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From: mar@MIT-BORAX.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: light sabers
Message-ID: <3757@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 22:36:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3757
Posted: Mon Sep 23 22:36:36 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Sep-85 06:30:42 EDT
Sender: daemon@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: mar@MIT-BORAX.MIT.EDU (Mark A. Rosenstein)

All of this talk about blasters and light sabers reminds me of a
design we came up with a while back for making a real lightsaber.
There a couple of problems with this design, but for the most part, it
should work . . .

Start with your ordinary household protable high-energy laser.  Now
you need about three feet of Sinclair molecule chain, and a pulley
that you can wrap it around without slicing the pulley in half.  The
other end of the chain is attached to a perfect mirror about an inch
in diameter.

The pulley is spring loaded so that with power off, the mirror covers
the end of the laser.  Turn on the laser, and the photonic energy will
push against the mirror, unrolling the chain to its length of three
feet (plus an integral number of wavelengths of the laser).  The laser
does not need to be quite as strong as you would first think, since
its being reflected back into its own chamber will reinforce the beam.
The slightest bit of parabolic curve on the edges of the mirror will
make sure that the mirror tracks the beam as you swing it around or
push it against things.

I was going to build one, but my Edmund Scientific Catalog does not
list Sinclair molecule chains.  Mr. Niven, where can I get one?

					-Mark


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