Let's be real for a second, and admit that, whether you're a die-hard Star Wars fan or not, you've all wanted at one point or another to play with a real-life lightsaber. They're deadly, they look cool, and they make an awesome noise that regular swords just can't compete with.
Plus, there's the science factor, because basic physics teaches us that photons – the particles of light – don't interact with each other, so how are they even possible? With Star Wars: The Force Awakens just a few months away, lightsabers are officially back on our minds, and it appears we're not the only ones. Superstar astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has been doing some thinking about the sci-fi weapons as well.
In fact, as he explains in the video above, produced by Tech Insider and StarTalk Radio, he got into a "geek fight" about lightsabers on Twitter, with none other than Brian Cox.
The backstory is that deGrasse Tyson was explaining that even though it would be possible to produce beams of light that cut objects, they wouldn't actually be able to interact with each other, so they'd be pretty pointless in a sword fight.
Which is where Cox came in, and made the valid point that, at high enough energies, you could get gamma rays, and gamma rays are able to interact with other gamma rays to create a force.
So yes, lightsabers really are possible, deGrasse Tyson admits. But only if they were made out of very high energy gamma ray beams.
But despite that fact, he still doesn't think they're a good idea.
"I keep thinking, if you have, like, laser guns, just shoot the person!" deGrasse Tyson explains in the video. "Why walk up to them and have a sword fight? Just shoot them from a distance and go on your way."
Well yeah, we guess you have a point there NdGT. But that's not going to stop us wanting to do this anytime soon:
Lucas Films