# Will lightsabers cut glass?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 10, 2014, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073 "2014-09-10T15:18:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2014, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/1 "2014-09-10T15:18:00Z")
A weird question that popped into my head this morning.
I don’t know canonically what lightsaber “blades” are (lasers? Plasma?), but what would happen if a Jedi waved one through a pane of glass? Would it cut it? Shatter it? Do nothing?
---
### Author:  [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/2 "2014-09-10T15:28:30Z")
Briefly, light sabers aren’t lasers, so they cut through most things. Except each other, being some sort of magnetically confined plasma. I know they’re generated from crystals hand made by the Jedi Knight as part of their training, which makes them sound like lasers, but they’re not. Also, high energy, high powered lasers still cut through mirrors and glass, even in our world. Because nothing is a prefect reflector or transmitter of light. You can try Wikipedia, or for even more fanwanking Wookiepedia, but I’m at work, so I can’t link.
---
### Author:  [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/3 "2014-09-10T15:40:51Z")
To get even more deeply into geekery, the question wouldn’t even come up in the Star Wars universe, which as a rule does not use “glass” but other stronger clear materials (transparisteel?).
And from description, lightsabers act like a contained plasma, so whatever a modern plasma torch would cut/melt, seems like a lightsaber would be similar, but likely more powerful. There is a scene in one of the movies where a character sinks the weapon into a metal security door which quickly begins to heat up, radiate, and eventually sag and melt.
Someone with more science background than me will have to discuss whether the energy/heat transfer through various types of glass would cause it to have holes or stripes melted through, shatter from the energy differences, melt away in sheets, or something I’m not clever enough to think of.
---
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/4 "2014-09-10T15:46:12Z")
Glass isn’t a problem. Water, OTOH, is.
---
### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/5 "2014-09-10T19:53:47Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Glass isn’t a problem. Water, OTOH, is.
Not according to the novel _Splinter of the Mind’s Eye_.
---
### Author:  [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/6 "2014-09-10T20:43:30Z")
> [@Lasciel](#):
>
> And from description, lightsabers act like a contained plasma, so whatever a modern plasma torch would cut/melt, seems like a lightsaber would be similar, but likely more powerful. There is a scene in one of the movies where a character sinks the weapon into a metal security door which quickly begins to heat up, radiate, and eventually sag and melt.
[Convection Schmonvection](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConvectionSchmonvection)
---
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/7 "2014-09-10T21:23:33Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> Not according to the novel _Splinter of the Mind’s Eye_.
Even Lucas disregards that novel. Totally non-canon, even EU-canon.
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2014, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/8 "2014-09-10T22:17:24Z")
It’s not clear to me _what_ a “light saber” is. Is there canon on this? I know that some people, like Michiu Kaku, model it as a plasma, but it’s not clear to me that that’s what it really is. When I first saw the original _Star Wars_, my thought was that it looked like what Larry Niven calls a “variable sword” – a stasis field around a filament. (Of course, that’s explaining one undefined SF device in terms of another undefined SF device, and so doesn’t really explain anything).
In any event, light sabres don’t sem to have any problem cutting through metals or insulators. I wouldn’t think they’d have a problem with an amorphous solid. Nor, for that matter, would a Variable Sword.
The question I always had was, what would happen if you tried to engage a light saber with a variable sword? Would one pass through the other? Would they resist each other, as two light sabers do?\* Or would something else (like an explosion) happen?
\*Since two light sabers "stop"each other as if they’re solid metal swords, I’ve always had trouble thinking of them as pure plasmas.
---
### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/9 "2014-09-10T23:18:57Z")
I was thinking the glass might shatter rather than be cut.
Since a variable sword is essentially indestructible, I’d bet it goes through the lightsaber blade, which then reforms immediately. Unless there’s something in the tech that prevents the blade from reforming, the variable sword wielder will lose.
---
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2014, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/10 "2014-09-10T23:35:46Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> \*Since two light sabers "stop"each other as if they’re solid metal swords, I’ve always had trouble thinking of them as pure plasmas.
They’re **not** pure plasma. They are **shield contained** plasma.
Per Wookiepedia: _The weapon consisted of a blade of pure plasma emitted from the hilt and suspended in a force containment field. The field contained the immense heat of the plasma, protecting the wielder, and allowed the blade to keep its shape._
\ ***Water:** All lightsabers, unless specially made,[42][3] would short out when they were submerged in water, due to rapid chain reactions and the instant overpowering of water on the blade. In rain, a lightsaber would steam up, but not short out.[43] Some Jedi, specifically those of aquatic species, designed special lightsabers that could activate underwater. \*
---
### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2014, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/11 "2014-09-10T23:41:26Z")
In the _Long Sun_ series, Gene Wolfe wrote about a weapon he called an Azoth that was basically a light saber without magnetic containment. It sounded much more useful in any realistic type of battle. IIRC, it didn’t seem to have problems cutting most anything, either.
---
### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2014, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/12 "2014-09-11T00:53:05Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Even Lucas disregards that novel. Totally non-canon, even EU-canon.
If the alternative is Jar Jar, fuck Lucas.
---
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2014, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/13 "2014-09-11T00:54:09Z")
On that we can agree!
---
### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2014, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/14 "2014-09-11T01:11:34Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> \*Since two light sabers "stop"each other as if they’re solid metal swords, I’ve always had trouble thinking of them as pure plasmas.
I don’t think that prevents the worker agent from being “plasma”. It could be some form of highly dense plasma or, more likely, the field that contains the plasma is permeable to everything except plasma and other plasma containment fields. A containment field door would, theoretically, be the only door that you couldn’t cut through with a light saber.
---
### Author:  [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2014, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/15 "2014-09-11T01:17:29Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> A weird question that popped into my head this morning.
>
> I don’t know canonically what lightsaber “blades” are (lasers? Plasma?), but what would happen if a Jedi waved one through a pane of glass? Would it cut it? Shatter it? Do nothing?
Slice that damn thing right in two it would!
---
### Author:  [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2014, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/16 "2014-09-11T01:19:01Z")
> [@Arkcon](#):
>
> Briefly, light sabers aren’t lasers, so they cut through most things. Except each other, being some sort of magnetically confined plasma. I know they’re generated from crystals hand made by the Jedi Knight as part of their training, which makes them sound like lasers, but they’re not. Also, high energy, high powered lasers still cut through mirrors and glass, even in our world. Because nothing is a prefect reflector or transmitter of light. You can try Wikipedia, or for even more fanwanking Wookiepedia, but I’m at work, so I can’t link.
You figure the prefect did it? Huh?
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2014, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/17 "2014-09-11T10:05:40Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> Since a variable sword is essentially indestructible, I’d bet it goes through the lightsaber blade, which then reforms immediately. Unless there’s something in the tech that prevents the blade from reforming, the variable sword wielder will lose.
Well, except for the fact that the variable sword wielder is probably 50 feet away or so. Those things could extend a lot farther than the reach a lightsaber has.
---
### Author:  [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2014, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/18 "2014-09-11T10:50:28Z")
In the Clone Wars TV series, Light Sabers cannot go through Zillo Beast armor
I’m pretty sue they did cut through glass (or some other transparent material)
Brian
---
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/19 "2014-09-11T13:51:22Z")
There are lots of things\* a light saber can’t cut through. Glass just isn’t one of them.
\*- cortosis, phrik, darkswords, armorweave, Mandalorian iron, Vonduun Skerr Kyrric armor, Amphistaffs, various energy shields, lava dragons, Tikulini worms and the aforementioned Zillo beasts. Among others. An irresistible force it ain’t.
---
### Author:  [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2014, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073/20 "2014-09-11T15:57:07Z")
Seriously guys?
Hello? Palpatine V. Windu fight? The glass shattered. Very cool moment.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-lightsabers-cut-glass/698073.md?page=2)