











Comments     Threshold


RE: As an aside...
By lexluthermiester on 2/24/2008 4:56:29 AM , Rating: 2
Excellent point about the patent system. The copyright system needs to be reshaped to work in a similar way.

Still I think Damascus steel is a myth. Even if you make such metal, and manage to shape it into a sword, once it cools, how would you sharpen it? Back then[as today] stone was used to sharpen swords and cutting tools. If a Damascus sword could cut through a rock wrapped in silk without loosing it's razor sharp edge, how could stone be used to sharpen the very same weapon in the first place? Today we might have a way, but not back then... Simple physics, reason and logic are all thats needed to conclude that Damascus steel is most likely a total myth...

RE: As an aside...
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 2/24/2008 11:09:05 AM , Rating: 2
Well, Damascus steel swords are still around. The Japanese had a very similar technique (watered steel) and that has been preserved throughout the ages.

Check out the forging process. It's totally incredible and explains how the ancients ended up with such sharp edges, even though they didn't know they were building nanostructures.

RE: As an aside...
By masher2 (blog) on 2/24/2008 12:26:08 PM , Rating: 2
Wikipedia entry aside, the criteria I remember for a Damascus blade had nothing to do with cutting rock. A true Damascus blade had to pass three tests:

a. Be sharpened fine enough to cut a silk scarf floating in air.
b. Be tough enough to carve the metal of lesser blades
c. Be able to be bent 180 degrees (tip-to-hilt) without breaking or deforming.

RE: As an aside...
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 2/25/2008 11:58:04 AM , Rating: 2
The reference is from Al Kindi's "Metaphysics"

It's a fantastic but difficult read about astronomy, religion, politics, science, technology and mathematics; authored in 800 AD. He was a true Renaissance man hundreds of years before his European counterparts.

