Editing Talk:1433: Lightsaber

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:::How far are they from the hull? The original breach would still be relatively localized (on the order of 1-2% of their distance from the hull), so if they're within a few hundred meters from the boundary it shouldn't be particularly large. (That's even assuming they're on the Death Star in the first place, as the IP below me helpfully points out; could be that the original vector simply didn't intersect the Death Star at all.)<br>Or of course it could be the original - it's only been several seconds or so, maybe they only noticed it that moment anyway.<br>A cool calculation I don't have time to do right now: assuming the blade covered a plane sector of, say, 15 degrees (I'm ignoring the twitches for a moment, though it's easy to see that they don't change the answer much), and assuming it didn't hit any nearby planets such as Endor, approximately how many planets it would've hit on its way from the galaxy? Same question for stars (though I suppose a lightsaber blade won't do much to a star). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.64.23|141.101.64.23]] 06:51, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
 
:::How far are they from the hull? The original breach would still be relatively localized (on the order of 1-2% of their distance from the hull), so if they're within a few hundred meters from the boundary it shouldn't be particularly large. (That's even assuming they're on the Death Star in the first place, as the IP below me helpfully points out; could be that the original vector simply didn't intersect the Death Star at all.)<br>Or of course it could be the original - it's only been several seconds or so, maybe they only noticed it that moment anyway.<br>A cool calculation I don't have time to do right now: assuming the blade covered a plane sector of, say, 15 degrees (I'm ignoring the twitches for a moment, though it's easy to see that they don't change the answer much), and assuming it didn't hit any nearby planets such as Endor, approximately how many planets it would've hit on its way from the galaxy? Same question for stars (though I suppose a lightsaber blade won't do much to a star). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.64.23|141.101.64.23]] 06:51, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
 
::::They're on Endor (in the movie, at least). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDnoczxzQyg If the beam intersects the Death Star, it would be many hundreds of KM away. Any perturbations would be HUGE at that distance. Also, the XKCD What If book actually addresses the question of the likelihood that a beam hits anything. [[User:Diszy|Diszy]] ([[User talk:Diszy|talk]]) 12:03, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 
::::They're on Endor (in the movie, at least). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDnoczxzQyg If the beam intersects the Death Star, it would be many hundreds of KM away. Any perturbations would be HUGE at that distance. Also, the XKCD What If book actually addresses the question of the likelihood that a beam hits anything. [[User:Diszy|Diszy]] ([[User talk:Diszy|talk]]) 12:03, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
βˆ’
:::::I was basically saying that the beam ''didn't'' intersect the Death Star until being moved in panel four.<br>As for the book, if you're referring to What If #109, it involves a stationary (or single-burst) laser; numbers for a moving laser (that sweeps through a section of a plane) would be different. I'm also ignoring the speed of light (which is kind of important when we're talking about interstellar distances).<br>Estimating based on [[1276: Angular Size]], seems that the chance of hitting a star would be roughly (laptop size/Earth size)*(galaxy size/Proxima distance)*15/360, which comes out to one in several thousand. Which is less than I expected, actually. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.64.23|141.101.64.23]] 15:16, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 
  
 
The scene referred to in Return of the Jedi, actually takes place on the surface of Endors moon. There are trees in the background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDnoczxzQyg [[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.222|141.101.81.222]] 15:20, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
 
The scene referred to in Return of the Jedi, actually takes place on the surface of Endors moon. There are trees in the background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDnoczxzQyg [[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.222|141.101.81.222]] 15:20, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

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