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Recreating The Lost Art Of Damascus Steel
YouAreFatMan writes "The Chicago Tribune has an article about two researchers -- a metallurgist and a blacksmith -- who have apparently been able to reproduce the legendary Damascus steel. 'Islamic artisans used it for centuries to make swords that spurred envy and myths among Europeans--including the legend that a Damascus blade could slice a falling silk scarf in midair.'"
Remember: Steel wants to be free!
Please...
Don't anthropomorphize steel. It hates that.
Bullshit. Use a line like that in a bar and I'll kick your ass if he dosen't.
The original artisans did not leave complete instructions for making their steel, and the few written formulas are less than helpful. Some advise quenching the red-hot blade in the urine of a red-haired boy or of a goat fed nothing but ferns. Another text suggests driving the sword into the belly of a muscular slave.
Ironically, scientists also believe this is how the first versions of Windows were created.
bla
I'm glad that someone's finally paying attention to the hinge-smiths of the ancient world. It's been a long-neglected field that deserves our respect and our attention.
People the world over that use swinging doors in their homes and in their cars seldom consider the technological leap represented by hinges. Before hinges, doors had to be broken or removed every time a person walked that way - a time-intensive and laborious process. With the advent of the stone hinge, our ancestors saved themselves and their descendents millions of hours of hard work.
The next time you open a door, think of the innovative hinge-smith that made it possible. And the next time you refer to a historical monument, remember to spell its name correctly.
Hey, yeah, thanks for nothin! ;-)
Just raise the taxes on crack.
The muslims had preserved much of the Greek and Roman knowldege that had been lost in Europe ... For example, the concept of 0 comes to the West through them.
Actually, it's well known that Romans didn't have the concept of Zero.
In fact, a large number of CS professors believe that's what caused the fall of the Roman empire; Lacking the number 0, their C programs had no way to signal successful termination.
OK, lets invent our own process of making Damascus Steel, and make a bunch of swords (our slogan? We put the SLASH in /.)
Then, all of us armed with the swords will first go get Dimitry freed, then proceed to the whitehouse to make some demands.
Remember Congressmen (and the pres for that matter) wear SILK ties.
$sig=$1 if($brain =~
Sure, they kicked ass and took names in the beginning, but after a while they just settled down and put their feet up.
That's where they got their name.
[runs from the hail of rotten fruit, broken bricks, and lobbed scimitars]
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
One of the features of the myth surrounding Damascus swords was that they were quenched by plunging the sword hot from the forge into the body of a slave. I wonder if Microsoft has enough middle managers to keep a good modern production line going for a while?
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
And have Sephiroth steal it and kill Aeris? Are you insane??
This works for computers too!
air and light and time and space
/me turns on Home Shopping Network in search of the new Damascus Steal Ginsu Knife:
"It slices, it dices, it cuts through silk cans!!! It'll cut your fingers off cleaner than ever!!!"
There was an article about this in Scientific American, but I can't find the link. Do yourself a favor and find it, without pictures, articles discussing the technique are useless. (eg, look at the shiny pretty sword)
[o]_O
Why not? Hell, I'd pay a ton of money for one of them. And I know just the client to test it out on too.
Now I have a new ferrous option to coat my depleted uranium slugs with for my rail gun...
This is the sort of cutting edge technology that belongs on Slashdot!
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
"Sometimes I'd have to tell him, `I don't care if you've got a PhD, you don't understand what the hell's going on here,'" Pendray said.
Someone get this man a slashdot account.
I have to agree with this statement. The Rennaissance grew out of the pressures of climactic change, social change and so on. It was affected heavily by the development of the art of printing, and all that. Lots of men sat up late at night and argued, and thought, and wrote. It is at this point in the process that the greatest impact of contact with the Islamic world can be seen.
One catalytic ingredient was imported from the East by returning crusaders, which fuelled the finest minds of the next 4 centuries through their long and arduous sessions of philosophy and theorising. Coffee! Where would the Reannaissance thinkers have been without their caffeine habit? Asleep in bed! What good was that to world progress?
Thus proving that geeks are in fact the direct descendents in spirit of Gallilleo, Newton and so on.
(fx: removes tongue from cheek)
~cHrisI mean I can't count the number of times I've been in battle and needed to slice through falling silk in mid air... geesh, I wish I had one of those
~ now you know
"Although Verhoeven and Pendray have patented their technique and received some funding from Nucor Steel Inc."
Steel wants to be FREE, people, and Nucor wants to keep this technology to themselves to help further their globalized corporate profitmaking.
This is an outrage to the Open Source community, and I am hereby calling upon all Linux geeks to band together and produce their own Open-Source version of Damascus Steel. It's high time we show these people we are not going to tolerate their greedy ballyhooing at the expense of poor Dimitry and sweatshop workers in Malaysia. Write your congressman today and request, nay, DEMAND that the DMCA and CSS and DVDA be repealed so we can steal MP3's again.
Remember: Steel wants to be free!!
Free Dimitry!!
"Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or dead." -Kurt Cobain
Those camping bastards. Grrr.
Woot w00t w007.
Which, oddly enough, is probably the most succinct description of the DMCA that I've ever seen...
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
But, of course, everyone here knows that already because no self-respecting geek wouldn't already be a subscriber.
A social misfit walks into his local pub with a big grin on his face.
"What are you so happy about?" asks the barman.
"Well I'll tell you," replies the ugly bloke. "You know I live by the railway, well on my way home last night I noticed a young woman tied to the tracks, like in the movies. I, of course, went and cut her free and took her back to my place. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I scored big time! We screwed all night, all over the house. We did everything, me on top sometimes, her on top!"
"Fantastic," exclaimed the barman. "You lucky sod. Was she pretty?"
"I dunno, I never found her head."
Sorry, but I was subjected to a number of info-mercials this weekend and this copy reads just like it...
It slices, it dices, it purees european knights at the flick of a wrist! How much would you pack for this? But wait! Act now and we'll throw in this handsome silk scarf! All for only 6 easy monthly payments of $19.95 Have your credit card handy and call 1-888-555-1234! Don't wait another minute! Buyers who contact us within the next 10 minutes will also receive this book: Greek Fire Made E-Z
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I forget the details exactly but the import ant thing is that this monument has been standing for hundreds of year, and it has NOT RUSTED a bit! -- this is in India's tropical climate! Corrosion problems cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars each year and I know of more than one civil engineer who would kill to find the secrets of those ancient blacksmiths.
:)
But paint manufactures might want them kept secret
...can you hear it? That's the sound of a few thousand rabid Highlander fanatics drooling over their own piece-together Damascus-steel Kurgan sword.
Or, for the ladies, a Damascus-steel Xena death-frisbee.
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals