blade that can slice through anything?

Haven't you guys seen those late night infomercials for those knives that can cut through anything?
I don't know what they're made of but they kick pretty solid ass, they can cut through the head of a sledge hammer, and then straight afterwards glide through frozen meat like hot butter.
A sword made like one of them would be pretty kick ass, you could lop off limps with the flick of a wrist.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Ya and things a just a few feet away from the bomb could withstand the multi-million degree temperatures... Yaaaa

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

No form of solid matter within the plasma ball of the bomb would survive.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

makes me woncer of one thing:
Is it true that plasma is a collection of sub-atomic particles?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

curioucity,

Depending plasma could means alot of things: it could mean body fluid such a blood plasma or a ionized hot gas or any substance of fluid nature.

 

Plasma, as refered to here, is so energetic that the electrons are stripped from the atoms, making a soup of nuclei and electrons. The amount of energy required depends on how long you want it to stay plasma, and what your making it out of. The gas in your flourescent light is plasma. The superheated hydrogen inside of a funsion reactor is plasma. The fluid in your blood is also called plasma, but it's a totally differnet story. The plasma WCF is refering to in the post before yours is mostly the bomb, and the air surrounding it, pumped with as much energy as, generally, twenty thousand to fifty million tons of TNT. If it isn't vaporized instantly, it's certainly melted to slag in a few seconds.

 

gee, scary..... btw, from what I've read too, to make plasma one doesn't neccessarily need to heat up material to some point. Is it true?

 

Florescent lights work by passing electricity through a small amount of murcury gas. This ionizes the gas, producing a small amount of plasma. The plasma emits UV light, which passes through a chemical coating the inside of the tube, converting it to visible light. There are variations on this, but this is basically how it works. You can touch these lights and not get burned while they're on, so obviously how hot a plasma is varies.

Essentially plasma is a bunch of ions. Using an electric current, like in the light, requires less energy than the bomb. BTW, the light doesn't use pure plasma, there's alway a little bit of it that's gas.

 

"cut through anything"

As far as I am aware, there have been no "man-made" materials developed "harder than" diamond. One of the closest is CBN:

"Cubic boron nitride (CBN) is an artificially synthesized material exceeded in hardness only by diamond. Unlike diamond, CBN is stable under conditions of high temperature (up to 1000 degrees C) normally created when machining hardened ferrous or super alloy materials."

I've done some tooling design (mechanical engineer) so I know a bit about this. Implied in your question is not just the HARDNESS of the blade, but the EFFECTIVENESS of the blade.

Actually one of the most effective blade configurations is high-strength steel with a COATING of diamond or CBN on the edge. The core material of the blade has the excellent toughness of high strength steel, while the microns-thin coating is extremely hard and able to "cut" into any substance presented to it.

Of course it also depends on the geometry of what you are trying to cut - so that the geometry of the cutting tool must be optimized accordingly.

 

Obsidian.

The sharpest edge known to man. Sharper than an unused scalpal and used in eye surgery prior to the proliferation of the laser.

It just won't hold an edge.

 

Last I knew several carbide compounds were harder. Like diamond, though, they are too brittle to be used alone. Everything else, about material and blade goemetry I agree with. I've just been told from several sources that silicon carbide(at least) is harder.

 

The Skinwalker's got a point - glass will fracture to a molecular edge. That's why they started using obsidian for surgical cutting tools.

I like the chainsaw idea myself...

Lastly, the ultrasonically vibrating blade is a sorta cool idea, but wouldn't it go blunt REALLY fast? I mean, it would be about the same as if you sawed down a tree with your breadknife, it would just happen really quickly... wear on the blade would still be commensurate to cutting, I would think.

Also -

Ultrasonic vibrations will make your hand vibrate at something like the same frequency, which would make it get really big and red and itchy.

And -

What happens if you're having a vibroblade fight? Someone attacks - you block - you both go deaf from the sound.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

or something like that.

 

double suicide using sound, hahahaha...........
Hmmm, is it that I'm not thorough yet, or has nobody mentioned electric blades? Though I doubt it will be sharp, right.
Oh, I remember this. Can a 'super-effective' blade be made in such a way that it manipulates elements? I mean like fire, lightning, etc etc....

 

Fire is not a super effective cutting tool unless it's really REALLY hot, like a cutting torch. Even then it's not really fast - assuming that you want something that cuts about as fast as you can swing it, fire is probably not the way to go. Flaming sword would look pretty impressive...

Electricity would probably be a little better; a high enough voltage will ionize almost any solid and hopefully cause its particles to disassociate. This kind of "arc cutter" would require extremely high voltage/current however.

So far the most effective cutting "element" that anyone's mentioned is probably water, combined with an abrasive.

 

Okay, point taken.
Speaking of water, what about freezing sword?
I think even when a freezing sword is set to be so cold, it won't crack big stuffs easily.....

 

I believe that he was meaning high pressure water jets. At ver yhigh pressures, water will cut through alot of stuff. Abrasives added to the stream make it essentially a focused sand blaster, the aplications vary.

 

Freezing club would be better - freeze things and then shatter them. Only problem is, I have no idea how to freeze things quickly except for squirting something like liquid nitrogen on them. I don't think a freezing sword would be much use at all... but that's me...

How about something that uses micro black holes? If they were small enough, they could be suspended somehow and would consume the matter in their path, possibly leaving a clear swath through any object.

They would tend to bleed off mass over time, so they shouldn't get out of control. Black hole blade!

 

Sorta like invisible blade to me.....

 

harder than diamond? I think not

LOL you need to shoot those sources. Silicon carbide compounds ain't harder than diamond. I should know, I worked with all those materials for years.

When you talk about Hardness, you can use the Rockwell scale or the Brinell scale, or sometimes, the MOHS scale. Any way you cut it, Diamond exceeds any of the manmade materials, although CBN (cubic boron nitride) is very close. In some cases it has advantages over diamond (namely, cost!) but it is not harder.

If still in doubt - here's data from an independent source.

http://www.us-products.com/sitehtml/lappingabrs.html

*********************************************

DIAMOND: (Rating, MOHS 10) Both a natural and man-made synthetic abrasive. The hardest and sharpest abrasive known. Best suited for tungsten carbide and other very hard materials. Because it is so hard it should not be used on softer metals where embedding may be a factor. When a plate has been embedded with the Diamond abrasive, it cuts fast and produces fine finishes. In recent years, synthetic fine Diamond powders have been increasingly used in industrial applications.

CUBIC BORON NITRIDE (commonly known as Borazon™ CBN): A man-made synthetic abrasive that is almost as hard as Diamond on the MOHS scale. This abrasive material is well suited to ferrous metals in a lapping operation, as it will not carbonize as Diamond will when interacting with Fe (Iron). Borazon™ CBN is especially well suited for lapping 52100 bearing steel, cast iron, die steel, tool steel, stellite, super alloys and in some cases ceramic materials.

NORBIDE ABRASIVE: (Rating, MOHS 9.7) A fused abrasive with high grain strength. It has a hexagonal structure and is not easily friable. Useful only for unusual or special lapping operations.

SILICON CARBIDE: (Rating, MOHS 9.5) A fused, hard crystalline abrasive. Fast cutting with good crystal breakdown when used to lap either high or low tensile strength material. It is well suited for rough lapping operations, forged or hardened gears, valves, tool room work and general maintenance where polish is not essential. With Silicon Carbide, all lapped material will have a frosty or gray finish.

ALUMINUM OXIDE: (Rating, MOHS 9, just under Silicon Carbide) A fused, crystalline abrasive. It has a very hard crystal structure that is slowly dulled and hard to fracture. It is best suited for use on high tensile strength materials, rough lapping operations, hardened hears, ball bearing grooves or lapping operations where pressure can be exerted to break down the crystals. It does not lend itself to fine finishes or precision lapping.

FUSED ALUMINA: (Rating, MOHS 9) Another form of Fused Alumina is the 38 white Aluminum Oxide abrasive, which is white in color with friable crystals. The pressure on (friable) crystals, while lapping, causes them to keep breaking down into still smaller particles, which perform the finishing operation, to produce the low r.m.s. finishes or polish. 38 while Aluminum Oxide is valuable for lapping stainless, chrome plate, beryllium and ferrite whose hardness range is below the 62-63 Rockwell C Scale.

CORUNDUM: (Rating, MOHS 9) A natural abrasive found in the earth, with a softer crystalline structure than Silicon Carbide or Aluminum Oxide. It breaks down readily and is important for lapping a great variety of medium-hard metals (Rockwell C 35-45). It gives a medium polish or reflective finish.

GARNET: (Rating, MOHS 8 to 9) A natural abrasive mined from the earth, with a blocky crystalline structure that does not readily embed itself in lapped parts. Its greatest asset is that it may be safely used for lapping cast iron gears, brass or bronze running seals and instrument gears where non-embedding qualities are desired. It has a medium polishing quality.

 

Very nice Watcher, that’s the kind of science we like here... with reference and detailed explanations.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Thank you for clarifying that for me, Watcher.