle would take about 3.71 minutes to boil an entire kilogram of water, so yes, it takes a while to heat things up. Fortunately, water actually has a really high specific heat capacity, while water is around 4200. Steel is only 420 or a tenth of water. That's great, that means you can cut a wall of steel 10 times faster than you can boil a wall of water. Good? That doesn't even make any sense. Anyway, for those who didn't listen to my physics explanation, it takes a long time to transfer heat to an object or cut an object with a lightsaber.

The only thing we can control to speed it up is the temperature of the lightsaber or the melting point of the material, or the amount of material. So yes, we can cut a thin sheet of lead fairly quickly, since it has a lower melting point than steel, but there is less material to heat. And it's not steel, so the real question is how hot could we get a lightsaber? Well I'm leaving, I'll be back in a couple of days. That? Where are you going? I'm going to Japan. Anime. What do you like Japanese cartoons? Has? I know what anime is.

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Plus an extra month free. They offer a 30-day money back guarantee and are making their final sale right now, so get to work. And you go back to work! So, what temperature could we heat our lightsaber to? Our current saber clocks in at an impressive 2200 degrees Celsius or around

4000

Fahrenheit. Using today's fuel mixture, an acetylene torch can reach around 6,200 Fahrenheit or 3,500 Celsius, which is hotter than the melting points of most materials. Unfortunately, there are some challenges with using oxyacetylene in a torch like this, so we use propane instead. Anyway, the problem is that even at such high temperatures we still have to take heat transfer into account.

A focused oxyacetylene torch can cut through a steel plate fairly quickly, but part of the reason it works is because a cutting torch is good at cutting. This is because it has a very thin blade, meaning it only needs to heat a small amount of material, meaning it can cut things much faster. Although our lightsaber is very hot, it has a large blade and that means the heat is not very concentrated when cutting things. You have to heat up a lot of material before you can start cutting, and unfortunately, that's the reality of lightsaber physics. In fact, the only time the lightsabers were portrayed reasonably was when Qui-gon Jinn broke through the blast shield doors.

In fact, he demonstrated that it took time to heat that much hard steel in order to cut it. Although all other depictions of a lightsaber show it cutting things instantly or, in Vesgar's case, not doing so at all. Our lightsaber could cut a few centimeters of steel plate, but it would take a long time. If we wanted to be able to cut things and cut metal like in the movies, I suppose our lightsaber would have to be over twenty thousand degrees Celsius, that is, four times hotter than the surface of the sun! We could even do some calculations with our handy dandy specific heat transfer equation, but why bother if the sheet is at 20,000 degrees Celsius?

You wouldn't even be able to hold the lightsaber. Ok, back to our other lightsaber questions... Many of you asked if it would be possible to put some sort of solid blade inside our lightsaber so that it could deflect another lightsaber. That could work, but the problem is that most materials that are capable of withstanding this heat are also quite brittle, meaning it could work, but you'd still have to gently tap the lightsabers against each other, which would also work. It is a bit boring. Many people also asked what would happen if you shot a bullet through the lightsaber, would the bullet melt?

Well, no, it wouldn't be. And again we can thank heat transfer for the answer. Since a bullet would move super fast through the blade, I assume it wouldn't even heat up because it spends so little time inside the heat source. But hey, let's prove it. I'm going to use a Nerf gun for our demonstration. Although now a dartNerf has a very, very, very low melting point and travels much slower than a bullet. First of all, let's see what happens if we put this on the lightsaber. And he's gone. That happened pretty quickly, but the question is what happens if I fire the nerf dart?

Not even warm. And that's heat transfer for you. Because he was moving so fast, he didn't actually receive much heat from the lightsaber. I guess lightsabers aren't actually very good at deflecting things or even melting them. Alright, that was a little disappointing, but to be expected. So let's get to the real meat of this video, the reason you clicked on this video. Would this lightsaber cut my hand? Should I try it? Should I just reach over? So, as we learned, as long as I can minimize the time of my hands inside the lightsaber blade, I hypothetically won't cut my hand.

My skin and my body have their own specific heat capacities. Although the human body's ability to self-regulate temperature changes, it obviously takes a long time. A dead hand might actually be a more scientific test...maybe. Yes, it's a hands box. Seriously though, they're actually wax hands from Ripley's Believe It or Not museum in Orlando. Many thanks to Kurtis for sending us these for our lightsaber tests, and you got your wish. Let's see what happens. Alright, for the first test, we'll go through this hand slowly and see what happens. Oh. That still takes a while, but it would probably be a third-degree or fourth-degree burn.

Is there a fifth degree burn? It definitely burns the hand, but what if we ran through it quickly? And this one... this one has hair, so let's see what happens if I run the lightsaber through it real quick. Is it going to get hot? Is it going to melt? And depending on the outcome, will that give me the confidence to swing my own hand through the lightsaber? Here we go karate cutting a lightsaber. Not even even warm. Let's do it the other way around to see if we can burn off some of these hairs. Even the hair.

Well, it can't be overstated, don't try this at home. I'm a trained professional idiot and, yes, by my calculations, everything should be fine. Are you guys ready? Alright, that was amazing! Did you see how the flame wrapped around my hand and passed through my fingers? And I didn't even get burned! This is because the time my hand spent in the fire was not enough for the heat to transfer to my skin. Anyway, don't try that at home, don't try to stick your hand in the fire just to see if you can. If you hold it down too long, you could get serious burns.

This was a risk, it was a calculated risk on my part and I am a trained professional. But don't try this at home. I hope you enjoyed this video and maybe learned a thing or two about physics. We will continue to work on our lightsaber technology, so be sure to subscribe. Because our next version of this, well, maybe not the next version. We'll try to make it completely wireless, which would be really cool. And also be sure to keep your eyes peeled at hacksmith.store because we're launching our own mini saber. Thanks for watching guys!