How did Veritasium get SO MUCH wrong in their katana video?! a reply

A reply to @veritasium and their video "How Japanese Masters Turn Sand Into Swords" with some needed corrections and added context

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#armor #armoredclothing #test #sword #jacket

[samipersun]

Fantastic vid, shad! Thanks for sharing your passion with us, it’s highly contagious!
As a metallurgy major I must especially praise your approach to providing info on steel structural elements with great visual material to back it. unlike most other vids on yt that touch the subjects yours only made me nod in agreement and not smash my face in disbelief.

[xato]

As far as cutting a bullet in half, Ballistics Highspeed just cut a bullet in half with a hatchet so that’s definitely not a defining feature of the katana. Essentially any wedge with a greater hardness than lead should be able to do that as long as it’s not so flimsy as to break from the forces exerted in it

[heyspookyboogie]

As soon as I started watching veritasium’s video my first thought was “ooooh Shad’s gonna have something to say about this.”

[MasterChiefJLPS]

as a gun nerd I would point out that bullets (even Fully jacketed ones) are very easy to split in half, BECAUSE UNLESS IT IS AN AP ROUND, IT IS MADE OUT OF LEAD!

[TheBlDut]

When I realized I was 26 minutes into listenning to Shad react and the veritasium video was only a minute and a half in, I knew this was going to be a long ride

[MacTX]

The Veritasium video felt like watching a fan interviewing and talking about their idol. It came across almost like an advertisement for the Japanese sword industry.

[heyspookyboogie]

This sort of video is one of my favorite things about YouTube. You can have a big mainstream channel like varitasium talk about something, and then get other perspectives and insights from enthusiasts in the field to get a much more overall balanced perspective on a topic.

[spiritfingers]

Mythbusters cut a bullet in half with a butter knife.

Edit. From someone's suggestion in the comments and a little googling the show was in fact Penn and Teller's Bullshit which was later renamed Tell A Lie. Would recommend it to anyone that hasn't watched it.

[HENTAICOMBO]

It like saying "this is the most expensive banana to ever taped to a wall"

[svetoslavkrastev]

I love how respectful and educationa your critiques are. Kudos for you maturity, levelheadedness and for the very interesting contet. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👌👌👌👌🔥🔥🔥🔥

[lorddaro]

Penn and Teller did test the Bulled Slicing Myth in one of their TV Programs. Their Katana (though I don't know how that particular one was crafted) actually could split a 9mm bullet. And so could an ordinary butter knife. Turns out it doesn't take much craftsmanship to split a common lead bullet.

[malcanth]

I find it misleading when he says the most expensive sword is a $105 M katana. It makes it seem like that is reflective of the quality of the sword.

That isn't the price of it as a sword. That is its price as a historical artifact. Even a crappy clay pot that is worse than a middle schooler's art project would be worth a few million if it is old enough.

[tekkblade]

The last time Shad did an analysis/review/correction video covering a science channel's attempt to highlight a specific sword, that science channel took down the video b/c of how many things they had wrong in it.

[edwardelric]

Never really thought about how when people think about a katana they picture a masterpiece, but when people think about a longsword they picture something mediocre.

Japan is scarily good at making themselves look good.

[ichisichify]

the katana's best feature is that it's a sword you can make with the technology and materials available in feudal japan.

in all seriousness, that's a really important feature. once technologies have been figured out, the only real factor deciding what gets used and what not is cost.

[heyspookyboogie]

Extremely expensive stuff rarely is expensive because of its quality or performance. At that level it’s almost always the lore / history attached to it that makes it valuable.

Sorta like a signature on something affecting its value.

[SgtSnippy]

I always love the "can cut a bullet in half" argument. As far as i remember, i think mythbusters busted that myth wide open years ago where they showed that even a butter knife can cut a bullet in half when the bullet is fired at its cutting edge. The bullet is just traveling so fast that any edge will just cause it to just split lengthwise.

[RilaAudio]

I distinctly remember snickering at that original thumbnail but never watching it.

This video was bound to happen.

[RitzStarr]

The problem with veritasium is that this isn't the first time he just blatantly misrepresented or poorly explained something. This is just probably the only time it was a subject you were an expert of.
Hes been called out by other experts numerous times.

[judxmud]

You are so polite. I too like Veritasium but they have a few episodes that are just non-critical regurgitation of accepted wisdom. I started to watch their Katana show and became too agitated to finish watching. Your response is greatly appreciated.