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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind from How Stuff Works dot com.
Speaker 1: Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I am Christian, sacred Christian.
Speaker 1: I have a question for you. I know that that
Speaker 1: you also consume a lot of fictional media that has uh,
Speaker 1: you know, different crazy fight scenes, crazy weapons. What is
Speaker 1: the most appealing yet seemingly unrealistic weapon you've encountered before
Speaker 1: in your and you're you're reading and your viewing. Oh.
Speaker 1: I can answer this very easily because it's it was
Speaker 1: a movie that was super influential on me. It's actually
Speaker 1: a series of movies the Umbrella because um yeah, I
Speaker 1: talked about this on the show before. Because I grew
Speaker 1: up overseas, I ended up watching a lot of woosh
Speaker 1: yaw kind of kung fu movies when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: And there's a series that Jet Lee was in in
Speaker 1: the early nineties late eighties called Once Upon a Time
Speaker 1: in China, and he plays this legendary Chinese uh character
Speaker 1: who I think it's a real person, but it's also
Speaker 1: ostensibly argued that these movies are like history revisionist. Anyways,
Speaker 1: this guy fights with an umbrella. That's his penguin style.
Speaker 1: He like he uses the umbrella as like a defensive
Speaker 1: thing against swords and other stuff like that. But then
Speaker 1: he will also like occasionally open it up and like
Speaker 1: spin it to kind of like distract his enemy as well.
Speaker 1: He does like backflips and stuff. I I love those
Speaker 1: movies so much that I actually got artist Kegan McLeod
Speaker 1: to do a commission for me of this character that
Speaker 1: Jetley played with the umbrella and everything. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: an example that comes to my mind is another weapon
Speaker 1: that shows up pin Hong Kong action films, and that's
Speaker 1: the flying guillotine. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's totally
Speaker 1: in these as well. Yeah, which is kind of like
Speaker 1: if you haven't you really have to need to look
Speaker 1: up a clip of it to know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: But it's essentially kind of a bladed ring that's also
Speaker 1: made into a hat and it's attached to a string
Speaker 1: and you kind of zip it around the room and
Speaker 1: try and make it land on your opponent's head and
Speaker 1: then you pull, you pull the string to decapitate it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the I don't know if there's any realism
Speaker 1: to that weapon at all, but it's like the vorpal ring, right,
Speaker 1: because you just instantly kill these people if it works
Speaker 1: the way it's right, I think it's pretty it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty clearly established. It's just like a folkloric weapon and
Speaker 1: a weapon of fiction because it's just far too elaborate
Speaker 1: and specialized to to really be all that that useful
Speaker 1: in a fight. Yeah, but there is a weapon that
Speaker 1: is very close to that actually, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people will recognize this weapon from an odd source you
Speaker 1: would think coming from us. Well, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: guess I watched a few episodes of this back in
Speaker 1: the day. But Zena Warrior Princess, Yes, yes, Zeno Warrior
Speaker 1: Princess stuff, which is itself as spinoff of what Hercules
Speaker 1: the legendary journeys is that right? I never knew that.
Speaker 1: I always thought of Zena as being a bigger than
Speaker 1: that show. Well, she became bigger because I mean Hercules
Speaker 1: I think was fun for the time, but Zena became
Speaker 1: a true pop culture icon absolutely. You know, the strong
Speaker 1: female character and she's she's engaging in all of these
Speaker 1: these battles where she's on equal footing or even you know,
Speaker 1: superior footing against any adversary that darres a poser, and
Speaker 1: she fought with a sword. But she also had this
Speaker 1: really cool um sort of halo shaped, ring shaped, bladed
Speaker 1: wet weapon called a chakram. Yeah. Yeah, and in fact
Speaker 1: it's completely based in life and is a real thing.
Speaker 1: And we did our best to dig up as much
Speaker 1: research on this as we could because we thought this
Speaker 1: is such a bizarre weapon. You watched it in that
Speaker 1: and it shows like that, right, and she throws it
Speaker 1: around a room like Captain America throws a shield in
Speaker 1: it like kills like five people in one throw. Right,
Speaker 1: just com out completely unrealistic physics and and and a
Speaker 1: level of expertise with the weapon that just goes beyond
Speaker 1: what is humanly possible. So you you watch something like
Speaker 1: that and you think, well, this is this is just
Speaker 1: pure fantasy. But there is this actual weapon that we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about today. We're gonna talk about it in
Speaker 1: terms of a little bit of mythology, uh, some military history,
Speaker 1: and then some aerodynamics. But you have this this chakram
Speaker 1: or shaker, and it is or sometimes just referred to
Speaker 1: as a as a chakra, and it is a razor
Speaker 1: sharp ring of metal designed to they sail through the
Speaker 1: air and deliver spinning death or at least you know,
Speaker 1: laceration or mutilation to your adversaries. Yeah, it's so I
Speaker 1: wish we could like put some JPEGs up for you
Speaker 1: all right now to try to give you a visual
Speaker 1: understanding if you haven't seen one of these before. But
Speaker 1: it's more like Halo than a disc, right, And we'll
Speaker 1: give you some pop culture examples other than zena. If
Speaker 1: you're unfamiliar with that, that maybe will help cement this
Speaker 1: for you. But it's essentially a death aeroby like if
Speaker 1: you're familiar with the aerobie the frisbee that has the
Speaker 1: center cut out of the metal, that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Imagine one of those, but sharp on the outside. And
Speaker 1: there are a couple of different forms. So there was
Speaker 1: the che car sada and that is the version that
Speaker 1: was smooth and had a sharp outer layer like on
Speaker 1: its edge. But there was also the checkr cut of
Speaker 1: dar and that had a serrated outer edge. And actually,
Speaker 1: in some of the videos that we watched for this,
Speaker 1: I noticed that there are a few people who had
Speaker 1: the serrated ones. In particular, there was a deo I
Speaker 1: watched of like there's an actual um Seek weapons master
Speaker 1: who still practices the same martial arts forms and he
Speaker 1: was demonstrating how you use these and he had the
Speaker 1: serrated ones. Yeah, the the serrated one also has I
Speaker 1: think more of a tie in with with with Hindu
Speaker 1: mythology as well discussed. But before we get into that,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk a little bit more about pop culture. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this seems to be a largely underutilized weapon in fiction,
Speaker 1: which is crazy considering how fantastic it is. I think
Speaker 1: other than Zena, probably the most recognized version that people
Speaker 1: would know it from is Tron. They had the second one,
Speaker 1: Tron Legacy. Yeah, not which not that many people actually
Speaker 1: went so but but so. Yeah, if you remember in
Speaker 1: the in Tron movies, they had the disks that they
Speaker 1: threw around in the discs also like had like what
Speaker 1: like the information of their personalities on them or yeah,
Speaker 1: their identity discs or I think sometimes referred to as
Speaker 1: the discs of Tron as in the old video game.
Speaker 1: But in Legacy, they would have these like battles where
Speaker 1: they would like each two people would face off with
Speaker 1: these things. They throw them around the room, they bounce
Speaker 1: off walls, and like eventually strike each other. Right, because
Speaker 1: it was essentially the Internet, right, you're just heating your
Speaker 1: identity at other people until somebody perishes. But in the
Speaker 1: first film it was more of a frisbee, and in
Speaker 1: the second film it was more of a roby or
Speaker 1: essentially a chakram. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So there's a couple
Speaker 1: other examples we have here, mainly from video games, it seems, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So one key example there is the hat that the
Speaker 1: Mortal Kombat character Kong Lao wears, and it it's a hat,
Speaker 1: but it is essentially a chockram, a shockram that's just
Speaker 1: kind of been perverted into a hat, I guess. And
Speaker 1: then he this character has a son in m k X,
Speaker 1: the most recent uh Mortal Kombat entry, and this uh,
Speaker 1: this character whose name is Kong Jin, he uses this
Speaker 1: is one of his weapons, but it's not his signature weapons,
Speaker 1: so it's not like his character defining weapon. It's like
Speaker 1: a special thing, like if you hit buttons in the
Speaker 1: right order, he'll whip one of these others. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just one of his many special attacks. So I feel
Speaker 1: like there's there was more potential there that too, to
Speaker 1: really claim the shock wonder if Zena just like dominated
Speaker 1: the chakram market, you know, I guess in the way
Speaker 1: that Wonder Woman. I mean, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: lassos with characters either you know, it's true. You know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like cowboys came and owned it, and
Speaker 1: so anyone, and of course Wonder Woman. So everyone feels
Speaker 1: like if they have a lasso, they're just gonna echo
Speaker 1: cowboy movies or wonder wold. Yeah, but there is a
Speaker 1: fascinating uh physics to this weapon too, and I think
Speaker 1: it's it's actually really interesting when you see it in
Speaker 1: video game format too, because they have to sort of
Speaker 1: consider how the physics of the real world, like the
Speaker 1: math of the real world of throwing essentially a frisbee
Speaker 1: with blades that somebody would works three dimensional spaces. It's
Speaker 1: also as well, as we'll discuss when we get into
Speaker 1: the actual military history of the of the weapon, there's
Speaker 1: also a hula hoop element to it. So I would
Speaker 1: be remiss if I didn't point out that the two
Speaker 1: thousand five fighting games Sol Caliber three featured a female
Speaker 1: fighter named Tira who kind of dresses like a circus
Speaker 1: a performer, and she has a hoop shaped weapon that
Speaker 1: she uses and it it basically looks like a big
Speaker 1: hula hoop with blades, and she uses it like that,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of like an oversized chakram, but she's
Speaker 1: she's sort of employing it in ways that are reminiscent
Speaker 1: of the actual use of this weapon. So the wearing
Speaker 1: of these is actually based in fact. So uh, some
Speaker 1: of the ways that it was used was they were
Speaker 1: either worn over turbans, or they were sometimes worn around
Speaker 1: the neck, or a warrior would put like, you know,
Speaker 1: four or six of these across like their shoulder or
Speaker 1: something like that, so they could carry them into battle
Speaker 1: and have a bunch of them. Yeah, they're ready to
Speaker 1: go because they're they're you know, around your limbs. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, it's important to note here that there are
Speaker 1: other hoop shaped weapons or circular weapons uh in various cultures,
Speaker 1: but they don't necessarily spin. Now, there's some variations of
Speaker 1: the charuken or throwing star. Uh. You'll find some varieties
Speaker 1: that have a kind of mini chakram appearance, and likewise uh.
Speaker 1: In Chinese marshal art, there's the thing who oh loon,
Speaker 1: which is uh the this is known as that the
Speaker 1: wind and fire wheels, and these are circular in um
Speaker 1: in shape, but they're kind of but they don't spend
Speaker 1: and you just kind of grip them. They're like giant
Speaker 1: oversized circular bladed brass knuckles. Okay, And you asked me
Speaker 1: if there was any superhero comic book examples, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't think of any off the top of my head.
Speaker 1: I dug a little bit and the only thing I
Speaker 1: could find was Stanley created. Stanley in the last like
Speaker 1: twenty years has just created a ton of characters so
Speaker 1: that like different companies can say, like Stanley created such
Speaker 1: and such, and they do like four issues or whatever,
Speaker 1: and that's it. So he created this character that's like
Speaker 1: an Indian superhero named chakra Um and he appears to
Speaker 1: have I don't think wields these things, but he has
Speaker 1: like the symbolism of the chockrame, like in his costume
Speaker 1: and like in his his powers, like circles with sort
Speaker 1: of edges to them. And well, that's probably a good
Speaker 1: jumping off point to begin to get into the sort
Speaker 1: of mythological power all of the chakram and its use
Speaker 1: as a mythological weapon, because like like anything in that,
Speaker 1: you know, goes deep into Hindu mythology, like the thing
Speaker 1: becomes a symbol, and the symbol becomes an you know,
Speaker 1: another entity entirely kind of expands outward. Yeah. Absolutely, So
Speaker 1: it's first mentioned in the ancient Hindu text, the rig Veda,
Speaker 1: and in that it's described as glowing. So these are
Speaker 1: like glowing haloes that are thrown and I think sometimes
Speaker 1: there's a flaming element to Okay, okay. And then Vishnu,
Speaker 1: the you know famous figure. Uh, he had one a
Speaker 1: chok ram that was named sudar Shan chakra, and this
Speaker 1: means vision of that which is auspicious to do movement.
Speaker 1: So the weapon itself symbolized clearing of the path of
Speaker 1: God like there is a there's a strong religious symbolism
Speaker 1: to this weapon in the circular nature of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I also referred to as the s Shaanna Chakra, and
Speaker 1: it's said to have one eight serrated edges around it. Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: and so that one one oh eight is an important number,
Speaker 1: that that is a sacred number in in a few
Speaker 1: different Eastern traditions. Yes, now he It's worth noting that
Speaker 1: the villain Ravana who kidnaps Sita in the Ramayana, this
Speaker 1: guy has a boon against the weapon's power, so it's
Speaker 1: ineffective against him. But Vishnu uses the his chakra to
Speaker 1: decapitate a number of different adversaries. So there's Rahu, the
Speaker 1: the the the ashra that becomes the entity of the eclipse.
Speaker 1: He uses it against the Kashmiri king Damodara and against
Speaker 1: the water demon Jallowed Baba. And I found a real
Speaker 1: fun account of this slang of the water demon in
Speaker 1: which it said that the Suda Shaanna Chakra quote was
Speaker 1: so drunk on Johla Babda's blood that he had totally
Speaker 1: lost control over his senses and was wandering in all
Speaker 1: three worlds without knowing what he was doing. But he
Speaker 1: here being the web weapon itself, because because it's interesting
Speaker 1: when you start looking at interpretations of this, of this
Speaker 1: weapon this, and it's worth noting that it is a
Speaker 1: wonder weapon. It isn't It is one of the ostras,
Speaker 1: which are these these varying Just think like legendary sentient
Speaker 1: weapons from dungeons and dragons. That's what you have here.
Speaker 1: So it's one like the one ring, but much bigger
Speaker 1: and you throw it. Yeah, you have a god show
Speaker 1: up in the God in many cases will have this
Speaker 1: sacred weapon, and sometimes mortals get to interact with them
Speaker 1: to varying degrees. But then in the case of Vishnu's weapon,
Speaker 1: it becomes an entity, becomes anthropomorphized and becomes essentially it
Speaker 1: takes human form. Yeah. Well, I'm also thinking you just
Speaker 1: mentioned that it was connected to a god that is
Speaker 1: a god of the eclipse, and I'm thinking, like the
Speaker 1: way that the eclipse can look has a ring formation
Speaker 1: to it as well, or halo obviously, so that seems
Speaker 1: to make sense. Symbolism. Yeah, you can see why this
Speaker 1: would explode through throughout a culture's symbolism and their religious
Speaker 1: iconography because, I mean, circles are so key to to
Speaker 1: most religious traditions. I'm surprised with their recent solar eclipse
Speaker 1: that more people didn't get into shock rooms. Instead, everybody's
Speaker 1: got these like cheap sunglasses left over. Now, yeah, where
Speaker 1: was Aeroby? At least should have jumped in and said, hey, Arooby,
Speaker 1: where the we're the we're the official um, you know,
Speaker 1: recreational item of the eclipse. Yeah, it's perfect. It's easy
Speaker 1: to you know, to look at the myth here and
Speaker 1: uh and say, okay, well this is um this is
Speaker 1: clearly just an elaborate crazy weapon that a Hindu god
Speaker 1: uses and then zena warrior princess uses it. But surely no, buddy,
Speaker 1: is it's spinning around a mini hula hoop of death
Speaker 1: and using it against their adversaries and realistic combat. Because
Speaker 1: when you look at at weaponry across human culture, you
Speaker 1: do tend to see recurring motifs, right like and granted
Speaker 1: there there are many varieties and variations that take place,
Speaker 1: but still, like people are killing each other with swords,
Speaker 1: they're using spears, they're using clubs, they're they're slinging arrows
Speaker 1: at each other. Um. So it's it's kind of easy
Speaker 1: to just on the surface of things think that any
Speaker 1: weapon that elaborates beyond those basic forms is just something
Speaker 1: that someone dreamed up because it was fun. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's important to point out here too that
Speaker 1: the chack ram, at least the way that it was
Speaker 1: demonstrated in the research that we looked at, can be
Speaker 1: thrown in two ways. It can be thrown like a frisbee, obviously,
Speaker 1: but ideally the way you want to throw it is
Speaker 1: by spinning it around on your index finger with your
Speaker 1: finger in the center of the halo, because that's the
Speaker 1: part that's not sharp. And if you're doing it right,
Speaker 1: you can let it whip the way you would with
Speaker 1: like in a roby, and it will go far, quiet
Speaker 1: and in a straight line. And they the demonstrations I
Speaker 1: saw this thing like it is designed to cut through
Speaker 1: a human limb. Like there they have to quote daft
Speaker 1: punk or to miss to alter their quote. If you're
Speaker 1: doing it right, everybody will be bleeding. Ah, very nice,
Speaker 1: very nice. Yeah. I mean one of the demonstrations I
Speaker 1: saw this was they they looked at thick bamboo as
Speaker 1: being analogous to a human limb, and then they tested
Speaker 1: them against the bamboo and it cut right through. Yes.
Speaker 1: I saw some demonstrations with sugarcane, the idea being that
Speaker 1: sugarcane had the thick had basically the thickness of human bone,
Speaker 1: and therefore they would if it would cut through that,
Speaker 1: then it was up to snuff. Yeah. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: getting hit with one of these. Well, you know, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and when you come back, we
Speaker 1: will will get more in depth about the military history
Speaker 1: of the chakra. Alright, we're back. So, as we've already discussed,
Speaker 1: we know that the use of chakram's probably dates back
Speaker 1: to uh, you know, the time of the Hindu epic Mahabarata,
Speaker 1: because we see we read accounts of its use there
Speaker 1: now at times either some fantasy and its description like
Speaker 1: that it's returning like a boomerang uh and and that
Speaker 1: does not seem to be the case with the chakra
Speaker 1: as far as we know. The physics of that are
Speaker 1: not designed for it, right, you know, the same way again,
Speaker 1: like good luck throw in Captain America's shield and getting
Speaker 1: it to bounce back and come to you. Yes, and
Speaker 1: good luck catching a chakram, right, Yeah, nobody wants to
Speaker 1: catch a chakra. Yeah. But but but we know that
Speaker 1: it was used in in Vadic India. And we know
Speaker 1: this because it it became one of the primary SHOs
Speaker 1: stars or weapons of the ghatka, which is the seekh
Speaker 1: martial art. Okay, Yeah, and that's what I saw demonstrated
Speaker 1: in these videos with the martial artists who specialized in
Speaker 1: that form. Yeah. The Sikhs really became the I guess,
Speaker 1: the masters and the stewards of the chakram even into
Speaker 1: modern day. Let's actually, let's take a quick tangent and
Speaker 1: explain Sikhism if just in case there are people in
Speaker 1: the audience who are vaguely aware of it but don't
Speaker 1: really understand. You know, why, why would why would this
Speaker 1: religion have its own martial art for instance? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think this is a great excuse to discuss Sikism a
Speaker 1: little bit, because Sikhism is a is a major world
Speaker 1: religion that is really I think under represented and often misunderstood.
Speaker 1: People will will see see because there's there are a
Speaker 1: lot of Seeks living internationally and not just in the
Speaker 1: you know, the Punjab region of India and uh and
Speaker 1: and sometimes they are confused with with with Muslims or
Speaker 1: with with with or people think that they are Hindu
Speaker 1: or or Buddhist and they don't really understand what what
Speaker 1: Sikhism is. Yeah. Absolutely so Again, like I grew up
Speaker 1: in Southeast Asia, A couple of the kids who went
Speaker 1: to our school where Seeks, some of our teachers were
Speaker 1: seek uh And then also like living in the northeast,
Speaker 1: there was a big Sikh community around the Boston area,
Speaker 1: and I remember right after nine eleven there was a
Speaker 1: lot of like consternation because essentially people who didn't know
Speaker 1: any better assumed Seeks were for some reason Muslim, I
Speaker 1: guess because they had beards and war turban war turban,
Speaker 1: and so there was like violence against the Sikh community. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: just to just to lay out the basics, Sikhism is
Speaker 1: a monotheistic ethno religion that follows the teachings of Guru Nanak.
Speaker 1: This was a and and Sikism emerged in the Punjab
Speaker 1: region of northwestern India during the sixteenth century, and it's
Speaker 1: most notable to outsiders because a Sikh Man carry a
Speaker 1: ceremonial sword or dagger Uh, they's called a kurpan. But
Speaker 1: the chakram also factors into their traditions, sometimes worn and
Speaker 1: in their turn been or around the turban or in
Speaker 1: the past on a on a conical turban. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: warriors had specific turbans that they would wear in conjunction
Speaker 1: with the shock rams that were more cone like. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: the kurpon the wearing of the of the of the dagger,
Speaker 1: the sword, that's one of the what's called the five
Speaker 1: k's Uh. Each of these are are a practice or
Speaker 1: tradition that is symbolic of the seek faith, each in
Speaker 1: its own right. So you have kesh which is uncut hair, cara,
Speaker 1: a steel bracelet, conga a wooden comb uh, kotsha which
Speaker 1: is which is essentially a special form of cotton undergarment.
Speaker 1: And then there is the kirpon the steel sword or dagger. Now,
Speaker 1: the sword itself, the wearing of the weapon can stand
Speaker 1: for a number of different things. Spirituality, the soldier, part
Speaker 1: of soldier saints, defensive, good defense, of the week, struggle
Speaker 1: against injustice or a metaphor for God. Now this in
Speaker 1: a Seek faith. We're not gonna have time to really
Speaker 1: do a deep dive on it here, but it it
Speaker 1: basically centers around good works and the leading of a
Speaker 1: moral life. And there were ten gurus and all beginning
Speaker 1: with that that first guru Guru Nanak who founded it,
Speaker 1: and then you had the final guru, Guru Gobin Singh,
Speaker 1: who lives sixteen sixty six through seventeen o eight, and
Speaker 1: he decreed that after he died, the Seek Holy Book,
Speaker 1: the Guru Grand Sahd would serve as his successor instead
Speaker 1: of a human being. Interesting, that's very interesting, especially like
Speaker 1: in light of other religions and sort of uh, you know, viz.
Speaker 1: For power Game of Thrones over over religious power. I
Speaker 1: guess what I really find interesting about this, and especially
Speaker 1: what you were just saying about the sword, is the
Speaker 1: cultural symbolism here, right, because both the sword in the
Speaker 1: Chakram have symbolic meaning that's related to their religion, right,
Speaker 1: And uh, it's you know, you see this in in
Speaker 1: some Western forms, but usually in depictions, right, like a
Speaker 1: coat of arms or something will be the shape of
Speaker 1: a shield and it might have a sword in it,
Speaker 1: but the actual shield and the sword may not actually
Speaker 1: be symbols related to Christianity, right, Whereas in this their weapons,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say that their weapons were specifically
Speaker 1: designed to be symbols, but rather the other way around.
Speaker 1: They found out ways for them to symbolically be connected
Speaker 1: to their beliefs, which made them even more important. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, the key Sikh icon has does have a
Speaker 1: chakram right along with blades. Uh. Yeah, I do want
Speaker 1: to say that if you want to learn more about
Speaker 1: about Sikhism and the Sikhs, I highly recommend the BBC
Speaker 1: Religion page on the topic. And uh it's you can
Speaker 1: basically do it by doing a search for BBC Religion
Speaker 1: Sikhism and this page will come up for you. But
Speaker 1: it's it's in depth and it's laid out in a
Speaker 1: very consumable fashion. Okay, all right, so let's not miss
Speaker 1: the point though, that the chakram was a weapon. It
Speaker 1: was deployed in battle, and the Sikhs used it in
Speaker 1: battle for a large portion of their history, so they
Speaker 1: had they would go into battle with these these iron rings.
Speaker 1: Typically there are about twenty centimeters in diameter, and again
Speaker 1: they had had that sharp outer edge blunt inner edge,
Speaker 1: and a warrior would go in with as you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: with the shock him around his neck, around his arms,
Speaker 1: and then you could throw it like a frisbee, but
Speaker 1: most likely would spin it around a finger and then
Speaker 1: sail it into the enemy. In particular, historical accounts indicate
Speaker 1: that the Sikhs use these weapons in compact against the Moguls,
Speaker 1: and typically in volley fire at a range of a
Speaker 1: few dozen meters, so that the Sikh warriors known as
Speaker 1: the Nahan, would fling the weapons in into the enemy's
Speaker 1: front lines in order to break up the troops. So
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be necessarily sending this at a single person,
Speaker 1: but you just vollowing them into a mass of troops
Speaker 1: in order to break them up. Yeah, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to me like there is you know, obviously if anybody's
Speaker 1: played frisbee before, especially something like ultimate frisbee, right, like,
Speaker 1: it's not that predictable as to where the disc is
Speaker 1: conn right well, but you do have more precision over
Speaker 1: the arobie style and therefore the chockrame style. What's um
Speaker 1: now to give you some dates to sort of ground
Speaker 1: this so you have an understanding of when this was used.
Speaker 1: The mogul fighting that Robert just mentioned that was seeks
Speaker 1: fighting against persecution during that period and that was fifteen
Speaker 1: fifty six to seventeen oh seven, and then it was
Speaker 1: used again during the Anglo Seek Wars which were eighteen
Speaker 1: forty five to eighteen forty six, and then again from
Speaker 1: eighteen forty eight to eighteen forty nine. So that's our
Speaker 1: most recent example, that nineteenth century form of it. Now
Speaker 1: one of the one of the videos we're looking at
Speaker 1: his research for this because it's it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: find a lot of hardcore material on the chockrame. I
Speaker 1: did find a uh an excellent source on on the
Speaker 1: practices of seek is um the Oxford Handbook of Seek Studies.
Speaker 1: That was really helpful, as well as as when we
Speaker 1: get into more of the aerodynamics, I found a book
Speaker 1: titled Spinning Flight Dynamics of Frisbee's Boomerangs, Um Samaras and
Speaker 1: Skipping Stones by Ralph de Lorenz. But we also look
Speaker 1: to some of these videos that feature Seeks demonstrating their
Speaker 1: martial art, and one of the points they made is
Speaker 1: that so many weapons that are thrown or fired any
Speaker 1: kind of ranged weapon, there's only one point or one
Speaker 1: part of the weapon that can injure the opponent. So
Speaker 1: if it's it's like throwing an axe, right, Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you get the revolution right, yeah, it's going to sink in.
Speaker 1: Otherwise it's going a less effective portion of the ax
Speaker 1: may strike the enemy. But for the chackram, all, all
Speaker 1: all portions of the of the blade in flight are
Speaker 1: going to do damage to whatever hits comes in contact
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah. Absolutely. The example I recall them using
Speaker 1: was using a throwing knife versus using a shock ram.
Speaker 1: If you throw a knife, you could hit somebody with
Speaker 1: a handle and it might not really do all that
Speaker 1: much damage. If you hit them with a chockram, no
Speaker 1: matter where it lands, it's gonna hurt. And as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: so the symbolism again is still important. In fact, today
Speaker 1: the Seek holy flag that flies outside of their places
Speaker 1: of worship portrays the conda, and this is a symbol
Speaker 1: of the Seeks that features a chokram in its design.
Speaker 1: And again getting back to that circular thing, it's a
Speaker 1: circle without a beginning or an end, so it makes
Speaker 1: a perfect iconic symbol for the perfection of an eternal God. Alright,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're gonna discuss some of the aerodynamics of the chockram
Speaker 1: and the and the aerobie and and see what what
Speaker 1: science has to say about this, uh, this alleged wonder
Speaker 1: weapon than Alright, we're back. So I just last week
Speaker 1: and this isn't related to us choosing this as a topic.
Speaker 1: Got a toy for my dogs to play within the yard,
Speaker 1: and you know dogs love frisbees, right, So I went
Speaker 1: to the pet store and they had this thing that
Speaker 1: now I realize is essentially a cockram. It's this like
Speaker 1: plastic sort of in a robie, not plastic rubber um,
Speaker 1: but it has a halo interior so you can spin
Speaker 1: it around on your finger. But it's especially great because
Speaker 1: the dogs like to catch it and then like hold
Speaker 1: it in the inside of their mouth that that ring um.
Speaker 1: And I didn't realize like, you know, throwing it around.
Speaker 1: Actually it's advertised on the packaging and everything, and it
Speaker 1: says like, oh, this is this is especially developed so
Speaker 1: that it flies very easily for dogs, and it's got
Speaker 1: like this unlike the chock ram or most frisbees has
Speaker 1: like kind of like a wobbly pattern to it on purpose,
Speaker 1: and I think it's just for like people like me
Speaker 1: who aren't that great at throwing frisbees, and it's sort
Speaker 1: of naturally adjust the aerodynamics for you, so it goes
Speaker 1: in more of a straight line than it would. Oh man,
Speaker 1: this is just making me imagine all of these dogs
Speaker 1: out there that are being trained, essentially trained to intercept
Speaker 1: chock rams in midflight. I mean, luckily there are a
Speaker 1: type of shock rams flying around out there, but I
Speaker 1: can just imagine it, and it's well, hey, remember our
Speaker 1: episode on using animals as weapons, and when they used
Speaker 1: to this as recently as the last century, they would
Speaker 1: strap bombs to dogs backs and have them climb under
Speaker 1: tanks and essentially stand up and and self detonate. You know,
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't be that surprised if the chock frame
Speaker 1: came back into style, if they started training dogs to
Speaker 1: be that, that would be awful. That's like the worst
Speaker 1: like most graphic thing I can probably imagine is a
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm a dog lover, well man, you know,
Speaker 1: like if aliens attack tomorrow and they used disc or
Speaker 1: chackrame based weapons, the dogs would just jump out there
Speaker 1: and and unwittingly sacrifice them themselves. I mean, what if
Speaker 1: the Predator show The Predator does have a disc weapon? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a good thing that dogs never
Speaker 1: get uploaded into the Tron universe. So she went on
Speaker 1: your identity rings. So, but if we're gonna bring it
Speaker 1: back into the real world. The flying disc obviously dates
Speaker 1: back to the chockrame, but it was actually popularized by
Speaker 1: the Wamo company in the Team fifty seven with their
Speaker 1: trademark Frisbee Now. Alan Adler then designed the aeroby long
Speaker 1: distance throwing ring specifically after the chockrame and his added
Speaker 1: air foiling technology as it's called. Basically, it's added to
Speaker 1: the rubber and the plastic that are in these rings
Speaker 1: allows them to go up to two d and fifty meters.
Speaker 1: Most of us are familiar with these, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's worth pointing out that the air the Aeroby
Speaker 1: pro in particular, has held two Guinness World records for
Speaker 1: the longest throw of an object without any velocity aiding feature. Wow.
Speaker 1: Have you ever played frisbee golf before? I have not.
Speaker 1: It's my my brothers really into it, and so I've
Speaker 1: gone occasionally to a couple of frisbee golf courses, and
Speaker 1: you know, like in golf, there's different types of frisbees
Speaker 1: in the same way there's different types of clubs. And
Speaker 1: I think listeners correct me if I'm wrong, but I
Speaker 1: think there might be one of the frisbees that is
Speaker 1: is like a chockram that has a halo in two.
Speaker 1: So you're permitted to use a chockram in like ultimate
Speaker 1: frisbee frisbee golf. I don't know about ultimate frisbee but
Speaker 1: I think because frisbee golf, essentially your goal is you
Speaker 1: try to throw the frisbee so that it lands inside
Speaker 1: a basket. That's like your version of the golf hole. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think one of the key things here to keep
Speaker 1: in mind, and the the aerobi versus frisbee debate, if
Speaker 1: you will, there's basically no debate. The aerobe or chockram
Speaker 1: design is aerodynamically superior. And that's one of the beauties
Speaker 1: of this is that that in ancient India they perfected
Speaker 1: this form long long before anyone was interested in just
Speaker 1: throwing them around, long before they had rubber available to them. Right, Um, So,
Speaker 1: how did the physics of this whole thing work. Right,
Speaker 1: You're probably saying, Hey, this is a science podcast, you
Speaker 1: guys can actually talk about the science of this thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: we will here it is. So if you think of
Speaker 1: it this way, a flying disc is an axe symmetric wing. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it's one wing that's symmetrical with an elliptical cross section,
Speaker 1: and the lift of the body is what's important here. Right.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of math involved in this, in the
Speaker 1: physics behind it, and I don't think it would probably
Speaker 1: not be fun to listen on a podcast to me
Speaker 1: just spell out equations for you. So I'm gonna deter
Speaker 1: from that. But what determines the lift is the cross
Speaker 1: sectional area working together with the disks density. So this
Speaker 1: is its free stream velocity and a constant of its
Speaker 1: shape and its angle. Okay, now we all anybody who's
Speaker 1: throwing a frisbee basically understands this, right, Like how heavy
Speaker 1: the thing is, how dense the thing is versus like
Speaker 1: the angle that you throw it at, and then probably
Speaker 1: like what the conditions are in the air, right, So
Speaker 1: how does it stay stable? Well, the center of pressure
Speaker 1: due to the lift is offset by gravity, so gravity
Speaker 1: is obviously another function here. So if you just simply
Speaker 1: threw it right, imagine and we've all done this as
Speaker 1: little kids. You take a frisbee and you don't even
Speaker 1: try to throw it like the way that a disc
Speaker 1: would go. You just like huck it and the lift
Speaker 1: causes it to up over backwards. When you do something
Speaker 1: like that, the spin itself of the disk is key
Speaker 1: to keeping the gyroscopic stability and speed of these things,
Speaker 1: and this is something that the warriors who used the
Speaker 1: chockrame figured out. Now, the mass of the disk is
Speaker 1: also going to affect this as well. Right, we were
Speaker 1: talking about density before, but also just it's mass, a
Speaker 1: greater inertia will also increase his stability. So the heart
Speaker 1: you throw it essentially right, those more stable it could
Speaker 1: potentially be. Now in the case of the frisbee, the
Speaker 1: disc having a what is called a viscous no slip
Speaker 1: condition also contributes to the vorticity right the way that
Speaker 1: it's spins, So part of the whole, like rubber design
Speaker 1: uh is built into that to to contribute to that.
Speaker 1: When you look at the chockram, I think it's pretty similar, right,
Speaker 1: Like I was watching one of those um Man at
Speaker 1: Arms reforged videos where they like actually made Zena's chockrame
Speaker 1: and they were test throwing them. But while they were
Speaker 1: forging them, they were making sure that it was as
Speaker 1: flat as possible, as smooth as possible. They spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time on a grinder making sure that the
Speaker 1: shape worked well so that it would be it would
Speaker 1: throw and have this vorticity. So the circulation about the
Speaker 1: disk itself and the flow of the air that moves
Speaker 1: past it causes a force that determines its angular momentum.
Speaker 1: And this is attributed to something that's called the Magnus effect.
Speaker 1: And essentially this is caused by one side of the
Speaker 1: disk perceiving a higher free stream velocity than the other,
Speaker 1: which causes a pressure gradient. So you know, one side
Speaker 1: of the disk basically has like the the air going
Speaker 1: kind of over it. Uh, it's interesting. Like again, this
Speaker 1: would be another point where it would be nice if
Speaker 1: we had graphics on a podcast. But if you see
Speaker 1: charts of this, it shows you just how the air
Speaker 1: is kind of moving around the object itself. For instance,
Speaker 1: here's an example, when you throw a frisbee clockwise, it
Speaker 1: tends to veer to the left right. It's the same
Speaker 1: effect that causes a ping pong ball to travel along
Speaker 1: a curved path when a player puts a spin on
Speaker 1: it with their paddle. You know, like if you're real
Speaker 1: into ping pong and you know how to do the spin, uh,
Speaker 1: it's the whole It's the same thing essentially, so it
Speaker 1: allows it to to move in a particular direction. Now,
Speaker 1: some of us do this unintentionally, myself included. This goes
Speaker 1: back to that dog toy was talking about. We're also
Speaker 1: just you know, human and child toys. I feel like
Speaker 1: this this effect of throwing a frisbee is one of
Speaker 1: the reason that many attempts to play with frisbees and
Speaker 1: like a few throws in because you're like, through the frisbee,
Speaker 1: it should be fun, but it's over there now yeah
Speaker 1: yeah right, Like that's inevitably I'll throw it and it
Speaker 1: lands nowhere near the person who's supposed to catch it,
Speaker 1: and they're just like, come on, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Um now. Frisbees also used the discs rim and the
Speaker 1: top ridges on it to improve these effects. So you know,
Speaker 1: remember like the molding on on the frisbees we use
Speaker 1: as kids that would have kind of like those those
Speaker 1: actually they're almost like serrations right, Um, but the ockram
Speaker 1: doesn't have these. The chockram is essentially flat. Now, in
Speaker 1: the case of the chockrame, its shape allows it to
Speaker 1: hold a stable position for relatively long distances. Now, in fact,
Speaker 1: it is actually more efficient than a frisbee, exactly like
Speaker 1: what Robert said, you can throw these things further. And
Speaker 1: one thing that's key to these is the design of
Speaker 1: the chockrame is designed to make it silent, to like,
Speaker 1: you don't want people to hear this thing necessarily, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first thing they're going to hear or the screams
Speaker 1: of it cutting into your right. It's not like with
Speaker 1: Zeno where she does that like weird yelping how right
Speaker 1: before she throws it Amazonian kind of war cry. So
Speaker 1: to try and um, you know, summarize and also maybe
Speaker 1: just add a little bit uh more to our discussion
Speaker 1: of a very dynamics here. So the chockrame aerobie design
Speaker 1: is going to minimize torque. It's gonna fly straight without rolling,
Speaker 1: and it requires very little angle of attack and works
Speaker 1: with the near a horizontal throw and as Ralph Delrenz
Speaker 1: points out in that book, spinning flight, which I definitely
Speaker 1: recommend for anyone wants a deeper dive in all of this,
Speaker 1: he writes at the chockram quote exploits the stability of
Speaker 1: a spinning ring with the aerodynamic performance of a flat plate.
Speaker 1: So it's circumvents the frisbee or the flying discs. Main
Speaker 1: aerodynamic problem forward center lift and the resultant pitch up
Speaker 1: moment with increased range. You know what, I just remembered
Speaker 1: another pop culture example. It's not a shockram, it's more
Speaker 1: like a frisbee. Do you remember in the Dark Tower
Speaker 1: books they meet that tribe of women who throw plates.
Speaker 1: They're like steel plates, and they come up with this
Speaker 1: martial arts form where they throw them as uh like
Speaker 1: cutting weapons. Three is this the waistline? It's Wolves of
Speaker 1: the co That one was more recent. I can't believe it.
Speaker 1: And then like Susannah learns how to perfect this. There's
Speaker 1: this amazing drawing in the book of her in her
Speaker 1: wheelchair throwing a bunch of these at a wall and
Speaker 1: they're all like sticking into the wall. I forgot all
Speaker 1: about that, And just now I remember the flying death spares.
Speaker 1: Uh that, but but not anything else. Okay, Well, there's
Speaker 1: a there's another example of a flying discs. I do
Speaker 1: love it when they're they're utilized well, uh in a
Speaker 1: fictional property, But but more often than not, they're gonna
Speaker 1: be frisbee shaped as opposed to chockrame shape, it seems. So.
Speaker 1: Now we're talking about aerodynamics here, so I imagine some
Speaker 1: people were wondering, well, how about how about chockrame based aircraft,
Speaker 1: especially given that we just recently talked about alien abduction
Speaker 1: for two episodes in the show. Most UFOs are reportedly
Speaker 1: disc shaped. Yeah, they're talking about spinning disks and and
Speaker 1: if you're into this sort of thing, there are those
Speaker 1: who who point back to a lot of different elements
Speaker 1: of the wonder weapons utilized in Hindu mythology and say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: clearly this is a UFO, this is a nuclear weapon, etcetera.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I mean, I don't buy into it, but
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a fun exercise that sounds like
Speaker 1: some three eyed Ravens stuff there. Yeah, probably so uh uh.
Speaker 1: So I did some digging around, and while there are
Speaker 1: some wonderful examples of disc shaped aircraft designs, there's not
Speaker 1: really anything in the way of true chockrame style aircraft.
Speaker 1: So you have, for instance, there's the the l RV,
Speaker 1: the Lenticular Reentry Vehicle, which was a US Cold War
Speaker 1: era nuclear warhead delivery system that probably never actually flew,
Speaker 1: and it it kind of looked like a flying saucer,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the reasons that that certain communities
Speaker 1: are really into talking about them. But yeah, this particular
Speaker 1: aircraft may have not even have flown, and it certainly
Speaker 1: didn't spin around in circles. Um other flying disc aircraft
Speaker 1: also looked similar to the chockrame, but they basically relegated
Speaker 1: the center of the disc to engine or a cockpit,
Speaker 1: and in any event, these didn't spin either. You had
Speaker 1: the uh the Avro Canada VC nine Avro Car, which
Speaker 1: is a vertical takeoff design, but there were thrust in
Speaker 1: stability problems with it. During World War Two, the Luftwaffe
Speaker 1: had the sack A S six prototype circular wing aircraft,
Speaker 1: and also during the Second World War, the U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy experimented with the Void x F five you or
Speaker 1: flying Flapjack, which was a fun looking design with like
Speaker 1: a circular wing array, but as it turns out, it
Speaker 1: didn't actually fly. It just kind of hopped and therefore
Speaker 1: was failure there's actually a fun a thesis that I
Speaker 1: ran across from one chew for Hanna Hassan, and he's
Speaker 1: a mechanical is or was a mechanical engineering student at
Speaker 1: the National University of Singapore, and he took inspiration from
Speaker 1: the chockram in designing a drone and even build a
Speaker 1: functional prototype. So I'll try and include a link to
Speaker 1: his website that has his thesis in a video of
Speaker 1: this chockram based drone flying. But I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: because maybe we just haven't reached the point in in techno,
Speaker 1: in technological achievement where we're going to have like functional
Speaker 1: chockram flying vehicles or flying drones well the way, Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to think about it. Uh And obviously
Speaker 1: I'm not an engineer, so forgive me out there, but
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think about it from the perspective of
Speaker 1: designing something that flies like a chockram but is stable
Speaker 1: enough for a pilot, right, And I think the problem
Speaker 1: would be that your pilot would be getting spun around
Speaker 1: and would just completely you know, be unable to pilot
Speaker 1: such a such a device if it was moving with
Speaker 1: that kind of spin. So you've got to find out
Speaker 1: a way to keep the center from spinning while the
Speaker 1: actual ship itself has these I guess exterior halo discs
Speaker 1: that spin around that allows it to move. The closest
Speaker 1: thing that I can think of in one of the
Speaker 1: old old in one of the prequel Star Wars movies,
Speaker 1: I think, didn't Obi Wan Kenobi have like a spaceship
Speaker 1: that had like a an exterior ring kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and then like the actual pod was in the middle,
Speaker 1: but the rings didn't move around, they didn't actually spin.
Speaker 1: This is interesting, you know, I'm I'm beginning to wonder
Speaker 1: this might be a whole future episode for us. But
Speaker 1: you have all these accounts of alleged UFOs that we're spinning,
Speaker 1: and certainly we've talked about the use of spinning spacecraft
Speaker 1: as a as a means of potentially creating a suitable
Speaker 1: amount of artificial gravity. But I don't recall ever running
Speaker 1: across any arguments as to why a UFO would be spinning,
Speaker 1: Like what is it? Is it somehow supposed to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, provide it's it's acceleration, or is it maintaining
Speaker 1: an internal environment, or is it just like the circular
Speaker 1: spinning disk is such a like pervasive symbol throughout all cultures.
Speaker 1: It's universal, right that, It's like it's pretty easy to
Speaker 1: ground that as like a ship design. And yet again
Speaker 1: I can't really think other than like you know, X files,
Speaker 1: spaceships or something like that. I can't really think of
Speaker 1: any even and fictional examples of this working. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: not off hand, but hey, maybe listeners out there can
Speaker 1: can provide us with some examples. Yeah, totally. So if
Speaker 1: you want to write into us, tell us maybe something
Speaker 1: that you know about this fabulous weapon that we missed,
Speaker 1: or tell us, you know some aerodynamics information on how
Speaker 1: the disc shape could contribute to an actual flying vehicle.
Speaker 1: You can reach out to us on social media. We're
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, and Instagram, and in fact, we
Speaker 1: also have our Facebook discussion module right now which is
Speaker 1: running hot. There are some great conversations going on in there.
Speaker 1: I want to thank everybody who's listening that is in
Speaker 1: there contributing. It's really turning into its own little community,
Speaker 1: people talking about stuff not even uh necessarily related to
Speaker 1: the podcast, but our potential topics that we would talk about,
Speaker 1: and having conversations amongst themselves. Yeah. Yeah, by all means
Speaker 1: jump in and join the conversation there and and do
Speaker 1: let us know if there are some any great shot
Speaker 1: ram based fight sequences in films that we're just not
Speaker 1: aware of. Particularly, I know I'm not that well versed
Speaker 1: in in Hindi films, and I know there's some phenomenal
Speaker 1: action sequences that do pop up. Surely there must be
Speaker 1: some kind of Bollywood film in which these are used,
Speaker 1: you think, yeah, or or perhaps they've popped up in
Speaker 1: Hong Kong cinema into some entry that I'm not familiar
Speaker 1: with because there's so many different elaborate weapons. Granted, most
Speaker 1: of which are are based in in Chinese traditions. But
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you just need to add some spark
Speaker 1: to your fight sequences and incorporate something new. Right, that's right,
Speaker 1: it's true. And hey, another way you can contact us,
Speaker 1: the old fashioned simple way. Reach out to us on
Speaker 1: email at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot
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