# Would a lightsabre shatter glass?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-lightsabre-shatter-glass/63351
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 25, 2001, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-lightsabre-shatter-glass/63351 "2001-04-25T23:08:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2001, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-lightsabre-shatter-glass/63351/1 "2001-04-25T23:08:51Z")
A question I have often posed to those friends sad enough to to answer: If I thrust a lightsabre through a pane of galss end first, would the glass shatter or would I make a hole? I know that it depends on the glass etc, but can it be done. And, yes, I know that lightsabres aren’t real.
Homour me.
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### Author:  [@heembo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heembo)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2001, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-lightsabre-shatter-glass/63351/2 "2001-04-25T23:19:07Z")
I think that would depend on the type of glass you tried to pass the LS through. Thinner glas might end up shattering, while it might make a clean hole on thicker glass.
What about this, though:
What happens when the power supply on a Light Sabre runs low? Would the beam of a fully charged LS pass right through the beam of the low charge LS? If I swung a one that was low on power and it, instead of cutting the thing I was singing at in half, swung all the way around and hit me, what would happen then?
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2001, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-lightsabre-shatter-glass/63351/3 "2001-04-25T23:27:50Z")
What about a mirror? Wouldn’t it just reflect a light saber?
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### Author:  [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2001, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-lightsabre-shatter-glass/63351/4 "2001-04-25T23:28:14Z")
I’m not a SW loremaster, but my impression of lightsabres was always that they cut through anything except other lightsabres. So you’d get a hole.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2001, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-lightsabre-shatter-glass/63351/5 "2001-04-26T00:01:46Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Fiendish Astronaut \*
> \*\*A question I have often posed to those friends sad enough to to answer: If I thrust a lightsabre through a pane of galss end first, would the glass shatter or would I make a hole? I know that it depends on the glass etc, but can it be done. And, yes, I know that lightsabres aren’t real.
>
> Homour me. \*\*
I will not Homour you. Besides, who sez they are not real?
[http://www.amazing1.com/star\_wars\_light\_saber.htm](http://www.amazing1.com/star_wars_light_saber.htm)
Nyah!
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2001, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-lightsabre-shatter-glass/63351/6 "2001-04-26T01:14:55Z")
First you have to say exactly what a lightsabre _is_, and how it works.
The closest thing in SF I’ve found is Larry Niven’s **variable sword** , which is a wire enclosed in a stasis field. If a ligh sabre is anything like that, it would certainly shatter glass.
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### Author:  [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2001, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-lightsabre-shatter-glass/63351/7 "2001-04-26T01:31:37Z")
Everything you could possibly want to know about _Star Wars_ lightsabres:
[http://www.synicon.com.au/sw/ls/~sabres.htm](http://www.synicon.com.au/sw/ls/~sabres.htm)
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### Author:  [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2001, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-lightsabre-shatter-glass/63351/8 "2001-04-26T18:30:59Z")
FURRYMAN’S LAW OF FANTASY SCIENCE:
Anything you do in a science fiction movie/series is OK as long as you provide a psuedo-scientific explanation involving several scientific sounding made up words. (What are polarons, anyway?)
In other words: if the writers needed it, they’d write it in. 😉