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I was reading another question and started to wonder what the dimensions of a blaster bolt are.

Usually in universe when we see a bolt fired it appears as a cynlinder with some length L.

Take this bolt for example: (imagine it's being fired parallel to your screen, so you are looking at it from the side):

enter image description here

Is the length of this ex. the actual length or just the apparent length due to the fact it is travelling very fast?

If this is not it's actual length but the apparent length due to relativity, would a blaster bolt actually just be a sphere?

  • I don't think blasters actually shoot proper lasers. Light would move to fast to track on screen – zipquincy Dec 10 '15 at 21:56
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    Blaster bolts are plasma beams so they don't travel at the speed of light. http://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/102909/31936 – Null Dec 10 '15 at 22:06
  • Damn you guys are finicky. It's travelling very fast (some percentage>50 of that of light's speed) so it could still experience apparent elongation. –  Dec 10 '15 at 22:08
  • @Hatandboots: No, it's not. – ThePopMachine Dec 10 '15 at 22:10
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    @Hatandboots - Pretty much every analysis of blaster bolts reveals that they're traveling very much slower than bullets. – Valorum Dec 10 '15 at 22:10
  • I couldn't really find any conclusive evidence, but if it's much slower than bullets than your right. :/ So to answer my question, are blaster bolts cylinders then? –  Dec 10 '15 at 22:12
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    As Richard said, some analyses of the footage shows that blaster bolts move at a speed slower than a major league baseball pitch - about 80 mph on the low end; Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame puts it at 130 mph on the high end. Everyone agrees that the bolts are far slower than the speed of light, or even sound. – Wad Cheber Dec 10 '15 at 22:15
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    Well I didn't intend to turn this into an argument about blaster bolt speed. –  Dec 10 '15 at 22:20
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    "due to the fact it is travelling very fast" only makes sense if we know how fast it is, so determining speed is essential to answering your question. – Mołot Dec 10 '15 at 22:26
  • @Mołot THat's what I was thinking, unless it is just a slow moving cylinder that has the exact same properties on both ends. –  Dec 10 '15 at 22:29
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    Through use of the speed of a bolt, we can get an estimated length by timing it and dividing the scale distance traveled. So... someone do that. –  Dec 11 '15 at 01:33

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"When the blaster was fired, a small amount of gas moved from the cartridge" -http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Blaster

So if it's excited gas, the longer it's traveling after being excited, it will lose energy and dissipate, where the outer layers of gas would cool faster than the inner layers (the surface area is more exposed, so it cools faster). Thus, the more elongated it will be the longer it travels, which means it would be constantly changing dimensions.

As an aside, was it my question that got you thinking about this?

Nate
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  • It sure was, you were talking about contacting the midpoint of the bolt, or gas cylinder thing, and I wasn't sure if that would even be possible. I didn't really realize it was a chunk of gas rather than fast moving light or something rather. –  Dec 11 '15 at 18:49
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    I haven't received a good answer on mine either. I fear we're thinking too hard. – Nate Dec 11 '15 at 20:11
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Force Awakens Spoiler:

In the raid on the village we see Kylo freeze a blaster bolt in mid-flight where it appears to have real fixed dimensions.