Well I've been wanting to get back on the bandwagon with Hyperspace ever since I first got a taste of it, and now I'm glad I've waited! I'd hoped they'd bring the price down sooner or later That said, this isn't my first blog here, but it is my first in quite some time. If you want to know more about who I am, check out my older blogs, thankfully kept here during my time away from Hyperspace

This was going to be a short blog, covering a topic I know has been debated again and again and again, in the forums, in the blogs, everywhere...but instead it turns out to be a fairly long one. Anywho, this particular blog will be about the common misconception that lightsabers don't cast shadows. The argument I'm about to make could easily be wrong, and I love getting feedback, so let's delve into the science of the blade and see where it takes us all! (of course, this also means, purely for the sake of argument, that we assume real science applies to sabers!)

The most common argument I've seen against lightsabers casting shadows is that 'they're glowing blades of energy, they cast light, not block it!' The solid appearance of the blade not withstanding, there's one flaw in this argument - how often is the glow of the blade visible? I'm talking about in the movies, too; in games like Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy, the glow is present at all times as long as the saber is on. But in the movies, how often do you see the glow? Once, in Episode II, and only because there are no other lights what so ever. It might have been visible when Luke screamed "No!" in RotJ but I don't remember off-hand. Still, this indicates that the saber blades do not cast much light, even in Episode II the glow is very subtle during Anakin's brief duel in the dark with Dooku.

In short, yes sabers glow, however if they do cast a shadow, the glow of the blade is not nearly intense enough to actually cancel out the cast shadow. If you're bored and want to do an experiment to prove this, take something like a dim desk lamp or even a glow stick (though that doesn't work quite as well, a desk lamp with a shade works best.) Then take some other light, a flash light or something, that's noticeably brighter and shine it at the lamp. You'll notice that where the lamp's light was shining down from under the shade, depending on how you angle the flashlight, you can see a shadow of brighter and darker illumination. It's the same concept with a lightsaber, the intensity of the lamp light is not nearly enough to cancel out the shadow cast by the shade when a considerably brighter light is shining down on it.

Which brings up the question - does the blade actually cast a shadow in the first place? I would argue yes. The reason, simply put, is that a saber blade is solid. Now yes, I know that it's really plasma formed and held in its shape by a powerful magnetic field (at least, that's what I always assumed was the case) and plasma is no more a solid than a gas or liquid. But what got me thinking about it one day some four years ago (just now getting around to writing about it, lol!) was a basic concept in an intro to chemistry class I was required to take. Take a completely clear glass of water, shine a bright light down on it, and what do you get? Well, pretty much no shadow, I mean there is a little bit of a one for the same reason (I'm guessing) as the patterns you see at the bottom of pools in the middle of the day. Drop in some salt or suger in the water, stir it up, and it's still completely transparent, still no real shadow. I forget if that's a homogenous mixture or something else, I really can't remember, but that's not the point. However, if you pour something else in, like dye, and stir it up, the water takes on the color and becomes darker. Notice that the darker the die, the greater the shadow. Basically this concept means that the harder it is to see through the water, the less light travels through it, the darker the shadow.

Now take a close look at a lightsaber's core blade - what do you see? The white of the blade. You can't see through the blade (early matte composites in the OT doesn't count ) So making an argument I meant to be a lot shorter...well, shorter, it's the same as that glass of water. Since you can't see through the blade, light can't pass through it either. That essentially means that according to science, a saber blade does cast a shadow!

Any refutes, comments, anything at all, please leave comments, I'm curious to see what you all think of this I know some of you hate the attempts at scientifically explaining things in a fantasy universe, but it's part of the fun for me. What's even stranger, I'm not any sort of science major. In fact, I'm as far from it as you can be - an English major!!!!!!