Monday, January 4, 2016

Star Wars: A Dose of Reality From This Galaxy of Fantasies?




Star Wars is great on many levels. As Joseph Campbell mentioned, it has a mythological quality that makes it almost like an American mythology of sorts, with echoes of Greek Mythology. Yet, it also appeals to the imagination for mind-blowing technology, although most of it is, of course, not real. At least not yet.

Or is it?

One of the coolest aspects of Star Wars, right from the gate, was the concept of lightsabers.

There is very little so cool as lightsabers to compare with in any other movies, really. I mean, really, can you think of one particular thing that is just as cool as a lightsaber, those lit up, super technology swords that serve as all-purpose, virtually unbeatable weapons.

And more generally, the powers that Jedi (and Siths) display really appeal to the imagination of human beings, looking to tap their minds to come closer to the day when so many more of us (perhaps almost all of us) will have such powers.

Indeed, I personally suspect that we are closer to realizing something that bears similarity with The Force in Star Wars, although probably not so much with lightsabers. Then again, watch this video of a guy who actually came up with something that works more or less like a lightsaber, complete with sound effects:


Perhaps not exactly like the lightsabers that we see in the Star Wars movies, but perhaps not that far off, either?

I will leave that you you guys to judge.

However, here is a link of Neil DeGrasse Tyson discussing the science of lightsabers, which seemed interesting and certainly worthy of sharing here:



Neil deGrasse Tyson explains how 'Star Wars' lightsabers could actually work





Here are some other links related to Star Wars, although these go back to some time ago:






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