17th century Damascus sabres contained carbon nanotubes | Hacker News Reader

17th century Damascus sabres contained carbon nanotubes

rsc.org

Interesting but not added to the article is that the rise and fall of the users of those swords, correlates in some ways with the rise and fall of the supply of the material used to make the swords. That is, when the supply dried up, they lost their power because the swords represented a technological advantage.

Or because of firearms proliferation. It was the 18th century, after all.

Firearms can't be overwhelming combat weapons until U.S. civil war. That's why the expansion of United States to Indian nations were faster than expansions of all previous civilizations before U.S. Civil war. Rifles after mid 19th century reduced the chances of closes combat between gunners and sword swingers and archers.

Yeah, conquistadores such as Fernando Cortez didn't have any sort of overwhelming combat advantage against the Aztecs...

You are right. But I think the small pox brought by him helped a lot?

That and the Indians gave his conquests a mythological spin, giving him a psychological advantage.

The people of the Americas had a distinctly different ritual of warfare. Much of the advantage had to do (at least in the beginning) with the natives "honorably" waiting for their opponents to be ready, which for the Europeans involved setting up their cannons just right.

It was one big culture-shock clusterf@$#.

> Firearms can't be overwhelming combat weapons until U.S. civil war

Right, Napoleonic wars were fought with bows and spears :/

well, a small group of rifle men with winchester rifles can overwhelm a group of swordsmen or archers of 10 times of size. But I don't think the same group of rifle men with muskets would have overwhelming advantage.

At the other hand, Napolenic wars are fought between groups of similar size. Of course Napoleon was very good at defeating enemies with larger army. By concentrating on weak point of enemy one at the moment, Napoleon exerted overwhelming power to defeat his enemy piece by piece.

I did not express my idea well. I don't think the answer to question "why Damascus sword discontinued at 18th" is "widespread and improvement of European gunsmith". Guns in 18th century Europe were still like the replacement of bows and arrows. Most of guns in 18th century are muskets. They are lighter than crossbows and can penetrate armors. Muskets suffered from wet weather and bad black powders. Musket lacks of precision and relies on rotation firing squads in platoon to provide constant firepower. Most battles were still decided by outcome of close combat. And in close combat, a sword like Damascus sword really overwhelmed its opponents.

This strikes me as somewhat misinformed. Try reading Michael Neiburg's "Warfare in World History." It's a great ~100 page summary of the history of warfare. Firearms are a very important component.

Not all battles were decided by close combat... not by a long shot. Musketmen were an integral part of combat, though pikemen and cavalry were as well. Then again, artillery, too, played a big role in European warfare.

On the other hand, as Kenneth Chase's "Firearms: A Global History to 1700" will point out, the use of firearms in a given region depended on a variety of factors, ranging from terrain to materials available, but mostly depending on what style of warfare was prevalent (nomadic vs. agrarianate) and what style a given state's neighbors chose.

An excellent counterpoint to the melee-centric theory of battle prior to the 1850s is the "wagon laager," used by several nations, but most effectively used by the Ottomans. Chase begins describing the Ottoman wagon laager on p86. It relied on firearms (muskets and cannons, not rifles) and was used to great effect as early as the 1400s. The janissary infantry relied on firearms so much that they were not equipped with pikes; the Ottoman army used a combination of this wagon laager and cavalry to fight their battles... melee infantry simply weren't used.

In summary, firearms were overwhelming combat weapons well before the introduction of breach-loading rifles.

And so does a burning candle. Carbon nanotubes(CNTs) can be formed from just about any reaction involving an excess of carbon. It is the amount and purity involved that is interesting. If you look hard enough you'll find them everywhere.

I would like to know what volume fraction of CNTs and cementite (Fe3C) nanowires were present. If it was a significant fraction they could have contributed to the swords properties by the rule of mixtures.

Yet another Indian invention, ascribed to the middle east through medieval ignorance. The wootz steel is the key.

See: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/647868/wootz-steel

Damascus steel blades were forged out of small pure cakes of steel containing around 1.6-1.7 per cent carbon, called wootz. Produced in India, wootz cakes were shipped to Damascus where expert sword smiths fashioned them into blades.

And it's from 2006...

Neal Stephenson has a fun depiction of wootz manufacture in The Baroque Cycle. I can't evaluate its accuracy, but it's certainly a fun scene!

He had a dedicated researcher on the Baroque Cycle books.

Fantastic essay by Manuel Delanda on the importance of materiality:

http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/matterdl.htm

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