# Could you cook food with a light saber? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 12, 2019, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125 "2019-09-12T20:41:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/1 "2019-09-12T20:41:17Z")
Inspired by a dream I had the other day - I think the dream involved cooking a chicken with radiant heat from a light saber. Hmmm… Asked friends at work, and they thought you might be able to boil water and cook that way, but the weapon doesn’t actually produce radiant heat. Any SW tech/food geeks want to chime in? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/2 "2019-09-12T20:58:13Z")
Any depiction of the burning / melting / cooking ability of a lightsaber has, I think, always been that the user is actually sticking the blade into the item in question – holding the energy blade close to (but not touching) the object seems to do little or nothing. There are enough examples of lightsaber blades being held very close to someone’s face, with no apparent ill effects, to suggest that any “radiant heat” is minimal. And, [as per Wookiepedia](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lightsaber/Legends) – though what’s in the “Legends” section from which I’m quoting here is from official licensed sources (like books, video games, etc.) that are not strictly considered to be canonical at this point: > [@](#): > > A lightsaber blade was a mass-less form that neither radiated heat nor expended energy, other than that emitted as visible light, until it came into contact with something solid. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/3 "2019-09-12T21:56:58Z")
I think you would pretty much have to stick the blade in the water to get it to boil. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/4 "2019-09-12T22:00:22Z")
I’ll bet you could use a lightsaber to start a campfire. ---
**Author:** ![HaroldDix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/76d3ee/32.png) [@HaroldDix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HaroldDix)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/5 "2019-09-12T22:10:57Z")
This is just a wild ass guess based on a few “science” explanations of a light saber. The most “plausible” explanation is that a light saber is plasma held in place by a magnetic field so no heat escapes If any heat energy were to escape we would melt everyone in the room when you turned it on based upon its cutting ability. So No probably can not cook anything without turning it into a pile of carbon or water vapor. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/6 "2019-09-12T22:21:24Z")
Hmmphhh! That is why over fire rootleaf stew did Yoda cook. ---
**Author:** ![tricoteuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tricoteuse/32/4334_2.png) [@tricoteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tricoteuse)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/7 "2019-09-12T23:37:03Z")
LOL you could cook a roast as you slice it, I bet. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/8 "2019-09-13T00:08:33Z")
Lightsaber [bread/toast knife](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/hitchhikers/images/8/80/ToastFeature06042015.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20181008232057). ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/9 "2019-09-13T03:04:57Z")
I dunno, two light sabers melted a steel (or equivalent) door pretty quickly in The Phantom Menace. It has to work somehow. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/10 "2019-09-13T03:11:40Z")
Just use the light saber to slice the food. The food will cook as you cut. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/11 "2019-09-13T03:25:48Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > I dunno, two light sabers melted a steel (or equivalent) door pretty quickly in The Phantom Menace. It has to work somehow. As I noted in post #2, lightsabers are great cutting (or burning, or cooking) tools if in direct contact with what you want to cut (or burn, or cook 😃 ). Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon had the blades of their lightsabers thrust _into_ those blast doors. If they had just been holding the blades close to the doors, it would have been a different story. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/12 "2019-09-13T03:34:10Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/13 "2019-09-13T05:41:58Z")
Only if the comic book author or screenplay writer finds it useful in the story. In that case, it can be used to cook food as well as tickle unicorns. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/14 "2019-09-13T08:30:58Z")
If you use it to kill a bantha and hollow it out so you can sleep in it without freezing to death, you can certainly use it to cook some bantha meat for breakfast the following morning. So, yes. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/15 "2019-09-13T11:57:08Z")
Interesting question. I’ve always thought of light sabres as similar to the _variable swords_ in Larry Niven’s future universe. Visually, light sabres look very much the way I always envisioned variable swords to look. But a variable sword was a wire encased in a _stasis field_, and I wouldn’t expect that (fictional, non-existent) technology to transfer any heat. Light Sabres clearly can transfer heat on contact – they simultaneously cut and cauterize wounds (so we don’t get any yechhy blood when someone loses a limb, as they do in every movie. Or when Darth Maul got a spot hemicorporectomy at the end of _Phantom Menace_. So think of light sabres as something more like lasers. They can produce very high heat on contact, but only in a very localized area. You wouldn’t want to cook with a laser, would you? It’d take forever. Of course, I’m wrong. There are entire web pages devoted to cooking with lasers: > **[Laser Cooking](https://www.creativemachineslab.com/laser-cooking.html)** > > Laser cooking is a software-controlled cooking technique that uses the heat from lasers to cook food products. Because lasers can provide precise spatial and temporal control of heat, we can tailor... > **[The most comprehensive innovation search platform — Wellspring](https://search.wellspringsoftware.net)** > > Aggregating the world's patents, patent applications, research grants, technology and inventors allowing universities and companies to showcase and share influential technologies and research. You can make toast with QR codes burned in! [https://fukuchilab.org/projects/laser-cooking](https://fukuchilab.org/projects/laser-cooking) > **[Laser cookery makes your food more fun](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628965-200-laser-cookery-makes-your-food-more-fun/)** > > Melted bacon and toast with QR codes burned into it are just two ideas for how laser cutters could change the way we cook and eat Laser-cooked bacon! > **[Laser-cooked bacon is a delicious techno-culinary masterpiece | Engadget](https://www.engadget.com/2015-11-12-laser-cooked-bacon-is-a-delicious-techno-culinary-masterpiece.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS91cmw_c2E9dCZyY3Q9aiZxPSZlc3JjPXMmc291cmNlPXdlYiZjZD0xMyZ2ZWQ9MmFoVUtFd2o3cnYtQjNjM2tBaFVPdlZrS0hlWHVEYVFRRmpBTWVnUUlCQkFCJnVybD1odHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnd3dy5lbmdhZGdldC5jb20lMkYyMDE1JTJGMTElMkYxMiUyRmxhc2VyLWNvb2tlZC1iYWNvbi1pcy1hLWRlbGljaW91cy10ZWNobm8tY3VsaW5hcnktbWFzdGVycGllY2UlMkYmdXNnPUFPdlZhdzI3RHdIM2JXMXNCUm1vbWxLekJJNkg&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALOr02dC5wOVyRoZNp2jaKv8CcXfTZVN-hHcKRNy2ULNCt9knzJr9WW0KIQjv69H05Q4sS3JasHGZhQZZVPrLHoVtixtP5DOd-eEVAed5DfdL0nG9DeyT4OgXjKoDVLi6-A-2_9ihKO2fD8Ak0s1g3VajqloJgU36oH4sT_Jhlhs)** > > There's no wrong way to cook bacon -- even if you don't cook it at all. > **[Cooking with Lasers?](https://forums.egullet.org/topic/133019-cooking-with-lasers/)** > > This weekend I used a laser cutter to create a decorative garnish out of nori. I've experimented in the past with laser nori for makizushi, but with mixed results. Certain geometric patterns work well, but when the nori comes in contact with... …and plenty more. If people can use the pinpoint heating of laser for practical cookery, they would be able to figure out a way to use the edge-only heat of a light sabre to do it (“move the blade slowly through the center of the steak, at a rate of no more than 1 cm per minute…”), even if it’s even as crude as plunging the sabre into a pot of water to bring it to a boil. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/16 "2019-09-13T12:58:29Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > …and plenty more. If people can use the pinpoint heating of laser for practical cookery, they would be able to figure out a way to use the edge-only heat of a light sabre to do it (“move the blade slowly through the center of the steak, at a rate of no more than 1 cm per minute…”), even if it’s even as crude as plunging the sabre into a pot of water to bring it to a boil. I’d think that the water would flash to steam rather than boil - what temperature did the sabres take the blast doors to, almost instantly? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/17 "2019-09-13T13:04:15Z")
We know from a movie that light sabers melt and burn things when they touch them. How they do that, but don’t emit radiant heat, I don’t understand, but they clearly do heat things up if they touch them. So you stick the light saber in water, boil the water, you can cook. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/18 "2019-09-13T14:39:33Z")
Thinly sliced meat would probably work, but I imagine the outsides would be burnt. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/19 "2019-09-13T15:24:40Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > We know from a movie that light sabers melt and burn things when they touch them. How they do that, but don’t emit radiant heat, I don’t understand, but they clearly do heat things up if they touch them. So you stick the light saber in water, boil the water, you can cook. Look, we KNOW they give off heat. They radiate visible light and, as my beginning physic professor was fond of chanting - no kidding - “light is heat, heat is light”. The question becomes, really, how fast they can transfer that heat. What level of heat are they radiating? Some of it doesn’t make sense, of course, because it’s a movie. The melting point of steel - using that as a substitute for the blast doors in TPM - is 1427 degrees centigrade. That’s really freaking hot. At that point, the jedi should need some sort of protective gear to be anywhere near them when they’re activated. OK, so maybe it’s just contact transfer. Fine. But they’re activating those thing in an atmosphere. The air itself doesn’t have a combustion point, as I recall, but flashing that sort of temperature into air will cause convection at a pretty sharp clip. I have a vision of jedi with their robes and hair and such caught in an uplifting whirlwind. Maybe to gain altitude they could use the jedi robes as mini lifting surfaces to float up without the force. Or maybe a force-assist. Who knows. This ain’t that kinda movie, kid. Anyway, lightsabers have to be really freaking hot, is what I’m saying. Really freaking hot. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125/20 "2019-09-13T15:31:36Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Look, we KNOW they give off heat. They radiate visible light and, as my beginning physic professor was fond of chanting - no kidding - “light is heat, heat is light”. > > The question becomes, really, how fast they can transfer that heat. What level of heat are they radiating? Some of it doesn’t make sense, of course, because it’s a movie. And, in particular, it doesn’t make sense because Star Wars Physics are a particularly inconsistent, nonsensical version of physics. As noted upthread, there aren’t any examples of lightsabers giving off radiant heat (though, you’re right, if lightsabers were a real thing, they really _should_). Thus, it appears that, in goofy Star Wars Physics, they don’t. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-cook-food-with-a-light-saber/840125.md?page=2)