Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglass. Julie,
Speaker 1: I know I'm kind of beating a dead horse here,
Speaker 1: but but I just I always feel like violence on
Speaker 1: our public transportation systems would be a lot more tolerable
Speaker 1: if these guys were fighting with swords. So if you
Speaker 1: think that if we all had scabbard on, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not arguing for everyone to have a sword necessarily. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying sword toting populace is a is a safe populist,
Speaker 1: or anything to that extent. I'm just saying that, like
Speaker 1: some dude shoots another dude at the train station, it's
Speaker 1: it's this huge panic thing. But if two dudes are
Speaker 1: sword fighting, I mean, you're gonna kind of take note,
Speaker 1: You're gonna watch, You're gonna hopefully back up. But what
Speaker 1: you're saying, there's something stylish, there's something classy, there's something
Speaker 1: exhilarating about the about a good sword fight. Did you
Speaker 1: make it sound like we live in Paris and someone
Speaker 1: is going on, God, that's what I'm saying. It would
Speaker 1: be I mean that's how I imagine, you know, how
Speaker 1: it goes in Paris. It's just random duels breaking out
Speaker 1: on the subways, some of refresh listeners. If you're out there,
Speaker 1: just if you could confirm, that would be great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know, Europe is just lousy with immortals trying
Speaker 1: to cut each other's heads off from watching the TV.
Speaker 1: But and and of course having watched the TV, having
Speaker 1: watched movies, occasionally we do get to see a great
Speaker 1: sword fight. And there is, for my money, nothing better.
Speaker 1: Did you have any mind? Is there is there sword
Speaker 1: fight that sticks out to you? What? I have a couple, Um,
Speaker 1: The first one is Princess Pride does have some good Yeah,
Speaker 1: Nigo Montoya, he's just the whole thing, like, uh, he know,
Speaker 1: my name is Nigo Montoya. You killed my father to die? Yes?
Speaker 1: And then they actually have a great fight. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's some really good swordmanship. And he fights he can
Speaker 1: fight both, but they both actually uh Wesley and and
Speaker 1: you go both well it's kind of trickery right because
Speaker 1: it was edited, but they use the right and left
Speaker 1: hand so it looks really fancy. And then my all
Speaker 1: time favorite though is Killed Bill Volume one, the last
Speaker 1: fight scene in which I believe it is or n
Speaker 1: Ishi played by uh Lucy Lou fights the bride Uma Thurman,
Speaker 1: and it is I mean, I love the scene. It's
Speaker 1: a gorgeous scene. I mean, she's just Uma Thurman's character
Speaker 1: has just slaughtered the crazy eighty eight, this gang. She's
Speaker 1: blood splattered. She goes out into this courtyard in Tokyo
Speaker 1: where she meets her her enemy or In, and the
Speaker 1: snow is falling, and it's just beautiful because the scene
Speaker 1: is it's stark, and it's full of honor and um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's some exchanges that are really great. And
Speaker 1: then of course Lucy Lu's character gets completely decapitated. Well
Speaker 1: I'm not completely take that back her the top of
Speaker 1: her head gets decapitated. Yeah. Well it's it's like decapitation
Speaker 1: is such a hallmark of of sword fights on cinema.
Speaker 1: It's like, after a while they realized and we can't
Speaker 1: just go for the it up neck cut. We need
Speaker 1: to go for something a little more inventive. So you
Speaker 1: see the top of the head like the brain cut. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is really disconcerting, I think, you know, but it
Speaker 1: allows her to say this line, which I love. She
Speaker 1: says that really was a ha Tori Hanzo sword, which
Speaker 1: to me, that's what that scene is about, right, the
Speaker 1: power of this sword. Yeah. Well, um, that also brings
Speaker 1: to mind this was not one of my favorite sword
Speaker 1: fight films. But um, there's that the film Equilibrium years back.
Speaker 1: It was kind of a matrix seeing had Christian Bale
Speaker 1: in it, Sean Bean and it's it's not the best film,
Speaker 1: but the action, some of the action was pretty slick.
Speaker 1: Uh and spoiler alert, but Tay Diggs gets his face
Speaker 1: cut off, like not like people, but like that straight up,
Speaker 1: we can't actually cut anybody's head off because it's not
Speaker 1: exciting enough for modern cinema. So just like the front
Speaker 1: of his head is cut off. But but if I
Speaker 1: were to choose thinking about okay, I'm sure you can
Speaker 1: find it on YouTube, it's like he could have been
Speaker 1: in the Body's exhibit then, because there's like a slice
Speaker 1: of his face. Yes exactly. It's kind of like like
Speaker 1: the dudes who choreographed these and planned this out, they
Speaker 1: were like the bodies exhibited their favorite place. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: but but in terms of like just great sword fights,
Speaker 1: my my two favorites are probably the the in fight
Speaker 1: scene between Macbeth and McDuff and Roman Polanski's adaptation, because
Speaker 1: like that one, because it's just such a brutal, drag
Speaker 1: out fight, Like there's nothing like fancy and swashbuckley about it.
Speaker 1: It's it's uh, it's just two dudes going at it
Speaker 1: with this this air of on one side vengeance and
Speaker 1: then the other side, uh, just you know, backed against
Speaker 1: the wall with nothing to lose. And uh. And then
Speaker 1: the movie Rob Roy has a great scene between Archie
Speaker 1: Bald Cunningham played by Tim Roth and Rob Roy played
Speaker 1: by Nicon. So those are those are two great ones. Really,
Speaker 1: Scott's the duelist. Also, it's generally right up there on
Speaker 1: the top of everyone's list is having just a fantastic
Speaker 1: cinematic sword fight. So in case you guys are wondering,
Speaker 1: you know, what do you think we're talking about today? Swords? Um,
Speaker 1: how we romanticize them, how they're a huge part of
Speaker 1: our culture, Um, what they're made of, and the craftsmanship. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, just all sorts of different aspects of how
Speaker 1: this tool really um entered our society and forever changed
Speaker 1: the world and of course the world right and uh,
Speaker 1: and the word tool is is essential here. Uh, And
Speaker 1: I aroge anyone to go back and listen to our
Speaker 1: podcast that we did on tool use and the evolution
Speaker 1: of tool used, because a lot of what we say,
Speaker 1: they're really sums up um or really gets to the
Speaker 1: heart of of what's amazing about the sword. The idea
Speaker 1: that the sword, I mean, it's kind of a cliche
Speaker 1: from anything where any kind of film reverred a master's
Speaker 1: swordsman instructing the uh, the young apprentice, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: telling them about the sword is then extension of the
Speaker 1: human body, that the sword is part of your arm
Speaker 1: and it studies have shown neurologically, this is the way
Speaker 1: um humans and other animals conceptualize their tool use. That's
Speaker 1: how it ends up making sense inside the human mind.
Speaker 1: And it is uh and it's very basis. It is
Speaker 1: the intation of the human body with with something to
Speaker 1: perform a task, in this case a death dealing device. Right.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before too, Like you know you've
Speaker 1: brought it up. Okay, if you wear contacts, then are
Speaker 1: you still human? Right, because you're augmenting yourself and so
Speaker 1: you think about the sword and when we think about
Speaker 1: it now, I think it's completely antiquated. It's been out
Speaker 1: of general use for at least two hundred years. Um.
Speaker 1: You know it's just in a very in in a
Speaker 1: sportsman's like way. Um. And yet here is this, um,
Speaker 1: this augmenting of ourselves back in the day because at
Speaker 1: one point, really is especially in the Middle Ages, almost
Speaker 1: all men had a sword, right, this was this was
Speaker 1: very common to possess. Yeah, if you could afford it,
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah. But although at some point it really
Speaker 1: you know, is affordable to a degree. I mean maybe
Speaker 1: your sword would break and you would be killed. But um,
Speaker 1: you know it's very possible that a peasant could have it,
Speaker 1: and certainly a kink. So this was something that that
Speaker 1: at one point history unified a great many people. So
Speaker 1: the origin of the sword is as another one of
Speaker 1: those things that just kind of vanishes into prehistory when
Speaker 1: you try and you know, nail it down. Like the
Speaker 1: already earliest blades were likely made out of bone, bits
Speaker 1: of stone. Eventually they're creating things out of bronze. Um.
Speaker 1: We found some really amazing not when I say we,
Speaker 1: I mean humans archaeologist not last week have found arsenic
Speaker 1: copper alloy soy swords inlaid with silver from roughly uhtree BC.
Speaker 1: So we've been really into it for a while. And
Speaker 1: as far as the creation of the modern sword goes,
Speaker 1: it generally comes down to heat treatment. You can't make
Speaker 1: steel at room temperature. You have to get iron glowing
Speaker 1: with heat. You have to infuse it with carbon, then
Speaker 1: quench the resulting material and cooling liquid. Where you get
Speaker 1: you know, the very cinematic scene of somebody thrusting the
Speaker 1: newly forged sword into the into the water or into
Speaker 1: the snow or something. Um. And then there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's layering. It's it's a very complicated craft to create
Speaker 1: a a fine sword, and some of these techniques have
Speaker 1: been lost over time or or certainly the appreciation for
Speaker 1: it is often uh forgotten as as human warfare moves
Speaker 1: on to different technologies. Yeah, there's one Scottish sword from
Speaker 1: Middle Ages that I think is it's fascinating. Um. It
Speaker 1: is in the movie Reclaiming the Blade. They feature it
Speaker 1: there and um, this sword was forged by by weaving
Speaker 1: six strands of iron together and then the edge was
Speaker 1: made up steel and it made it incredibly strong. But
Speaker 1: the steel made it really like very uh I mean lethal, right,
Speaker 1: because it could cut very well. But they were saying
Speaker 1: that forging this blade would have taken thousands of hammer
Speaker 1: blows struck just right in order to both strengthen the
Speaker 1: steel edge and maintain the degree of flexibility in the blade.
Speaker 1: So obviously the person who is creating this, the blacksmith,
Speaker 1: is highly skilled at this. And in fact, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about this and a little bit. Some swords we can't
Speaker 1: even quite figure out how to replicate to right and
Speaker 1: uh and like you alluded to, their these things have
Speaker 1: to take a lot of stress. It's not just hacking
Speaker 1: into uh, you know, unarmed peasants with these things. It's
Speaker 1: uh that they're gonna hit wood, they're gonna hit armor,
Speaker 1: they're going to hit bone, they're going to there's gonna
Speaker 1: be stress ricocheting through the material or reverberating through the
Speaker 1: material itself. So you have to make it. Anyone could
Speaker 1: could potentially make something and call it a sword. You
Speaker 1: could carve one out of kindling. But to to make
Speaker 1: an instrument like this that is going to last, uh
Speaker 1: in many cases for centuries and centuries, um, it requires
Speaker 1: a great deal of skill. Just another quick note, though
Speaker 1: particularly interesting weapon I ran across and researching this. There's
Speaker 1: a Danish blade called a seek u s e a
Speaker 1: x um or perhaps it's a sex I don't I
Speaker 1: may have the pronunciation there wrong, but I just can't
Speaker 1: bring myself. I just can't bring myself to talk about
Speaker 1: baio wolf slang Grendel with his sex um. Yes you can, yeah,
Speaker 1: I probably can, but but anywa rate uh baio Wolf
Speaker 1: supposedly had one of these, it or would have. It's
Speaker 1: a very old blade and the handle was actually made
Speaker 1: of something called usk or usk, which is mineralized walrus penis.
Speaker 1: Of course, yeah, because the thing is you don't want
Speaker 1: the handle to get slippery and all the blood that
Speaker 1: and the Grendl blood that's going everywhere, so so you
Speaker 1: want something that's it's gonna hold tighten your hand. Well,
Speaker 1: and I can't help thinking too that although I don't
Speaker 1: think of as walruss is like overly masculine one with
Speaker 1: the big tusks. Yeah, but I don't think of them
Speaker 1: as being like, hey, I'm gonna take you down, not
Speaker 1: like a tiger. Yeah. I guess you don't see a
Speaker 1: lot of walrus tattoos, right exactly. It would be amazing.
Speaker 1: So you know, my first thought was, Okay, you're just
Speaker 1: transferring the power of the walrus to the to the handle.
Speaker 1: But perhaps that was just what was available. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: in aside, there's an amazing bit of street art in
Speaker 1: San Francisco Walrus laser beam, giant walrus laser beams coming
Speaker 1: out of his eyes. It's great if you Okay, there
Speaker 1: there's a tattoo. If you guys see it, take a
Speaker 1: gaze at it. But the style of swords varies just
Speaker 1: throughout the world. Um, like every culture has the sort
Speaker 1: of slightly different take on the blade. Uh. And you
Speaker 1: know it depends on the time too. As warfare evolves,
Speaker 1: so does the sword. And we could devote a whole
Speaker 1: podcast to to just discussing that. But but just to
Speaker 1: briefly mention some some other models. Um, there's of course
Speaker 1: the rapier, the slender, sharply pointed sword that you see.
Speaker 1: I think of that more of like a gentleman's sword. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the gentleman's sword early modern Europe during the sixteen seventeen centuries,
Speaker 1: um used for thrusting and uh and yeah, there's yeah
Speaker 1: kind of a musketeer type thing, you know. Um, the
Speaker 1: Samurai swords of Japan, which are highly revered for their craftsmanship.
Speaker 1: Those things are still around. The handles will often be
Speaker 1: replaced over time, but the blade itself often really holds up. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I actually read somewhere too that um, somewhere in England
Speaker 1: the samurai's swords fights have become somewhat common. Actually, say,
Speaker 1: isn't the UK? Yeah? Said one. One member of Parliaments
Speaker 1: says they happen every week in her home city. Um.
Speaker 1: And the government actually moved to ban the manufacturer, sale
Speaker 1: or import of Japanese style swords in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: This is in the UK. This is in the UK.
Speaker 1: This is from an article from Slate dot com Without
Speaker 1: swords and nerds. Well, I mean, on one hand, maybe
Speaker 1: that's just a shun, the sign that the gathering is occurring,
Speaker 1: right and well yeah, but but the other I mean,
Speaker 1: these are not trained samurai. These are really just like
Speaker 1: kids going out in hack and they might as well
Speaker 1: be using clean on blades, which sometimes they do. But
Speaker 1: but but back to actual weapons. There's also the conda,
Speaker 1: which is an Indian double edged straight sword that it
Speaker 1: comes to a point really abruptly, especially if you're more
Speaker 1: familiar with looking at Western and Eastern more traditional Western
Speaker 1: and Eastern models of the sword. This one is particularly
Speaker 1: interesting to look up, and it was used just throughout
Speaker 1: the region a by like the Sikhs, the Maratha's, the
Speaker 1: jots Um. And then of course there's a sword that
Speaker 1: I've found particularly interesting to to look into. And then
Speaker 1: of course it's like the great two handed great sword,
Speaker 1: which you'll recognize from medieval iconography. This just sort of
Speaker 1: that with a really long handle that you would have
Speaker 1: to grip in two hands, and and it's just a
Speaker 1: really long blade so that if the thing was standing
Speaker 1: next to the man wielding it, it would be about
Speaker 1: his height. And uh, you see this, Uh, this sort
Speaker 1: of myth emerges over time that this weapon is not
Speaker 1: a skilled weapon that it or or even if it
Speaker 1: is a skilled weapon, that it is a weapon of
Speaker 1: brute strength and brute power. And then there's not a
Speaker 1: martial art to it, like obviously, like anyone can can
Speaker 1: look at a Samurai sword and then look at some
Speaker 1: of the images of it and you're like, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's definitely a martial art to that well, and it's
Speaker 1: better documented to right right right, whereas yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, it's less documented in um, you're
Speaker 1: talking about European martial arts, right right. These were used
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen, sixteenth century. And even if this war began
Speaker 1: to gravitate more towards the smaller weapons and thinner weapons
Speaker 1: and change. I mean, initially, these these new soldiers that
Speaker 1: they didn't have the resources at their their fingertips, so
Speaker 1: they weren't historians, so it was easy to say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, today we use this more skillful blade. And
Speaker 1: then and in the old days are they just lumbered
Speaker 1: around with these giant pieces of steel? And then even
Speaker 1: today I've read some some interesting criticism pointing out that
Speaker 1: that a lot of this a you have like historians
Speaker 1: looking into blades, and like, if the historian picks up
Speaker 1: even an authentic sword, they're not they're not gonna necessarily
Speaker 1: know what to do with it. If they say it's heavy,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? This is like some eighty year
Speaker 1: old British dude, right right, And especially the ones from
Speaker 1: the or the Middle Ages, which they're kind of rusted
Speaker 1: out looking. They look very crude. So if you if
Speaker 1: you don't have an understanding of how they were using
Speaker 1: you could sort of jump to the conclusion that you know,
Speaker 1: this is one step away from barbary, right, and then
Speaker 1: if you're if you're dealing we like, so you can't
Speaker 1: use the you can't actually mess around with the real things,
Speaker 1: so you're looking at a replica. The problem with replicas
Speaker 1: is that a lot of times they are they're trying
Speaker 1: to capture the look of the of the weapon, but
Speaker 1: they end up getting the weight all wrong and the
Speaker 1: balance and the weapon all wrong. And the balance and
Speaker 1: a sword is key, like even like in a rapier.
Speaker 1: The idea is is that the hilt is heavier than
Speaker 1: the sword because it gives you balance. And these great
Speaker 1: two handed swords you you see you often see a
Speaker 1: big ball on the end pommel and that is a
Speaker 1: counterweight that helps in leveraging the weapon. Yeah. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: there's a whole there's a whole system of weights to
Speaker 1: keep in mind. And when you really look back up
Speaker 1: at the text from that agent, people were writing books
Speaker 1: about how to fight with these things. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: like here is a big sword, go out and kill
Speaker 1: people with it. Now, they were they they showed different techniques,
Speaker 1: there were different ways of doing it. There is a
Speaker 1: particular move with the with the long sword called the
Speaker 1: and this is in um in the German school of swordsmanship,
Speaker 1: the mord strike or the mordor slag, which is the
Speaker 1: murder strike and the murder blow. And this would occur
Speaker 1: when you would you would actually turn the sword around
Speaker 1: and then bash somebody in the face with that weighted pommel.
Speaker 1: Oh man, Yeah, And there's not enough of that in
Speaker 1: movies like I don't know and see. You know. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons that this is the sort of information
Speaker 1: isn't sort of widespread and we don't when we think
Speaker 1: of swords, we don't automatically start thinking about your p
Speaker 1: mars arts is because these texts have been sitting around
Speaker 1: in musty libraries and um sort of lost their way,
Speaker 1: particularly in the UH in Europe, when you know, gunpowder
Speaker 1: came into play, people began to use less and less swords,
Speaker 1: and then it was taken up as a gentleman's sports.
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden you have the sword changing
Speaker 1: from maybe a heavy instrument or a super long blade
Speaker 1: becoming very uniform and light um so that you could,
Speaker 1: you know, have some sort of duel which really wasn't
Speaker 1: meant to end in death right that was just about
Speaker 1: defending your honor. Sometimes there was there was definitely some
Speaker 1: death involved. Certainly there there are many instances, but mainly
Speaker 1: you just want that that that snansy scar on your face. Right.
Speaker 1: You can be like, man, h, yeah, that's right, I
Speaker 1: got a duel um. But the point is there is
Speaker 1: that there's some information that was that just didn't transition
Speaker 1: from the Middle Ages from the fourteenth century to eighteenth
Speaker 1: century UM, and so we began to think of swords
Speaker 1: and a very different way. One last note on the
Speaker 1: weight of medieval swords. I have a quote here from
Speaker 1: the late Awart oaks Halt, who was a w wrote
Speaker 1: the book Sword in Hand, and he was a leading
Speaker 1: expert on medieval swords. He said, medieval swords are neither
Speaker 1: unwieldablely heavy, nor all alike. The average weight of any
Speaker 1: one of normal size is between two point five pounds
Speaker 1: and three point five Even the big hands and a
Speaker 1: half war swords rarely weighed more than four point five pounds. Uh.
Speaker 1: Such weights too. Men who were trained to use the
Speaker 1: sword from the age of seven, and who had been
Speaker 1: tough specimens to survive that age, were by no means
Speaker 1: too great to be too practical. So okay, so that's
Speaker 1: like the way I use my step aerobics class. If
Speaker 1: I went to a step aerobics class, right, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you know, in one hand. So yeah, thankfully they
Speaker 1: do not let you bring swords to the y. Right.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I did tell you about the belly dancing class.
Speaker 1: Actually she never brought a sword. She just would talk
Speaker 1: about when she was belly dancer. Because the belly dancwers
Speaker 1: will do that thing where they have the sword balanced
Speaker 1: on their head and yeah, and they bound set on
Speaker 1: their stomach. It's it's pretty exciting stuff. So if you
Speaker 1: would always say to the classes, if we all had,
Speaker 1: you know, swords at home. Okay, so this is a
Speaker 1: part where you just kind of jut up your hip
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. Um. One of the
Speaker 1: things I did want to mention too, is this the
Speaker 1: skill that you needed in order to wield this instrument? Um,
Speaker 1: Because think about it. In this case, you are attacking
Speaker 1: and defending yourself at the same time. And to me,
Speaker 1: it's like this physical game of chess because you have
Speaker 1: to try to figure out what your opponent is doing.
Speaker 1: So every attack contains a defense, and every defense contains
Speaker 1: a counter attack because you attack, you open shoot yourself
Speaker 1: up potentially for an attack from either the person you're
Speaker 1: dealing with or some other individual on the field of battle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's why there were so many manuals that were
Speaker 1: instructing people. And it was I kind of think of
Speaker 1: it now too. If you get a Samsung I don't know,
Speaker 1: some sort of electrical device and then you get a
Speaker 1: user's manual with it, I'd like to imagine that. You know,
Speaker 1: back in the day, you got your sword and little
Speaker 1: users manuals say this is the best use of um
Speaker 1: of UH the sword, given how it's weighted and how
Speaker 1: your body should be an extension of it. You know,
Speaker 1: this is how you should lunch. UM. I will try,
Speaker 1: if I will try and make sure that I mentioned
Speaker 1: this on a blog post or just on the Facebook
Speaker 1: page for stuff to blow your mind. But if anyone
Speaker 1: wants to see some images of like the long sword
Speaker 1: UM user manual, if you will UM. There's an excellent
Speaker 1: resource called and it was written in fourteen fifty nine
Speaker 1: by hands tal Haafa called Alta Amatea und ring Kunst
Speaker 1: and Uh and the whole text is available online and
Speaker 1: you can you can browse through it and see how
Speaker 1: to use a long sword, a dagger, a spear, a poleaxe,
Speaker 1: and even wrestle. So unarmed and armed combat. So very cool,
Speaker 1: Old hands, has you covered? Um? I did want to
Speaker 1: mention to uh in skill in in a cultural use
Speaker 1: of swords kendo. Japanese swordsmanship very cool. They follow a
Speaker 1: very rigid rules that are meant to instill as much
Speaker 1: integrity into dueling as possible. For instance, when you're about
Speaker 1: to attack your opponent, you actually make a thumping down
Speaker 1: with your foot to to sort of signify like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm about to to to rip you a new one.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I'm speaking of Japanese swordsmanship. I should,
Speaker 1: I would. I would be remiss if I did not
Speaker 1: mention that one of the great sword fighters of all time,
Speaker 1: not Zorrow, was Miyamoto Musashi, author of the Book of
Speaker 1: Five Rings sixteen seventeen centuries Ronan swordsman. His reputation is
Speaker 1: just right up there at the top of of real
Speaker 1: life dudes and you know, probably fictional dudes too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it turns out there are a lot of these
Speaker 1: real life dudes magical weapons. This is something that that
Speaker 1: i've I've just I found really cool for a number
Speaker 1: of years since I first discovered it. And that is that. Um.
Speaker 1: You you have these blades, these swords that are not
Speaker 1: just made from iron, they're made from meteoric iron. They're
Speaker 1: they're made from iron that fell from the sky in
Speaker 1: the form of a meteorite or multiple meteorites. Because generally,
Speaker 1: in some cases you might have enough uh meteoric iron
Speaker 1: there to make to forge one sword, but generally you
Speaker 1: having to poke around. Um. And uh. Today we have
Speaker 1: Terry Pratchett, the author of the Discworld novels, He actually
Speaker 1: has a sword made from such iron. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: you know, very much a novelty. It's you know, it's
Speaker 1: a cool thing to have in the There was a
Speaker 1: time though, before uh, smelting technology really took hold back
Speaker 1: in the Bronze Age, before mining allowed us to really
Speaker 1: harvest iron ore. Uh. This is one of the few
Speaker 1: sources of of iron, and that was you know, you'd
Speaker 1: have to go out and like in the desert somewhere
Speaker 1: where like black bits of stone that have fallen from
Speaker 1: the sky will show up really easily. Somebody would gather
Speaker 1: these together. They get so sold here and there, and
Speaker 1: then they'd wind up in the hands of a metal
Speaker 1: worker and a swordsman, and you would have these just
Speaker 1: fantastic weapons. The ancient Egyptians called it black copper, and
Speaker 1: it was generally just considered, you know, the the the
Speaker 1: best metal to have, the best weapon to have. And
Speaker 1: it would and it often end up being sort of
Speaker 1: ceremonial because the dudes that have them can afford the
Speaker 1: best swords. It can also probably afford not to have
Speaker 1: to use them. Right. The seventh century calyps Um of
Speaker 1: the Middle East were said to have brandished these weapons
Speaker 1: and uh and supposedly such iconic figures as a till
Speaker 1: of the hunt and Tamerlane also wielded these cosmic blades
Speaker 1: against their enemies. Um, like I said, that's that just
Speaker 1: blows my mind. They're just thinking about these these ancient
Speaker 1: dudes carrying around these blades forged from the heavens. And
Speaker 1: you can imagine, I mean it, you imagine how you
Speaker 1: get tales of magical weapons just off of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: can you imagine an eBay back then? That would have
Speaker 1: been very sought after? Of course it is today too,
Speaker 1: but um, it makes me think about how when we
Speaker 1: when we talk about ancient swords that we think about
Speaker 1: the material and the techniques as being primitive by today's
Speaker 1: technological standards, but in fact, um their techniques were really advanced.
Speaker 1: And what I'm talking about here is a sword, possibly
Speaker 1: the question mark right forged out of nanotechnology. Damascus Blade. Uh.
Speaker 1: These are sabers from Damascus now known as Syria, and
Speaker 1: they date back generally during and they were just considered
Speaker 1: the ultimate weapon to to have at hand because they
Speaker 1: were strong, but they were and they were sharp, and
Speaker 1: they were but they were light, and they could supposedly
Speaker 1: cleave a silk scarf in two as it was floating
Speaker 1: to the ground. It could I think their tails too,
Speaker 1: that it could cut through a not only the night,
Speaker 1: but riding a horse, but the horses well and all
Speaker 1: the armor and the saddle and one swoop right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a saying something like cleaved man and horse together
Speaker 1: and all armor in Twain. That was on the the
Speaker 1: ad on the packaging right at the sword store. And
Speaker 1: there are some people who think that the steel for
Speaker 1: the blade actually originated in India, but because it was
Speaker 1: exported to Europe through Damascus, it was assumed to be
Speaker 1: its source. Yeah, it comes down to these uh, woots cakes, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: which sounds delicious delicious, Yeah, Like it's you know, nice
Speaker 1: and oatmeal on the outside and then like some creamy
Speaker 1: goodiness I was going in the middle. Yeah. Oh, in
Speaker 1: a way, there was surprise in the middle because these
Speaker 1: these cakes had had iron in them and with apparently
Speaker 1: just just a perfect array of impurities that that lent
Speaker 1: itself exceedingly well to the creation of these these magnificent swords.
Speaker 1: That being said, the guys hauling these woots cakes out
Speaker 1: of the ground, they didn't necessarily recognize what was great
Speaker 1: about them. They just realized that they were They could
Speaker 1: sell these for some some good coin, and the the
Speaker 1: metal workers realized that these could be used really well
Speaker 1: to create something. But now a modern scientists have been
Speaker 1: looking at the namass displayed in particularly, they've been looking
Speaker 1: at one that dates back to believe the seventeenth century,
Speaker 1: and you know, studying it, uh and trying to figure
Speaker 1: out exactly what made it awesome. Has really high heart
Speaker 1: carbon content. So they dissolved part of the weapon actually
Speaker 1: in hydrochloric acid and studied it under an electron microscope,
Speaker 1: and they found that the steel there contained these carbon
Speaker 1: nanits tubes and these are like each one of these
Speaker 1: is just slightly larger than a nanometer. We've covered these before.
Speaker 1: These are the cannot carbon nanotube is kind of the uh,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the golden childs of nanotechnology, the
Speaker 1: idea that you're you're taking these little miniscule carbon tubes
Speaker 1: and uh and if you if you build something out
Speaker 1: of them, then the material is strong and flexible. It's
Speaker 1: the thing that people talk about building uh, space elevators
Speaker 1: out of and you know, sis a hundred times stronger
Speaker 1: than steel and much lighter. Yeah. And the researchers also,
Speaker 1: uh say that they discovered nanoscale wires of semontite, extremely
Speaker 1: hard carbon iron compound. Um. Yeah, it's a carbon steel geometry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were probably formed inside the nanotubes. Now, nobody's making
Speaker 1: an ancient aliens or you know, technology of the ancients
Speaker 1: argument here to say that, oh, well they Damascus swords
Speaker 1: miths of old head nanotechnology. Well not not exactly. They
Speaker 1: didn't they didn't know that. They're not saying that they
Speaker 1: knew there was a car there were carbon nanotubes, any
Speaker 1: sort of a fortuitous accident, right, Yeah, and you see,
Speaker 1: you see even earlier examples of this in like stained
Speaker 1: glass and UH and various UH glass blowing techniques that
Speaker 1: would end up using what we would later understand is
Speaker 1: nanotechnology to change their coloring um. Because if you it's
Speaker 1: like we said before, if you change something at the
Speaker 1: smallest level that can you can greatly increase the way
Speaker 1: a substance behaves. It's various properties, even chemical properties. The
Speaker 1: argument here is that is what is inadvertently going on
Speaker 1: in the creation of these blades. Yeah, and they were
Speaker 1: saying to you that, I mean, if you think about
Speaker 1: it this way, like the edge of the blade would
Speaker 1: would almost feel like it was composed of tiny diamonds, right,
Speaker 1: And so that's why it's so effective and slicing um.
Speaker 1: And there are also accounts of it being self sharpening,
Speaker 1: which again if we don't know whether that was the case. Now,
Speaker 1: there were number of people this UH initial study came
Speaker 1: out a few years back, and and even when it
Speaker 1: came out, there were a number of people that were
Speaker 1: also kind of doubtful. They were like, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't think that this is you're necessarily seeing what you
Speaker 1: think you're seeing, or I think you're seeing something that
Speaker 1: is present in in most steel if you really looked
Speaker 1: at it. Uh and uh, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: the there's no definitive word yet on exactly what the
Speaker 1: deal is with a Damascus steel other than it's uh.
Speaker 1: I mean the craftmanship is still above reproach. But right,
Speaker 1: and this is actually again, this is the sword that
Speaker 1: they cannot replicate in terms of the high carbon content
Speaker 1: and its ability not become brittle or break. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the recipe for it was lost centuries ago and
Speaker 1: uh and since that that time. But also the woods
Speaker 1: cakes were all used up for the most part, so well,
Speaker 1: you know what did it expect? Put them out at
Speaker 1: a party. Everybody's gonna eat them? All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: about some fun with swords. How can I have fun
Speaker 1: with swords? Well, like you mentioned, you can, I mean,
Speaker 1: aside from dueling on the subway, you can dance with them,
Speaker 1: of course, yes, um uh and and I actually I
Speaker 1: love seeing the sword dancing with the with the belly dancers.
Speaker 1: That's that's always frightening and beautiful to behold. Because what
Speaker 1: if it falls off and it kills out somebody in
Speaker 1: the restaurant, know what a bumber night? Yeah, But then
Speaker 1: there's also sword swallowing. Yeah. Well, and I was gonna
Speaker 1: mention too that there are Scottish sword dances too, just
Speaker 1: in case. Presumably they performed them before the swordsman uses
Speaker 1: the blade to cut the haggas women danced the men do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, they're swords swelling. And we actually have a
Speaker 1: really great article how sword swelling works by pop Stuffs
Speaker 1: Tracy Wilson. You should check out. And that looks like
Speaker 1: it's a it's just a sled of hand trick, but
Speaker 1: it is not. They're really sticking it down their throats,
Speaker 1: really putting it in their GI tract. So there you
Speaker 1: have it. The sword sword. Some of the things that
Speaker 1: make them amazing, uh, some of the things that you
Speaker 1: might not have known about, how they're made and how
Speaker 1: they are used by skilled hands. All right, so speaking
Speaker 1: of skilled hands, let's get some hands on some listener males.
Speaker 1: Are you talking about a robot? Yes? Yeah, skilled hands.
Speaker 1: That's on a kind of creepy there, skilled hands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go. Look how look how well he handles.
Speaker 1: I haven't received a agmassage from robot that would be weird.
Speaker 1: Al Right, here's one from Russ Russ Rights in Dear
Speaker 1: Robert and Julie. I wanted to thank you both for
Speaker 1: the great work you do on your podcast. You guys
Speaker 1: have gotten me through many boring hours in the treadmill
Speaker 1: with topics that are far more mind bending and thought
Speaker 1: provoking than just staring at a wall or I muted
Speaker 1: TV high praise your Your podcast is really great. I
Speaker 1: recently just listened to the podcast about the future of Stink,
Speaker 1: and ironically enough, I saw something the next day in
Speaker 1: a hotel lounge and Serbia while I was on I
Speaker 1: was on a business trip, and I thought you might
Speaker 1: find it interesting. It's called an Aroma brand, and it
Speaker 1: blows a certain type of smell into the lounge. Um.
Speaker 1: The lounge has a kind of homy type feel as
Speaker 1: a result of the smell, and it had a type
Speaker 1: of wood burning fireplace apple pie baking instant smell to it.
Speaker 1: It made me feel more at home there, oddly enough,
Speaker 1: since Serbia is just about as far from my home
Speaker 1: as possible since I'm from Chicago. But I'm guessing that's
Speaker 1: what the benefit of a roma brand is meant to be.
Speaker 1: At any rate, it was definitely better than the smell
Speaker 1: of David Beckham's sweaty Sock. Thanks again for doing such
Speaker 1: a great podcast, and happy holidays to you both, because
Speaker 1: we're decent this and we were reading it during the holidays. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for that. And um yeah, for
Speaker 1: for anybody who missed that podcast about about smell. We
Speaker 1: we actually had a sample of David David David molecule
Speaker 1: David Beckham's foot molecules, which smelled incredibly like cheese, and
Speaker 1: it confused me because I was sort of attracted to it,
Speaker 1: but then I was because I thought it was cheese,
Speaker 1: and then I was completely repulsed. Yeah. I had a
Speaker 1: lot of feelings work out after that podcast. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and certainly that's that's one of the things we talked
Speaker 1: about in the the podcast, just about it, how many how
Speaker 1: much goes into our our interpretational smell but it's a
Speaker 1: good snore of bad smell and how our memory wraps
Speaker 1: around it. So yeah, there you go. But what do
Speaker 1: you guys have to share with us? Do you have
Speaker 1: something you want to share about swords? What is your
Speaker 1: favorite sword fight in cinematic history? What is your favorite
Speaker 1: sort of related kill in cinematic history? Let us know.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear about it. You can find us
Speaker 1: on Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, we're stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: the Mind and UH. On Twitter, you can you can
Speaker 1: find us by searching for stuff to Blow your Mind,
Speaker 1: but our handle is below the Mind when work, and
Speaker 1: you can always email us at blow the Mind at
Speaker 1: house to work dot com. Be sure to check out
Speaker 1: our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join House
Speaker 1: to Work staff as we explore the most promising and
Speaker 1: perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.