Ancient Swords Made of Carbon Nanotubes

brian0918 writes "Nature reports that researchers at Dresden University believe that sabres from Damascus dating back to 900 AD were formed with help from carbon nanotubes. From the article: 'Sabres from Damascus are made from a type of steel called wootz. But the secret of the swords' manufacture was lost in the eighteenth century.' At high temperatures, impurities in the metal 'could have catalyzed the growth of nanotubes from carbon in the burning wood and leaves used to make the wootz, Paufler suggests. These tubes could then have filled with cementite to produce the wires in the patterned blades, he says.'"

Comments

Katana comparison

[Ekhymosis]

Since the secret of manufacturing was lost in the 18th century, it would make sense that they were still made during 1500-1600. How would their properties in manufacturing compare to the folding method of the Japanese katana? Would the nanotubes be present in the katana as well, or was this unique to Damascus?

Re:Katana comparison

[bladesjester]

From the photo, it does indeed look like the metal in the blade has been folded (damasced). That may or may not be the answer he's looking for. I can say that, from the up close shot, the patterning is pretty.

My master would be a better judge than I am. He's also a swordsman. One of us is better at blacksmithing (He did it professionally for quite some time and used to teach at a school) and the other is generally a better swordsman (though he'd say that was him, we both know better).

I started learning to work steel because I wanted to make my own weapons (I've trained martially since I was about 6 and got my first sword at 10). Unfortunately, things happened which caused me to stop that pursuit for the moment.

While I was there, I got to use a type of forge setup which is basically only found in a few places in the world and got to meet a lot of interesting people including a master gunsmith whose work is in the Smithsonian. It was a real trip.

Re:Wootz?

[Feyr]

it might not be "wrong" to say it was lost, but it's not entirely right either. i remember a few years ago some engineer had replicated the process and was trying to streamline it for commercial production (it required something like 10 highly involved and time consuming steps).

wish i could find that article now

Stephenson

[radarsat1]

Neal Stephenson mentions this in the Baroque Cycle. He talks about how the little eggs of steel were forged in India and hammered out to make watered steel, then sold to the asian market. I assume he is talking about the same thing? I believe he even used the word "wootz", but I can't recall.

Wasn't the riddle of steel solved?

[the Gray Mouser]

By these guys?

Or has their worked been made suspect or not confirmed?

Cutting a sword

[jamie]

Maybe it's time for MythBusters to RE-revisit cutting a sword with a sword...

Hard to believe

[newt0311]

I find it hard to believe that a normal furnace is hot enough to produce carbon nanotubes. Currently CNTs have to be manufactured using plasma torches. in a normal furnace, there will be too many defects in the CNTs for them to be of any use.

Re:informative

[TubeSteak]

simple - the slashdot mod system is broken, funny posts get no positive karma.

That's not a bug, it's a feature.

As the Slashdot Faq says: Note that being moderated Funny doesn't help your karma. You have to be smart, not just a smart-ass.

Thus, kind moderators will often mod a funny post as informative or insightful, so that the poster gets the karma.

If you want to give someone Karma and the post doesn't fit into the Insightful or Interesting category, use +1 Underrated.

Re:Scientific American Version 1.0

[Reziac]

I'm reminded of a documentary film on steelmaking, made ca. 1970. One of the points covered was that the human eye was more capable of determining temperature of the molten steel than were any then-available instruments. I vaguely recall that the human eye had proved accurate to within 3 or 4 degrees.

No doubt any competent blacksmith learned to be equally accurate.

Re:wootz?

[FirienFirien]

What, like... Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo?

Re:interesting...

[Saint Fnordius]

Trade secrets back then were also military secrets: better steel meant a more effective army. Guilds were careful not to let the secrets fall into the "wrong hands". Even things like the secret of making superior glass and mirrors was highly guarded, as the health of the city depended on it. Venice was famous for its especially draconic punishments it inflicted upon glass masters that were suspected of tradig off its secrets.

This is one of the two schools of information, the "you're not cleared for that" thought that information was a powerful weapon. The other is the "spread the word" thought that information must be shared so that the community could benefit and that the information couldn't be lost. Sometimes it's better to play with your cards close to your chest, and other times it's better to play with open cards so that everybody can profit.

One of the purposes of patents was to counter the need for trade secrets, to ensure compensation for the inventor so that he would reveal his invention to the general public. The spirit was that anybody could build make the invention as long as they paid the inventor a fee.

Copyright is another animal entirely. If copyright had said that anybody could copy if they compensated the author/artist, and not had such long lock-in times, I think we wouldn't be having these battles with music and film comglomerates.

To further muddy the waters about Damascus steel..

[LoyalOpposition]

I think Verhoeven got it right. Read all about it at http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeve n-9809.html.