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Carbon nanotubes found in 17th century Damascus blades
- Thread starter robertp
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And all this time I thought Wootz was just plural for Woot 
- Joined
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I saw that story has been run again. Hawking has taken that view for years, I think it revels a rather cynical side to Steven that I find refreshing that he would think that an advanced civilization totally independent from humanity would have our same penchant for plunder. But then all we have to go on for reference is our own history, and historically whenever there has been contact between advanced civilization and less advanced ones, it has almost universally been catastrophic for the less advanced ones. If the big guys don't outright pillage they kill the little guys with kindness.
I cannot help with actual information gleaned from this research as I don't read Russian or Swedish, but you may want to research the works of the following researchers that were published in the early part of the 20th century.
- Prof. D. K. Tschernov
- N. T. Belaiev
- Prof. Zschokke (sorry, I don't have more of a name here. However, Zschokke performed performed tests on composition, hardening, bending, and microstructure analysis.)
You may have some luck in finding more information on Prof. Zschokke's work if you contact the Historisches Museum in Bern as I believe they house the remainder of the material that Prof. Zschokke tested.
For what it's worth, the references here are from the English translation of Manfred Sasche's book "Damaszener Stahl". If you are able to find any English translations of Prof. Zschokke's work, I'd be very interested in reading them. I simply don't have the free time right now to research his work.
-d
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The reason extra terrestrials were willing to give mankind the secret of nanotube reinforced wootz is because they were using something far advanced... unobtanium.
Like Deker, I find it amusing that people put so much faith and credibility into every post anyone places anywhere on the Internet. At one time we only gave credence to peer reviewed scholarly journals. Now any bloke with a blog is taken seriously, and their words are passed around as gospel. Maybe not by everyone, but by enough that the people who know better grow weary of refuting the garbage, which in the end adds credibility to the garbage (because it so often goes unchallenged).
Yes, it's great that the Internet gives us access to so much information. It would be greater still if there was some way to filter out the disinformation. Alas, the only known filter for that is the human mind, which unfortunately is quite a porous filter.
- Greg
Like Deker, I find it amusing that people put so much faith and credibility into every post anyone places anywhere on the Internet. At one time we only gave credence to peer reviewed scholarly journals. Now any bloke with a blog is taken seriously, and their words are passed around as gospel. Maybe not by everyone, but by enough that the people who know better grow weary of refuting the garbage, which in the end adds credibility to the garbage (because it so often goes unchallenged).
Yes, it's great that the Internet gives us access to so much information. It would be greater still if there was some way to filter out the disinformation. Alas, the only known filter for that is the human mind, which unfortunately is quite a porous filter.
- Greg