Plasma balls discharge charges of light. Light can be influenced

by magnetic fields. Could they be compacted by magnetic fields enough to be able to cut matter. Something like a laser but with a controllable length.

Sounds a lot like a lightsaber to me

 

Unfortunately, I don't think that's how it works, but I don't really know for sure.

Since when was light affected by magnets other than the fact that the magnet's mass curves space-time and the photons follows that curvature (aka gravity)?

 

And what do you mean by plasma balls?

(you mean like this: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/221244/2/electric_plasma_ball.jpg ?)

I've done reactive-ion-etching on nanoscale materials. The width was controlled by a mask made from a resist material (PMMA). I suppose you could control the depth by timing the discharge, but I don't know how well that could be conntrolled. All of this done in a vacuum system.

 

So a plasma can cut through materials, under the right conditions.

 

Light, however, is not directly affected by magnetic fields.

A plasm, by definition, is cloud of positive and negative ions, and as such they are influenced by a magnetic fields.

 

Fusion reactors, like the tokamak design, use a magnetic bottle to contain the ultra-hot plasma, that would otherwise be bad for the surfaces of the reactor.

 

Google turned up this links. Look them over.

http://www.fusion-eur.org/fusion_cd/magnetic.htm

http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/magnetic_confinement/magnetic_confinement.html

it controls the electron flow, the light given off is just an extra due to its excitation, it`s the electrons it influences, a bit like the magnetic coils in the back of a TV used to focus and move the electon beam.