Reply To: Set up a holding company

[Ivy Matt]

Perhaps, with sufficient advances in capacitor and other technologies, a FF device could fit into a lightsaber handle in the not-too-distant future.

I recently had yet another idea, inspired by the Polywell. The handle creates an electron shaft, and the ions cluster around it. Of course, confining the electron shaft is still a problem without external magnets. Perhaps if the electrons could be expelled straight out, slow down, and then be pulled straight back, you could create a blade with a fixed length. However, it would still behave much like a plasma torch without some solid component extending from the handle.

Back to the power source, I found a set of videos in which Michio Kaku expands on his ideas. Incidentally, he covers a lot of the same ideas I went over, but differs in some ways. For instance, he proposes a titanium fan at the base of the handle to draw in the air that will become the plasma. For some reason I had pictured the plasma as coming from a source inside the lightsaber handle, but this idea is more practical, as you don’t have to worry about cramming a gas canister into your crowded handle and then worrying about how long it will last. One possible drawback to this idea: the lightsaber won’t work in a vacuum. But how often do you need to have a lightsaber battle in a vacuum? For the power source Michio Kaku proposes carbon nanotube batteries:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSNubaa7n9o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp_Hq1f8-0E