Why Steel is BEST for swords, even compared to Titanium or whatever

[SwordTune]

Everyone knows the best material is dragon bones that have been plunged through a demon's heart.

[irishwristwatch]

Steel actually gives it an advantage with its weight too, extra weight usually being a downside

[devin]

We take for granted how much of a veritable super material modern steel is, a few steel screws not even an inch thick can hold up your cupboards full of precious delicate plates, a steel I beam can support both its own tremendous weight and thousands of pounds more, space ships can handle idk how much power those rockets produce, nothing in the natural world even compares, we basically have easy access to adamantium and mithril just by going to our local hardware store.

[Ithrandiel_Archives]

All I took away from that diagram, is that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell

[milandjuric]

We can make steel realy hard, some composites are realy tough and strong but cant be made hard. You need a blade to be hard in order to cut stuff and hold an edge. If you intersect hardness, toughness and strenghth, theres only steel (maybe Ti but its hella expensive)

[ndbrain]

I am infinitely thankful you shared this with me. Because I enjoy making up materials for my DnD campaign that my characters can use, interact with, or discover.

[stonewall-mzyl]

Probably because we invented round lead swords and stopped looking.

[ivankrylov]

Better is kinda relative though
If you're willing to take a compromise in order to get a benefit for something else there are "better" materials

[vahidmoosavian]

Other advantages over other metal/alloys include a) being abundant and b) much easier to refine and process.
So yeah🙃!

[sorrenblitz]

The real more complex answer is that our use of firearms and lack of any development on new sword blade patterns because we primarily use guns now, prevents us from researching super sci-fi indestructible flexi-sword stuff.

[victorhenden]

Looking forward to more content. This was a interesting video keep up with the good work 😊

[GeorgeCowsert]

I do want to see more experiments with the newer alloys.
Gold-titanium, for example, is the most expensive and promising new alloy that we know basically nothing about.

[joshuabroin]

Where it says "HDPE" I thought it said HOPE 😂

[andrewprahst]

What about carbonfiber?
I looked at the diagram and didn't see it anywhere on there.
I thought the only reason we don't use carbonfiber in place of steel for everything is that its more expensive

PS. Apparently apparently carbonfiber is bad at holding an edge becaues its very non-hemongenous (fibers are exposed)
But I still think it's possible for a composite blade could be made with multiple materials making up the the different blade parts.

In any case, I don't think its safe to say we haven't found any materials that are better for swords, because at the end of the day, the people developing new military tech haven't been focused on long, durable blades in a couple hundred years.

[jamespeterson]

I don't know if anyone else has said it, but how plentiful materials are, which also affects cost, and how workable the materials are playing important factor here. Other materials that might have similar properties might be too hard to come by / be very expensive, while others might not be able to be forged or otherwise worked by traditional methods.

Edit: this is also making me think generally about the terms better and best. As an engineer, you have to balance out all of the different requirements in your solution, and this produces different results based on what you want to optimize. Looking back at designs that arose in and around past military conflicts, some people might advocate for guns that use all machined components, but I would argue for their circumstances, designs that involve a lot of stamped components really won the day. Better and best can be arbitrary terms.

[Tyrnak_Fenrir]

Lucky it's a relatively simple material to shape and produce in larger quantities

[bernardli]

When a YouTube video gives you Vietnam style flashbacks to the materials science midterm.

[BadOompaloompa]

Its not the materials we have found. Its the materials that can exist. Its not like someone randomly mixes stuff together to see if its strong. Its chemistry.

[figo]

Do you think we could engineer a material even better than steel?

[malta]

They're making materials which combine many material properties in a new way. I forget what it's called, but I can find it again if you're interested. It's still under going preliminary testing