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How Lightsabers Work

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Robert Lamb, Senior Staff Writer
HowStuffWorks 2009

Author's Note: How Lightsabers Work

I grew up with Star Wars and brandished many a flashlight as my own make-believe lightsaber, but it’s one of those fantastic sci-fi inventions that I never stopped loving. I played an unhealthy amount of “Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast” the summer of 2002, and while I groaned as much as the next fan about the prequel trilogy, the lightsaber duels themselves delivered big time. I even watched a few of them again for this article, and for a good half-hour there I was 8 again, rooting on my favorite Sith Lords. Yeah, I was one of those kids.

"How Lightsabers Work" was one of the first HowStuffWorks articles I read, long before I actually joined the editorial team. So, when the opportunity came up to work with this article and add my own name to the byline, I jumped at the chance. Dozens of new lightsaber styles have entered service since this article initially published, but the "science" still holds up nicely.

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