
Swords in Space: The First (?) Frontier
There have been a number of very good physics descriptions of sword motion. However they neglect the most important part: a sword isn’t free floating in space!
There have been a number of very good physics descriptions of sword motion. However they neglect the most important part: a sword isn’t free floating in space!
We frequently talk about how to make swords “safe”. Unfortunately unless you can come up with a definition which satisfies a few specific criteria, the word “safe” doesn’t have a lot of meaning.
From a blade resistance point of view, cutting actually has two distinct phases: the internal and external.
Two of the most popular ways to quantify blade stiffness are the SCA Flex Test and the Buckling Test. Unfortunately they both have issues, but we’re suffering for lack of better solutions.
“In your opinion, which country has the highest level of practitioners?” Let’s see if I can answer this in the most unhelpful way possible.
Vectors are used to describe just about everything in life. And all it takes to win a sword fight is to transform all your opponent’s vectors into ones that can’t hurt you. Piece of cake!
In Part1 we discussed what flinging is, why n00bs fling, and why flinging is a poor tactic. But how can we not fling? Before we can start, we need to understand motor redundancy.
In Salvator Fabris’ 1606 treatise on rapier, he dedicates an entire chapter on the subject of flinging the sword and in-depth discussion of why this is bad. But what is flinging? And why is it poor form?
We are used to thinking about the forces that swords apply on their targets, but we don’t spend as much time thinking about the forces that the targets apply to the swords. Between axial, shear, bending, and torsion there is a lot more going on than you might have thought!
In my previous article, “Do Fullers Make Feders Take a Set?”, I promised you that I would take some data on production swords and back up the theory with data. I still haven’t done it, but I do have some measurements of the sharps around my apartment.
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