It is one of the most famous moments in the whole of Star Wars.
In the 1980 movie ‘The Empire Strikes Back‘ by George Lucas, the villain Darth Vader freezes main character Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in carbonite.
As the brave space smuggler cooled, the imaginary metal solidified around him trapping him in a state of complete hibernation.
Carbonite, the made up material only featured in the Star Wars universe, is the name.
But one scientist says this is no longer science fiction.
In real life, it may be possible to freeze humans, just as Solo did, believes Dr. Alex Baker, a chemist at the University of Warwick.
He told MailOnline: ‘You could have a cool wall decoration like Han Solo, but it would be as heavy as two VW Golf cars.’
A really sturdy wall and a strong picture hook will be required.
Liquid nitrogen and solid carbon dioxide (CO2) are examples of ‘cryogens’ that people use to freeze things (like human eggs in IVF treatments) in everyday life.
Small objects can be frozen with cryogens, but a person is too large to freeze in cryogens yet.
However, Dr. Baker said, “The problem is, your body would have to freeze on the inside before you died.” ‘However, your body wouldn’t freeze evenly.’
Therefore, we must contemplate other materials that can accomplish the same thing, and one that is especially promising.
Gallium is a metal that is liquid at room temperature and solid below 29.76°C (85.57°F).
Gallium also encourages small and simple living things, such as nematode worms, to store, which is encouraging research
Dr. Baker advises to make a huge ice cube mold, about two meters long and half a meter wide, to copy the Star Wars scene using a person and gallium.
It would be big enough for a person to fit inside—probably the world’s biggest Star Wars fan willing to risk their life for the opportunity.
Instead of using water, the mold would fill slowly but gradually with gallium until the participant is fully covered and then the temperature would be lowered until it freezes (below 85.57°F or 29.76°C).
In ‘Return of the Jedi’ the temperature would have to be increased again, just as it would after the experiment ends.
As seen in the movie, Han Solo is only affected by brief side effects such as shivering and being temporarily blind when he is rescued from the carbonite.
However, unfortunately, that’s where the similarities would seem to end, because the Star Wars fan would likely not survive.
Humans are much more complicated than simple worms, therefore we would not survive the first stage of drying out, Dr Baker explained.
He said dehydration makes the worms go into suspended animation so they stop activity in all areas.
You wouldn’t be able to do this to a person without killing them because water is necessary for life and all the chemical processes which make us live.
In general, someone trapped in such a situation would quickly exhaust their air and suffocate from breathing their own carbon dioxide inside a metal box.
Less toxic than mercury, gallium’s chemical, physical and toxic effects are not completely understood.
The biotechnology company, Sigma Aldrich, states that touching gallium can leave the metallic taste in your mouth, cough, breathing troubles, headaches, feeling sick, vomiting, and skin irritation.
Associate professor of neuroscience at the University of Oxford, Vladyslav Vyazovskiy, said that new technology and drugs, as well as genetic tools, have already proved that they can assist in causing or controlling sleep.
We will probably have to learn how to make humans hibernate safely, and so we will have to study vital brain circuits and main molecules that regulate sleep.
Right now, it’s more possible that we could actually get a real working lightsaber, but this very hot and dangerous weapon is probably too dangerous for normal people to use.