As in any country, not all Japanese of the top social caste were necessarily wealthy. Towards the end of the feudal era in Japan poor and even destitute Samurai did exist. Many Samurai were just making ends meet and only a few Samurai could afford a sword of high quality. While a low to medium grade Japanese sword was still a marvelous piece of technology for its time it was the finer swords which were truly amazing.
In forging a Japanese sword the master would crouch on one knee at the anvil, holding the red hot billet with tongs in his left hand and strike it with a hammer in his right hand (Japanese of any social standing, had they been born left-handed, were forced to become right-handed). During the forging process there were three apprentices standing around the anvil – one opposite the master, and one on either side. When the master struck the billet they would, in sequence, strike the exact same spot on the billet with larger, two handed hammers.
While common Japanese swords were forged from a single billet, the best quality blades were composed of separate billets of different composition, forge welded together for the end product. Usually this was done with two billets, each having started as a piece of iron forged to a piece of steel, heated, folded over on itself, then hammered together. This folding and hammering process was repeated many times to create thousands of layers within the width of the billet. Two of these iron-steel multi-layered billets would be forged to a pure steel billet between them, then forged into a sword blank. This resulted in a sword having a body of layered iron-steel with a center core and cutting edge of pure steel.
A blade forged like this, when heat treated, would have layers of iron which were still flexible while the layers of steel would be more rigid, resulting in a blade which is much more difficult to break. In addition, forging a blade in this way would align the steel molecules more uniformly while driving out inclusions (microscopic spaces or impurities) resulting in a harder and more rigid material with less tendency to break or crack.
But that’s not all. Japanese sword makers had a unique process for quenching blades which was the same for all Japanese swords. When the sword had been forged, shaped, and ready for heat treatment it was covered in a layer of clay mixed with ash. This layer of clay was about one quarter to three-eighths inch thick. After application of the clay, before it dried, the clay was scrapped off the part of the blade which was to be the cutting edge. When the blade was heated then quenched in water the exposed edge cooled quicker than the body of the blade, making the steel at the edge much harder than the rest of the blade.
When this quenching process is used the difference in hardness shows up when the blade is polished. The body of the blade, being relatively softer, comes to a brighter shine while the harder edge is still duller. In fact, a Japanese blade polisher (not the same as a blade maker) will apply a slightly courser grit to this harder edge area to highlight this difference. The result is a blade with a very high polish on most of the surface with a cloudy finish on the area at the cutting edge.
It was known that meteorite was prized by Japanese swordsmiths for use in making their blades. I have also read that some swords tested with modern equipment have been shown to have chromium in the steel. I have no idea how a feudal era Japanese swordsmith would find and identify natural examples of chromium and then blend it uniformly into a steel billet. I can only assume they had an empirical understanding about how some ore looked different and how that related to the end product.
In the late 13th and early 14th century lived a man by the name Masamune who is regarded as the finest Japanese swordsmith ever. In his own lifetime his blades were so highly regarded that after one point he would no longer sign them (Japanese swordsmiths sign their blades on one side of the tang using hammer and chisel) believing that if a person could not recognize the quality of his work that person didn’t deserve to know who made it.
While blade testing in Japan was not particularly common there are known historic examples of this practice. One test involved securing a blade of average quality in a solid fixture and cutting it with the blade being tested. To pass this test the superior blade should not show any nick or crack where it cut the other blade.
Another testing method involved cutting through human bodies. In some cases this was done while executing a convicted criminal. A superior Japanese blade was expected to be able to cut diagonally through a human torso from one shoulder, through ribs, spine, and on through the ribs on the opposite side without damaging the blade. In one legendary case I have read about the blade had the inscription “five body sword” on the tang opposite the maker’s signature. Legend has it that this blade had cut through five stacked human cadavers in a single stroke.
75 years ago US troops fighting the Imperial Japanese in the Pacific often faced Banzai charges of massed troops, some with little more than rifle-mounted bayonets and swords after running out of ammunition. In fact, there was a training film shown to some Imperial troops which described how to disable an American machinegun with the stroke of a sword in which a sword expert did just that with captured American equipment.
During WWII and the following occupation of Japan many Japanese swords made their way to the US – a number of them true museum pieces. There still are some significantly valuable Japanese swords in the US market but you can expect that the best examples of them have already been identified and repatriated to the much higher priced market in Japan. Should you happen to possess or find one and wish to have it reconditioned please understand that only a person properly trained to polish Japanese blades will be able to do the job without seriously detracting from its value. This is a very expensive proposition and only worth it if you have a blade of exceptional value. Any collector can immediately tell the difference between a blade which was polished by a traditionally trained polisher and one which was polished with modern equipment.
Comments
255 responses to “Japanese Swords – Part 2 – What Makes Them Superior?”
So much to learn, Thanks ,Tejicano.
Being mono dexterous, I would never make it in Japanese society, I would never be right.
Being left handed in contemporary Japan is not such a big deal now. They definitely allow it in baseball – as it can be difficult for the opponents to deal with. But I’m pretty sure they still force kids to eat and write right-handed.
My VN relatives that were left handed got changed by their grandma using a stick rather than a carrot
My second-to-youngest aunt is left-handed, and she was forced to write with her right hand in grade school in the late 60s. My in-laws all went to Catholic school and apparently it was still a thing to be taught to write right-handed up until maybe thirty years ago.
Yes. My left-handed aunt will talk your ear off about how the nuns in the early ’60s forced her to use her right hand.
Dad, Mom, and my brother were all left-handed. Dad & Mom got the treatment from the nuns, my brother just bitched about how hard it was to write in ink without smearing his paper.
That’s definitely true. Both of my kids write left-handed and I see the smudged ink on their schoolwork all the time.
The boy is 100% lefty, my daughter is fairly ambidextrous. My wife has always thought that she is more right handed than left but wanted to write lefty because that’s what her brother does, and just got good at it. She throws and bats right handed in softball.
Yeah, and spiral-bound notebooks. I’ve taken to using them backwards when I use them at all.
The guy who taught me told me that “no swordsman is left-handed.” I can cut much better right-handed now than I can left.
Should you happen to possess or find one and wish to have it reconditioned please understand that only a person properly trained to polish Japanese blades –
Let me go check my sword box. Seriously, interesting read.
I have heard of a couple people in Hawaii who are properly trained to polish Japanese blades. I haven’t really looked into it since I live in Japan and those services are easy enough (but still outrageously expensive) to find.
There are plenty of people in the US that can do it properly, but many more that think they can.
If someone steals a sword and then sells it, is it still called fencing?
BTW, exceptionally cool article.
Thanks. I’ve tried to condense down a bunch of stuff I’ve learned over the years into the more significant bits.
*looks daggers at bj*
I was expecting a “touche.”
are the dimensions of a sword sabermetrics?
Nice myths, but you overlook the mechanics of applying force with a wedge. You not only need to cut the material, but deform it sufficiently to clear the thickest part of the wedge, something even cheap steel like a mass produced gun barrel will not do with human levels of force. Bone is also notorious for not liking to separate in this manner, though some shattering/splitting is possible with human muscle power behind the stroke.
One point to note – Japanese are trained to not just strike with the blade but to draw inwards (towards the wielder) as the blade strikes. This does induce a bit of a sawing motion as well. It was historically noted that they could cleave through ribs and backbone on a single stroke.
I, for one, find the narrators of these kids of accounts unreliable. It would be grand if someone found a film reel of the WWII era gun barrel demonstrations, because attempts to replicate it in more recent years just don’t seem to succeed whenever a camera is rolling.
My assumption was that they didn’t cut the barrel but merely disabled the machinegun. Either cut the ammo belt or – at most – damage the feed mechanism. Even if the barrel was red-hot the challenge to attempt to cut it wouldn’t be worth the effort.
Cutting the canvas ammo belt isn’t that impressive.
Surviving the approach to the gun is the hard part.
Yeah, if one is to believe that this training film did exist (which I have to reason to doubt it did) was it a) an actual instruction for how to disable a machinegun for the one-in-a-hundred who might make it or b) a propaganda bit to inspire soldiers to charge machinegun emplacements with a sword?
I actually own a registered 1919-A4 back in the US and cannot imagine what sort of hand tool I could use to disable that in a single stroke. Attacking the belt is the only thing that makes sense to me.
I expect disabling the machine gun is a two-step process: charge the emplacement waving a sword and screaming like a madman to chase off the gunners, then field-strip the gun and throw the important bits in the bushes.
I actually own a registered 1919-A4 back in the US
I thought that was lost in a boating accident.
Look, just because it’s somewhere at the bottom of the water doesn’t mean he doesn’t still own it.
Changing the angle of attack doesn’t remove the need to actually move the material past the full width of the wedge, it just gives you a more acute wedge at the cost of giving up some of the power leverage can provide.
It was historically noted that they could cleave through ribs and backbone on a single stroke.
I find this quite credible. A good sword competently swung can go through bone.
Now, cutting hardened steel? I’d have to see it to believe it.
Oh, come now, you can cut hardened steel With water
wait a damn minute now there’s a goddamn waterjet channel?
Naturally. What doesn’t have a channel?
closest I could find was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyO46RQhYkQ
middle clip – but that’s a small rod of steel.
*thin pipe
That is thin-walled pipe of small diameter. And when they show the cut, it’s significantly crushed.
So, I’m guessing mild steel or softer.
Good series.
if a person could not recognize the quality of his work that person didn’t deserve to know who made it
Olde schoole shitlording.
Most of these aren’t terribly unique, just subtle variations on methods that every culture that discovered steel eventually developed. Every culture that had access used meteoric iron to forge weaponry with, usually before they discovered other forms of steel, since meteoric iron is pretty much the only natural source of iron that doesn’t require smelting. They didn’t use it because of its chromium content, but because it was easier. Once they discovered smelting, every culture including tre Japanese discarded meteoric iron as their normal source since it was rare and the extremely high nickel content would make the steel less effective at most applications, though it wouldn’t rust so there’s that. Similarly, while the Japanese method of flooding steel to pattern weld it was fairly unique, pattern welding itself was widely practiced. Europeans would typically twist the metal together instead if folding it, but examples have been found of folding the steel as well. Either way the same effect is achieved of uniformly distributing inclusions and impurities. Differential hardening was also used in swords outside of Japan, though it wasn’t done through the application of clay.
None of that is to say that Japanese swords were bad, they weren’t. I would go so far as to say that the average Japanese katana would be superior to the average Polish szabla; however that is because the Poles a wider variety of quality because they could, not because the Japanese were inherently better swords smiths. Because Japan’s lack of iron, every sword was made to the highest standards possible, while Europeans had enough to make lower quality armaments. A top of the line szabla could easily hold its own against any katana.
Nowadays we don’t have to pattern weld unless we want a fancy design on the blade, we just have Lachowsky remove the impurities before the bar stock even gets shipped.
We also have guns nowadays, making swords useless behind decoration.
We also have guns nowadays, making swords useless behind decoration.
Well, maybe not entirely useless:
“Every soldier thinks his is the last generation for which a bayonet will be useful.” — Jerry Pournelle, roughly
It was in one of his mercenary books, set well in the future with FTL travel.
A blade is simple, silent, and a great deal of utility above and beyond sticking the other guy in the vitals.
A bayonet is functionally closer to a spear than a sword.
Hrm?
When attached to the gun, and being used as a bayonet, it is closer to a spear than a sword. I’m aware that many were able to be detached and used as a standalone weapon, usually a knife or short sword.
Prior to the late 19th century, bayonets did not have an edge and were spear-like.
Modern bayonets are neither spears nor swords, just large knives. This is what I was issued for Iraq.
Well duh, the poor musketeers were staged in the same formation with pikemen, it only made sense for their melee weapon to work in concert with spears.
Sword or pistol?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDsn-RRmDXU
One of my favorite sketches on the topic
I am rather certain that most Japanese swords were not of really high quality – but I would say that the best ones were exceptional by any standard. Just like most people drive Chevys or Toyotas but those who can afford it drive something exotic. Not many Samurai could afford the best quality swords so a lot of swords were made of lesser quality. But the few who could afford the best did have some very good blades.
Scandinavian sword makers from a thousand hears ago were twisting and braiding rods together for their swords. Pattern welding makes sense – that’s why many cultures adopted the practice – hammering out the rods helps to align the molecules and drive out impurities in the rods and twisting them together gives you an elongated shape closer to the end product. I have forged a sword blade and being able to start with homogenous steel in a shape (round bar) close to what I wanted to end with was a huge advantage.
I have not said anything to compare Japanese blades to blades from any other time or place – I have only explained what I know about what makes them exceptional.
What makes them exceptional is the fact that they turned the slag from the ritual foundry into something that cuts. I’m still viscerally appalled at the poor metallurgy used in producing tamahagane.
Well, the title is what makes them superior; maybe we’re using slightly different definitions of that word, but I took it to mean better in comparison to something similar.
I heard a Japanese sword could a building in half, although that may be a myth
Well, when you recall that japanese have been known to make walls out of rice paper…
That’s why the Gajin Smash maneuver is still a powerful move.
But that’s not all. Japanese sword makers had a unique process for quenching blades which was the same for all Japanese swords – a sword not quenched in the blood of a virgin has no value
Thank Vlad Tepes.
Where do you get this blood from??
Why do you think swords have become rare?
OT: How is he wrong?
if you have to make 12 rules maybe you have the wrong girlfriend? If she gonna cheat, them rules ain’t gonna stop that? A guy named Crusty Juggler seems to agree with him? many things indicate wrongness
I like #11, give me a heads up so I can get this other bitch out of here before you call.
Don’t dance like a slag? I don’t think that’s it.
What Makes Them Superior – but seriously now, superior to what?
I mean I like the article, but it does not seem to cover this .
also feudal era in Japan covers quite some time, so when are we talking?
Superior to the swords they replaced in Japan.
here.
The interesting thing is that everyone thinks things were better in the old days. Edo period samurai swore that Kamakura swords were better.
Trump delays some tariffs on Chinese imports
Thanks, President Trump!
I remember reading about the Battle of Siapan in the last scenes of Leon Uris’ Battle Cry. That Japanese final bayonet / sword banzai charge was the largest of the war – sheer madness that overran some Army and Marine units before they were slaughtered to a man. I bet there were many trophies collected that day.
Fun fact: I once pawned a Hattori Hanzo sword for $250. Someone was buying drinks that night.
and then you shot a blonde in the tits and Q came after you
We’re gonna have to be more specific about the quality of the tits here.
https://media.celebmasta.com/2017/02/for-a-samurai-uma-thurman-has-some-remarkable-nudes-13-1200×1092.jpg
I would say NSFW but it is 8 PM, work it over, it is wine o’clock. Or scotch o’clock to be more precise
Error 1011
What Is the Greatest Movie Quote of All Time?
Not one Jack Burton quote to be found. Sad.
They also missed “Good, Bad, I’m the guy with the gun.”
A big miss.
So weak. The Outlaw Josie Wales alone provides two contenders not listed:
Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.
Doing right ain’t got no end.
Unforgiven probably has more than two, but I’ll go with:
Killing a man’s a helluva thing. You take away all he’s got….and all he’s ever gonna have.
Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.
Better OJW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWtUL5Rx364
‘Dying Aint’ Much of A Livin’, Boy”
“My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!”
How the fuck do you skip that?!?
*looks at list*
Surely you can’t be serious.
Don’t call me Shirley.
Johnny, have you ever spent a night in a Turkish prison?
“We’re going to need a bigger boat”
So, did you misquote, or did the putz at the Atlantic?
I really haven’t watched the movie more than once (maybe). Shooting from the hip to agitate.
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“These are great days we’re living, bros. We are jolly green giants, walking the Earth with guns. These people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to the world, we’re gonna miss not having anyone around that’s worth shooting.”
There are many better than what’s in that list, including:
“Send him to Detroit!”
You missed an opportunity. Just change the order a little bit:
I’m partial to this one.
“The dead only know one thing: it is better to be alive”
Nice Beaver! Thank you, I just had it stuffed.
See a broad to get dat booty yak ’em…leg ‘er down an smack ’em yak ’em!
Cold got to be, know what I’m saying, man? Sheeeeeeeit
Golly!
“We are protected by the enormity of your stupidity, for a time.”
Sideways vaginas to pair with your sword.
http://archive.is/Uprlj
Secret Service officer accidentally shoots self inside Manhattan hotel room
The duty pistol for the Secret Service used to be the Sig 229 .357…ouchies. Also lolz.
Best and brightest.
inside his hotel room and unloading his gun when it accidentally discharged
That hasn’t happened to me since I was a teenager.
Jane: I’ve heard police work is dangerous.
Frank Drebin: It is. That’s why I carry a big gun.
Jane: Aren’t you afraid it might go off accidentally?
Frank Drebin: Well, I used to have that problem.
Jane: So what did you do?
Frank Drebin: Now I just think about baseball.
Nods….
The off-duty federal officer was inside his hotel room and unloading his gun when
it accidentally dischargedhe inexplicably put his finger inside the trigger guard and pulled the trigger, sources said.No, he must have dropped it and it just went off! That’s what I see in the movies.
Yup. Negligent Discharges are serious shit.
Sounds like this wasn’t an accident; negligence is a better word.
Maybe he was doing a backflip
Why was he unloading it? Barring some strange Secret Service policy, why unload it unless it needs cleaned, and unless it was previously discharged, it doesn’t need cleaned.
Perhaps there was someone else in the room, the presence of whom resulted in unnecessarily handling the weapon?
They should check the gun for sexual juices?
Had the officer ever been assigned to a Clinton?
No way man. The Clinton Suicide Assistance Team would never be so careless.
Negligently discharged, not accidentally.
Mexico is also building the wall in time for Christmas.
I heard Canada is bringing the poutine.
*waits at border*
I heard Canada is bringing the poutine.
Well, then it’ll be world-class poutine; dare I say, poutine even worthy of Trump’s piehole itself.
SHUT THE FUCK UP, LIBTARD!
Well said, sir.
Epstein’s Death Was On 4Chan Before Officials Announced It — And Authorities Had To Look Into It
They’re all in on it!
FBI filmed by drone while raiding Pedo Island (over a month late). TW: Infowars
Whaddayaknow. If you wait more than a month to search a suspect’s residence, evidence might turn up missing.
What a shitshow.
Let’s do a thought experiment: you, FBI agent Dean, has been assigned the task of planning and executing the raid on Epstein’s compound. There is likely some very damning evidence linking powerful people, including the Clintons, to child sex-trafficking. The lawyer of one of these powerful people shows up at your office and explains how very grateful he’d be to have an opportunity to go to the compound to look around before the raid happens. The lawyer also not-so-subtly intimates that not allowing him to do so might reflect unfavorably upon you in the eyes of said powerful people.
My guess is that you look the other way, especially now that Epstein has “committed suicide”.
The appropriate response is to slam the lawyer into the desk yelling “Stop Resisiting!”
Clearly Procedures were not followed.
*Agent Dean nods, makes non-committal sounds, and draws out some details of lawyer’s request before arresting lawyer for obstruction of justice.*
Because that’s textbook obstruction of justice.
It sure is. Seth Rich lying face down in the street with two holes in his head is also textbook murder but that didn’t stop them.
Alternatively, high level FBI officials may have had their own rides on the Lolita Express and perhaps were less-than-motivated to collect evidence.
A lot of this “incompetence” does seem to fall in line with the theory that Epstein was some sort of state sponsored agent (of the revered intelligence community).
It’s the FBI, shitshow guaranteed.
I would really love to continue discussing this topic but it’s after 2:00 AM and I have lots to do tomorrow. Thanks to you all for your attention and input.
Good article. Thank you for your service.
Oyasuminasai, Teji-san
This seems like a can’t-miss method of convincing people that you’re a serious, rational person whose opinions should be valued.
Good grief just go to a Charismatic Christian Revival and stop pretending.
Also:
“Hillary Clinton – the first female Democratic nominee – had been accused of participating in ritual sex magic”
Sugarfree to the white courtesy phone please.
Further: white women were and are the most privileged large-scale class of people to ever exist. I find it so precious when they wrap themselves in victimy victimness.
It’s almost like they want to lose women’s suffrage. Because if I wanted to convince people that it was a bad idea, I would just point to that article.
How could painting women as illogical, superstitious, hyperemotional lunatics backfire?
She certainly would have to use magic in order to get laid.
Now atheists can say what they want about religion, but Wouldn’t you rather the religious to follow a path that isn’t spiteful and is socially beneficial?
I guess the disappointing thing about all of this is that it is so fucking, so mind-boggling fucking stupid.
“bodies”
DRINK!
I’m in favor of using female bodies.
The backlash years of the early 21st century
Yeah, that outbreak of witchburning a few years ago was a little over the top.
But she turned me into a newt!!!
I got better!
Trump’s top immigration official reworks the words on the Statue of Liberty
This is sure to help.
Yeah. To be fair the heyday of immigration was also a time when no one could expect to go on the public dole. If the left wants to blame anyone they should blame their racist predecessors for wanting to create a white socialist Paradise.
Yes. A while back I got heavy into genealogy. Among the records I dug up were the Ellis Island records of the arrival of my great-great-grandfather and his two sons. They were held for a day after arrival for further examination. The reason was noted with the code LPC. LPC meant “Likely Public Charge” and indicated suspicion that the immigrant would not be able to support themselves. It was often for medical reasons.
In any case, they must have assuaged that fear rather easily as they were only held one day. No idea what prompted it.
Failure to offer a bribe, or one of sufficient size?
Could be!
I’m intrigued by SJW who quote something from the side of statue erected 100 years ago as if it had the force of law
same SJW who are otherwise busy unpersonning all other persons and ideas from 100 years ago
Yeah, you’d think calling immigrants “wretched refuse” would be a big no-no. So bias. Much bigot.
There was a time, when the US was the land of opportunity. You could take the riff-raff from other countries and turn them in to self-sufficient, productive members of society. According to SJWs, these were the bad times which must be purged from modern memory.
My grandfather’s father came to the US in a coffin ship from Ireland. He settled into a small house (shack by modern standards) on a piece of land in Iowa. I imagine he lived a much better life than all his living relatives left in Ireland.
Oops, got that wrong. Grandfather was born in Iowa in the 1890s. His father was born in Iowa in the 1850s. Grandfather’s grandfather was born in what is now Northern Ireland in the 1810s and came to the US a bit after the great famine.
My daughter’s best friend’s family moved here from Britain in 1985 and our rural area was a paradise compared to the shithole they lived in near Manchester. I asked her dad if he would have stayed there after spending 30+ years here and he said fuck no.
My grandfather grew up in a cold-water flat in Manhattan, five people in two rooms. They shared a communal toilet with the rest of their floor and took baths in a small metal tub with water that had been heated in pots on the stove. His father was a cook and, later, a custodian at the Plaza Hotel. With the miracle of the internet, I’ve seen many pictures of their home village in Italy……and it’s stunningly beautiful, today functioning as a picturesque weekend getaway for city folk from places like Genoa and Milan. It’s made me ponder just how poor they must have been there for early 20th century NYC tenement life to look good in comparison.
Well, start by moving that communal toilet to a pit outside, remove the indoor water source and shift that to a well dangerously close to said pit, and remove all job opportunities.
No, work was plentiful but you didn’t own your labor.
America, Land of the Mooches and Home of the Victims
Pearls, clutched:
The more Trump strips the patina of royalty from the office, the better we all are.
The problem is that the patina will return when he leaves office. It will be associated only with him, not the office itself.
The degradation of small-r republican values in this country is one of the most depressing trends of the last century or so.
Speaking truth to power, you are.
I’ll agree as soon as G isn’t 1/3 of GDP and the 4A and 9A are restored
So just call it Domestic product?
I love how “Trump divides the country”. It ain’t Trump calling half the country deplorables, racists, white supremacists and Nazis. It wasn’t Trump supporters who rioted at Trump’s inauguration.
Progjection: It’s what leftists do!
mindless partisans who cry out, “Give it to ’em again!”
But enough about Obamabots.
OK so…
Yes there was a training film showing a sword cutting a machine gun barrel. The barrel not metal, the film was propaganda,
Steel does not have molecules.
Tamahagane –“jewel steel” used to make swords is what we would call “simple” steel. The Japanese, being utter racists, refer to it as “pure.” Alloyed steel was referred to as gaijintetsu “barbarian iron.” The sword I use for tameshigiri is not a nihonto or a katana, because it is made from L6; it is a gaijintetsuto.
I will get some pics of it and pics of myself cutting. I am actually quite proud of one that has me and my arms motionless, my hands blurry, and the blade invisible.
Steel does not have molecules.
Um, wut?
as compared more discrete individual structures. where you can theoretically separate out one molocule of X.
It still has molecules.
It literally says the opposite of that.
No, it doesn’t.
Then what definition of Molecule are you going by?
Indeed. There are domains in alloys (which are HUGE compared to a molecule containing a metal atom), but metals in general don’t have molecules in the sense of discrete structures with molecular orbitals or valence bonds- you can think of metals as an array of nuclei with inner shell electrons, then the outer electrons all floating around within the array, not really associated with any particular atom. Interestingly, you can model the electrons as something analogous to a gas having discrete particles.
I did not know that, thank you.
Hence why they conduct so well, and why they are ductile and malleable.
Sheesh UCS, it’s like you never saw Terminator 2.
Conduction is very much tied to the electron mobility. In the case of molecules, there are discrete energy levels. With metals, the array is so large that the levels sort of run together to form an energy band that is essentially continuous.
In reality, there a series of bands, and if there are bands that are only partially filled with electrons, you get conductivity. With semiconductors like silicon, there’s usually a filled band, an energy gap, then an empty band. The gap is what allows things like the photoconductivity- a photon with enough energy pushes a filled band electron up into the empty band. So in that sense, it’s completely mobile, like a gas molecule all alone in an empty container. Likewise, the hole created in the filled band is also mobile. It’s weird and fun stuff.
Hole mobility was a difficult concept for me at first. Probably didn’t help that my professor was Russian.
Hole mobility was a difficult concept for me at first.
Aim better.
About time somebody went for that low hanging fruit. I tee it up and wait… and wait….
Sorry, I was on a call.
I’m not saying a word.
*kick’s pebble….or not*
No, it doesn’t. Metals don’t have molecules, they have extended arrangements of atoms. Steel in particular is an extended structure mostly alpha or gamma iron that is deformed by inclusions into the matrix. These inclusions can also act electrically/chemically (as with chrome or nickel) or they can be independent physical units that are just suspended (such as discrete cluster of iron carbide (which is a molecule))
He’s thinking of a light-saber.
my arms motionless, my hands blurry, and the blade invisible
lag is easy to do but hard to teach
bwahahahaha….people are going to call him Fredo for the rest of his life.
What a dingleberry.
He’s such a tool.
are you a woman or are you a Texan ?!?
COLLEYVILLE, Texas — Once predominantly pasture, the town boasts well-manicured subdivisions of big houses sitting on even bigger lots. The median income is $165,000. . . .Vanessa Steinkamp is the kind of voter that Texas Republicans counted on. She’s a devoted conservative who volunteered for Bob Dole’s presidential campaign, interned for former GOP Sen. Bill Frist and lives in an affluent suburb between Fort Worth and Dallas that is the reddest pocket of a reliably Republican district. These days, though, Steinkamp feels alienated, not energized, by her party. The thought of voting in 2020 brings on a weary sigh. . . .
(Representative) Marchant, who won his first congressional race in 2004 by more than 30 percentage points, eked out a 3-point win last year.
“Now, will I vote for a Democrat over Trump?” Steinkamp said. She thought of the leading progressives seeking the Democratic nomination: Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. “I do not agree with almost anything Warren says, what Sanders says. So it’s hard.”
The base has nowhere to turn, but who’s the base and who’s swing these days?
Now I’ll scour the ghetto until I find the one black guy who says that he’s having second thoughts about voting Democrat, then write an article about how the Dems’ dominance among blacks is disappearing.
Steinkamp, a government teacher at Tarrant Community College,…
Yeah, I’m sure that’s a totally representative sample of suburban, Republican, women in Texas.
^^^THIS^^^
Fake republican for sure.
“devoted conservative….Bob Dole”
Ummmm, something is off here.
that’s just Texas babbling: you get used to in a decade or two
Amazing how much You People know.
Thanks for obliterating another bit of ignorance for me, Tejicano!
What do you mean, you people?
Aw yeah!
The NFL continues to wokeify
Another product I wasn’t using. Lucky for me, I haven’t had to boycott anything I care about.
I still watch Giants games, but the owners and Goodell have fiddled with the game to the point that I generally don’t pay much attention to the rest of the league anymore because the on-field product generally sucks.
I’ve never watched the halftime show, with the exception of Prince, so I don’t actually care about this. Just had to snicker at the phrase “social justice partnership”.
Who?
Beyonce’s husband.
Dude that knows a good grift when he sees one.
Can’t blame him.
“We don’t want people to come in and necessarily agree with us; we want people to come in and tell us what we can do better,” Goodell said.
Less political/woke bs and more football.
Letting DBs play fucking defense, not calling a shitload of phantom roughing the passer penalties, not continuing to fuck with the definition of a catch to the point that no one knows what the damned rule even is anymore. Those things would be a start.
If “what we can do better” referred to the game and the product on the field, I would agree with him.
But since “what we can do better” seems to refer to virtue signalling, my contempt for Goodell remains unaffected.
Careful there, Jay-Z. Down that road lies quotas, and I don’t think you want quotas applied to the NFL or its going to start looking whiter.
Are they going to let guys who played some JuCo football start playing in the league? Any smuck who wanders in off the street and says “I got next.”? Gonna let some third rate fantasy football manager become your scouting department manager?
My great uncle came back from the pacific with two fantastic katanas. He ‘liberated’ them.
I didn’t get the swords…at least not yet…but his brother gave me two liberated mausers and his trench knife from the European theater.
He was lucky to get the mausers out. My father worked in the G.I. central post office in England and they confiscated every rifle that the GIs tried to send home in packages.
Threw them in an empty swimming pool, which was already filled to the top with confiscated firearms when he was redeployed to France. They even caught a soldier sending home a Nazi motorcycle, piece by piece.
I’m going to drop this here…Curt Schilling considers congressional bid.
LOL, Massachusetts always brings their best and brightest.
Rhode Island winces.
funding riccochets ?
NOOooooo… more UFO research! Damn aliens are ruining it for everybody.
Andy Dick Sucker Punch
these things write themselves
Andy Dick is as if the first opponent in Punch-Out came to life as a real person.
Glass Andy?
When millennials need the punch line explained
The hero worship is gross.
Um…how about avoiding any Palestinians/Jordanians for the next little while, Mr. Mayor.
I guess she was lucky, at least, on two counts:
(1) RFK wasn’t around all that long in 1968.
(2) She’s a woman who had contact with the Kennedys and survived.
(2) TedS-approved
It’s as if I live rent-free in everybody’s heads around here.
can you even imagine the debauchery without your vigilance ?
* shudders *
And more importantly, it would evenly distribute the inclusions through the whole billet, thus making the weakest link less weak. The manufacturing process for the steel was very, very primitive and it produced huge inclusions compared to contemporary steel in Eurasia. As such, the Japanese swordsmiths had to compensate with techniques that were comparably time intensive and skill intensive. Fortunately for them, they were Japanese and had a culture that already cultivated patience and mastery of technique.
And being entirely closed off to foreign imports they had a monopoly market.
I have never read anything about smuggling into Japan during that period, but I assume it was a thing, no?
Undoubtedly. However, remember that merchants were the lowest of the “legitimate” social classes, and the penalty for pretty much anything was death. Plus weapons being restricted to a minority of the population (again, penalized by death) there probably wasn’t a terribly large amount of weapons smuggling.
less tendency to break or crack
yes and no: it thereafter takes more ultimate tension and shear, but it is less likely to bend as well
I leave it to others whether you would rather be left wielding a shattered sword or a bent one
Can I have the rifle instead?
obligatory
You can also get delamination along the welds.
Concerning my sword, I’ll take none of the above.
I’ll pick “unlikely to shatter” over “likely to bend”.
that’s rational if “unlikely” is knowable and true
but sword maker is working as hard as he can to make the sword both light and brittle, the ingredients of “shatter”
I don’t actually know anything about these particular loads and dimensions; I just know steel
sword maker is working as hard as he can to make the sword both light and brittle
Pretty sure that’s not true for any sword. Some swords, depending on use, you don’t even want to be light. Such as, for example, samurai swords – their primary use is slicing or slashing, likely an opponent wearing some protective clothing if not armor. A featherweight sword is less effective at that, but of course you have to balance the weight of the sword against its handling – too heavy is too slow/hard to handle.
A swordmaker will forge and temper his steel specifically to avoid being brittle; I think that is probably the cardinal sin of swordmaking, and other attributes (lightness, flexibility, etc.) will be sacrificed because, as you note, nothing is worse than a broken sword.
Weapons of all kinds are exercises in balance and compromise. I’d love a handgun that could deliver .50 BMG damage downrange, but one that actually fired .50 BMG rounds would be useless.
we agree on the governing issues here, of course: the physics don’t pick sides
I just used frothy and careless language to characterize the challenge; no one understands better than me the unending challenge of trade-offs in design
but I’m not really wrong: all I meant was that in the techniques being discussed, the design absolutely is on the brittle end of the brittle-ductile continuum; that might be less true for the light-heavy continuum, but, in fairness to me, there have been some really heavy swords made
again again: I don’t know the loads in these cases; my comments are more ceteris paribus
Not really, outside of bearing swords. I don’t have any swords in my collection that weigh as much as by CZ Shadow 2. Now the CZ has a much shorter lever arm when in use, so it seems lighter but on the scale the numbers won’t lie.
I’m not a sword guy . . . this field isn’t my game at all; again again again: I don’t know the loads in these cases; my comments are more ceteris paribus
but, re light-heavy continuum: I thought they were talking about the katana, which is a daintly little thing, maybe one third the weight of the claymores my people took into battle
I’m pretty sure Don meant “hard,” which with simple steels comes along with “brittle” as a side effect.
yes: harder = more brittle
steel is my idea of funny: Sometimes I think it’s a sin When I feel like I’m winnin’ when I’m losin’ again
steel is ironic in many ways
But remember that blade includes a less brittle layer. It’s possible for the brittle edge to crack but still be usable. Plus the technique employed, the draw cut, reduces impulse.
less brittle layer
absolutely
again, I don’t know the loads; just a ceteris paribus observation
Where are the lynx?
*punches hole in drywall*
You have un-holed drywall?
I patch it on the weekends, so I have something to punch during the week.
Bitch, and ye shall receive.
So Argentina’s 100 year bond didn’t work out. Imagine that.
Should have used better glue.
I just want to know who bought that crap.
Probably the US taxpayers.
did the consider using them to back Japanese mortgages ?
This is a cool article, thanks!
Great article! European swords are superior in my opinion. Still the whole mythos of the the Samurai is awesome.