Hello, SFIA audio listeners. In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asking the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and ad-free, plus hours of bonus content,

check out go.nebola.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

This episode is brought to you by Skillshare.

Science fiction delights in showing us laser guns and sword fights, but could this ever be a real thing?

So today is another sci-fi Sunday here on Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur, as today we let our hair down a bit and embrace our sci-fi roots.

We will look at concepts that normally would be considered more than the realm of popular

fiction than possible futures, while keeping at least one foot firmly planted in the realm

of known science.

Today that's going to be looking at the large quantities of fictional future weapons and

trying to see how they function, and if they would be usable in combat,

and if not, what we might substitute in.

And the good news is that for any of us who grew up dreaming of a lightsaber, there's good

reason to think they might be well within the realm of the possible, even in the near future,

not just in a galaxy long, long ago and far, far away.

If by some chance you haven't seen the Hacksmith team's

real-life 4,000-degree plasma lightsaber build, make sure to check that out, and go give them

a like and subscribe just for helping fulfill all our dreams, and don't forget to give us a

like and subscribe while you're at it. Now it needs a lot of refining, and we need vastly better

power generation for a handheld and

truly portable unit like we've seen Star Wars, but it doesn't help us solve the other

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