Lightsabers and stone?

Can lightsabers cut through stone? I think they can, but I'm not sure.

 

If they can cut through solid metal, I don't see why not.

[edit] Don't know if it helps any, but there are a number of instances (I think) where they do cut through stone in the EU.

 

Well, the way I understand it, lightsabers can cut through anything, with the exception of energy barriers (forcefields, other lightsabers, etc.).

 

From what I understand, if you take the EU into account, the only thing a lightsaber can't cut through is cortoris ore. However, according to "Vision of the Future" (by Tim "the Master" Zahn), cortoris ore is structurally very weak, so you can pretty much blow it up with some explosives (I think).

 

Ah, yes. I remember that scene. It's how I discovered the paparak cross-cut that takes apart cortoris ore.

 

Ah, yes, cortosis somehow slipped my mind.

 

On the subject of the strength of cortosis ore, Mara did say that it was flaking off beneath their boots as she and Luke walked over it. I was under the impression that stopping lightsabers was about all it was good for - and I did think that lightsabers could cut through other types of stone.

 

Well, no wonder it slipped your mind... if a Jedi can't slice through it with his saber, then he can just kick through it with a good sturdy boot.

But, yes, a saber can cut through stone. It melts solid metal, after all.

 

I'd have to respectfully disagree, and say probably not, but it would depend on the stone.

In the real world, heat can indeed cut through metal (welding tools, etc.) But it can't, really, cut through stone. Welding tools leave marks on the stone, and heat can crack some stone, but most won't melt (some quartzes & silica get fused into glass). Even ore smelted in furnaces doesn't actually melt; it changes form and the metal elements of it melt out leaving the rest behind.

Stone is used for countertops to put hot pots/pans on, so applying hot metal or blow torches to it does nothing much to damage it. Finally, even the concrete launch pad under the rockets doesn't melt when the shuttle launches.

So the idea that a lightsaber can go through stone does not seem believable to me as a reader.

I know some EU authors may have lightsabers cutting through stone; they've also said Jedi Masters could control the weather and fly through the air like comic book characters! Which is so unrealistic & unbelievable that somehow it's not Star Wars to me, it's Marvel comics. "Look...up in the sky!" Why would they bother to use shuttles or spacecraft, then?


In Empire Strikes Back, note that in the battle between Vader & Luke, one of the lightsabers strikes the metal railing of the walkway... and DOESN'T cut through it!

Even Jedi need limitations, and I don't believe lightsabers should be magic wands that can get you out of anything. It makes a better story if the Jedi TRIES to use a lightsaber on stone, and it DOESN'T work, so he/she has to try something else.

Give your characters some limits. Make them fallible, not super-human. It makes them and the story far more interesting.

Just my two credits worth. In the end, you'd have to ask George.

 

I didn't think the Saber's cutting strength came from heat. As I recall somewhere in the YJK series, when the Solo kids were building their own lightsabers, Luke mentioned that they could make the handles from wood or metal, because a saber doesn't give off much heat. I found that odd at the time, but I suppose it gets it's cutting ability from somewhere else.

 

Well, the fact is that lightsabers are, supposedly, "laser-swords," and lasers really don't give off much heat. If you hold a piece of paper in front of a high-intensity flashlight and one in front of a laser, the flashlight paper will catch fire, and the laser paper won't (I saw this demonstrated YEARS ago). The lightsaber's cutting power works like burning, because it is concentrated energy, but is much more powerful than simply force of heat. If the blade worked because of heat, then the handles - which happen to be metal - would be unbearable even for a Jedi to touch after a few moments of battle.

Though, on second thought, it does seem illogical for these things to work universally... I would imagine at least that some kinds of stone would need to be seriously hacked before they even started coming apart.

 

If Qui-Gon's experience cutting through/melting durasteel doors with his blade is anything to go by, the blades do give off heat upon direct contact. The thing to remember is that saber blades aren't a pure heat source, like gas flames from the shuttle rockets. Being basically a condensed laser, energy molecules make up the blade itself and give it a physical presence that fire doesn't have.

As far as cutting rock, I'm inclined to think that yes, they can cut through rock, but how well or how quickly depends on what kind of rock you have. Stone isn't just one chemical compound. Usually it is a combination of many compounds that would all react differently to the energy beam. Also, most rocks would be sensitive to thermal shock because they contain water molecules that vaporize and expand when heated - meaning said rock would likely shatter or explode with direct saber contact.

As has been mentioned, silica type rock (sand) has a pretty low melting point (as rocks go). It would most likely melt and become glass. Stone containing metal ore would probably become molten (the ore part) while the rock matrix around the ore crumbled.

I know real world lasers aren't anything like lightsabers (see Ty-gon Jinn's comments about heat), but it is worth noting that lasers have been used to cut diamond gem stones for a very long time now. I'd say this poses a good foundation for the argument that sabers should be able to cut through rock in our ideal Sci-fi world.

Gas lasers are now commercially used to engrave or cut (depending on how powerful they are): brick, marble, glass, wood, styrofoam, plastic, polystyrene, aluminum, steel, copper, etc.... Pretty much anything.

There are a few internet sites that have good information on the capabilities of real world lasers. Here's an academic site (out of the Univ. of Penn.) that seems pretty reliable information-wise:

http://repairfaq.cis.upenn.edu/sam/laserfaq.htm#faqtoc

 

Didn't Qui-Gon do something to his lightsaber before plunging it into the door? Or am I imagining a memory of him appearing to perhaps be adjusting it. That would explain why in the RotJ fight it cannot cut through metal (I remember that railing too - didn't it spark even? and didn't Luke also bat away metal that Vader was tossing at him with his blade which wouldn't work well if the blade was capable of cutting metal) but in TPM it does.

Because certainly, in general, when fighting you wouldn't want your lightsaber to accidentally cut off the metal bridge you are standing on as you fight. You wouldn't need nearly as much energy to chop off an arm as you would to cut through metal of the same thickness. So you'd generally keep your weapon set to the lowest energy level that would enable you to do your job properly?

Or it might be that the reason Qui-Gon's blade affected the blast doors was due entirely to his use of the point of the weapon. In which case you could stab into a rock perhaps but not necessarily be able to cut it per se.

I'll have to go look up "The Physics of Star Wars" because I can't recall what it has to say about lightsabers.

I love trying to come up with rationalizations for the things people do in movies and books without thinking about it clearly. One of my favorites being that old chestnut: Why could a ghost be able to walk through a door (which it decided it could do because it was unable to turn the handle since its hand just kept passing through the handle) and yet sit on a chair or stand on a floor?

KD

 

I love trying to come up with rationalizations for the things people do in movies and books without thinking about it clearly. One of my favorites being that old chestnut: Why could a ghost be able to walk through a door (which it decided it could do because it was unable to turn the handle since its hand just kept passing through the handle) and yet sit on a chair or stand on a floor?
--Knight_Dilettante

LOL... I love the use of that one phrase... you know. That old chesnut.

 

So is the agreement on yes or no?

 

If I've read it correctly, the agreement would be "Probably, but in all realism, the ability to cut through stone or at least the manner in which the stone is actually affected would depend on the type of stone."

Yes? No? Did I get it right?

 

It seems to me so.

 

Didn't Qui-Gon do something to his lightsaber before plunging it into the door?

I don't remember seeing him do anything to it, but I'm not always the most observant when it comes to tiny details. It would make sense, though, to have a setting adjustment for the intensity of the blade. That would make lightsaber practice ever so much safer

I admit that I haven't read many EU novels once the NJO started, but I don't recall seeing anything on this topic in any of the books I've finished. I'd say the jury is still out from official sources.

If the author's primary concern is that having a saber cut through stone in a story would send up huge authenticity red flags, I'd say it is a very valid concern. If I read that a lightsaber neatly sliced through rock I'd be thinking "I doubt it."

If, OTOH, I was told that it took a little effort to work it's way through, that would be a bit more believable. I would also buy that it hit rock and scored it deeply. Mine is just one opinion, though.

 

I'd have to agree with Mistress Renata on the stone thing with some qualification. It may depend on the type of rock. One that is porus or has a high water or mineral/metal content might be expoldable through steam or melting created by the heat generated by the saber.

 

I remember the railing too, but doesn't Vader throw his lightsaber and cut down the catwalk Luke's standing on (or am I remembering wrong? been a while since I've seen the ot)? also made of presumably the same metal, yes?

They definetely cut through rock with sabers in the EU. But of course, they also use sabers as lighters, torches, carving knives, lockpicks, handwarmers, and a veriety of other things in the EU, so take it with a bit o' salt.

 

Why Vader did this ... he had possibly some more intentions than bringing Luke simply to fall. Maybe something deep buried "good side" in him told him not to cut the whole thing away, but instead "frighten" Luke so he had to go down. Another explanation would be that Vader didn't want to go up there to Luke, but instat wanted to have him down, on the same level than he stood on.

Personally, this "Vader's thing" is too difficult to explain, because of his intentions while thowing his Lightsabre (I prefer british English ).

 

I read somewhere, I think it was in the Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, that many, but not all, lightsabers have intensity adjustments for the blade.

Since no two lightsabers are exactly the same though, I think it depends on the lightsaber as well as the material it is cutting through. They can usually cut through metal and stone, but wouldn't be like cutting through butter with a hot wire. In every example I've seen of a lightsaber cutting through any stone or metal of substanial thickness, it takes quite a bit of effort to do so.

As for the thing where Vader cuts down the support for the catwalk, Vader's lightsaber could have been set to a higher intensity than the one that didn't cut through the railing in ESB. Alternately, the catwalk support and the railing could have been made of two different types of metal that would therefore react differently to lightsaber blades.

Though lightsabers give off little to no heat, we see the blast door melting around Qui-Gon's. Some possible explanations are that his lightsaber had a heat adjustment on it, that the intensity of the blade effects the heat given off, that the intensity of the cutting effects the heat given off (the harder to cut, the more heat), or that different lightsabers give off different amounts of heat.

 

or that, like microwaves, lightsabres themselves give off no heat, but the reaction when they come in contact with other things produces heat.

in the first JA novel, there's definetely soem mention of Obi-Wan burning Bruck Chun with his lightsaber.

 

In counterpoint to my earlier comment I recall that both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were slicing up battle droids with their lightsabers all through TPM (and all the Jedi in AotC ditto probably) so obviously lightsabers can cut metal. Why the one in ESB didn't at least score the railing is beyond my creative reconstruction abilities today.

So, I would say, since Qui-Gon spent a fair amount of time with his lightsaber - adjusted or not - stuck in the blast doors without getting further than melting the center, you can probably get away with cutting into a rock or chipping it. But unless it is, say, a relatively thin slab I would not expect a lightsaber to be able to cut through it in anything approximating a reasonable time. And I think I would be very wary of rock with a high water content because it seems to me that turning water to steam might just make it shatter in all directions. Including toward the lightsaber wielder.

I can't remember exactly but in a JA book Obi-Wan was trapped by a rock slide and they had to do the "move the rocks and shimmy out" thing instead of the "I'll just cut us a new way out of here" thing. 'Course that doesn't necessarily mean much. For all I can recall he lost his lightsaber on the wrong side of the rock slide or something.

As far as burns go, I recall hearing that research into using lasers to remove plaque from arteries kept getting hung up on the ease with which the laser could end up cutting through the artery wall instead of the plaque. That was beaucoup years ago though.

kd

 

Just a moment : We don't really know whether the Battle Droids of the TF are realy made of metal ... well, yes, at Geonosis they are, but they could easily consist of other material, too.

We are simply used to that cliché that robots are made out of metal - and GL feeds this cliché on Geonosis - but this need not be a solid fact.