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Post by theophilus736 on Feb 3, 2020 15:00:03 GMT
Would you mind sharing with us the findings and insights of this book about this topic? A free version: archive.org/details/MemoirSwords/page/n4/mode/2upFor cutting, he gives a geometric explanation of why having the blade at an angle to the cut at the point of contact (my third point above in my first post) is good, but this is somewhat pseudo-science. This was the intuition I had regarding the book before even hearing what it was about. A lot of the "science" from the 19th century is heavy on the psuedo. Big heads mean potentially higher intelligence kind of stuff. I'm reminded of the newer Born for the Saber film where a smith says "I've tried it multiple times, and I know that's how it is" and regarding letting a blade rest for 8-9 months and how it affects hardness he says "whether it is magic or some kind of mysticism I cannot say. I can only state the fact that that's how it is." That's an expert in his craft who does probably see the results he's describing, and it IS an English translation from Polish, but that kind of "scientific observation" is all over systematic writings from the 19th century. Sure, could be correct. But just because in your experience without examining your own biases or traditions (and oh boy did the 19th century militaries love their traditions) you observing something does not mean it's scientific fact. Anyways, not crapping on Jordans book, just simply saying with respect to a topic that can wade so deeply into minutia, I'm immediately putting on a skeptic hat when it comes to 19th century observation on the topic. Especially in the context of 19th century militaries where it seems like arrogance and Victorian era cultural pressures were so rampant.
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Post by imbrial on Jan 15, 2024 23:18:21 GMT
Thinking about this I formulated a totally unscientific theory that it might be a mental aspect about where you aim in terms of depth, like if you want to break a stick with a karate chop, you picture your 'stopping point' as through the stick rather than right on it, so you're not unconsciously already slowing down when you strike - so a curved blade might seem closer to the target and you hit it with more force because you're still increasing your swing speed. Or maybe the other way around - like I said, unscientific...
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Post by larason2 on Jan 16, 2024 4:12:24 GMT
I feel like we had a similar discussion to this not that long ago, but certainly since 2020.
Because a curved sword is a more aerodynamic shape than a straight sword, it will reduce the force drag exerts on the sword as it moves through the air. So because of this, technically if you take two swords with the same torque acting on them, one being curved and the other straight, but otherwise identical in weight, etc. The curved sword will move faster. It will also hit harder, because force equals mass times acceleration, and the acceleration of the curved sword will be slightly greater, since the force of wind resistance acting against the acceleration will be less.
We're talking about really small differences though, since both blades will already be very aerodynamic. Incident angle doesn't mean much, because you can hit a target with a very similar incident angle relative to the face of the edge with both a curved or straight blade, and you can vary the incident angle for either. A skilled practitioner of either a curved blade or striaght blade will already be aiming past the target (to maximize acceleration at the point of impact), so this shouldn't have much of an effect. We discussed before that the curved blade will be more stable in the air, but since the practitioner corrects for deviations of the sword, this should still not have a very big effect.
So in practice, a curved vs. straight geometry doesn't significantly affect speed/force/cutting to any significant extent. It does have an effect, but it's so small as to be not worthy of concern.
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