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From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Graht)
Subject:	Ares Monosword: Unreal? Of course. Not scientifically
Date:	Tue Aug 28 17:15:01 2001

Message no. 1 At 07:03 PM 8/28/2001 +0000, Fenris F-e-n-r-i-s wrote:

>Ok guys, I got into a fight with a guy the other day who was a
>self-proclaimed Physics know-it-all, and who said that the Ares Monosword
>was a really impractical idea, and that theoretically placing the monowire
>along its edges would in fact REDUCE the sharpness due to a shift from an
>extremely small cleaving surface to a very LARGE cleaving surface ( from
>mono-wire to blade, of course ).

Not as far as flesh and soft armors are concerned.

The monowire makes the cut, after which the blade opens the cut up, kind of
like when you use an axe to chop wood. The blade of the axe starts the
cut, and then the axe itself follows behind and splits the wood. The same
thing would happen with a monosword. The sword itself acts as a control
element (allowing one to wield monowire easier than say with a monowhip),
it's mass drives the monowire, and the edge of the sword efficiently opens
the wound made by the monowire.

To Life,
-Graht
ShadowRN Assistant Fearless Leader II
--

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Arclight)
Subject:	Ares Monosword: Unreal? Of course. Not scientifically
Date:	Tue Aug 28 17:45:01 2001

Message no. 2 At 05:45 29.08.2001 -0800, Valeu John EMFA wrote:

<snip>

>Ok, I can't think anymore. Someone else want to correct me and take over?

not really ;)

The problem with sharp blades is, that the edge is pretty thin and fragile,
and moves sideways when you cut things. Therefore you have that piece of
metal (yeah, the one I can't find the name of ;) in the kitchen to
"sharpen" the knife before you move on to the turkey ;) . You don't really
sharpen it, you just reposition the edge, so to say. With monofilament,
maybe this becomes obsolete because the wire stays in position?

Arclight

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Graht)
Subject:	Ares Monosword: Unreal? Of course. Not scientifically
Date:	Tue Aug 28 17:50:01 2001

Message no. 3 At 03:10 PM 8/28/2001 -0600, Graht wrote:
>At 07:03 PM 8/28/2001 +0000, Fenris F-e-n-r-i-s wrote:
>
>>Ok guys, I got into a fight with a guy the other day who was a
>>self-proclaimed Physics know-it-all, and who said that the Ares Monosword
>>was a really impractical idea, and that theoretically placing the
>>monowire along its edges would in fact REDUCE the sharpness due to a
>>shift from an extremely small cleaving surface to a very LARGE cleaving
>>surface ( from mono-wire to blade, of course ).
>
>Not as far as flesh and soft armors are concerned.
>
>The monowire makes the cut, after which the blade opens the cut up, kind
>of like when you use an axe to chop wood. The blade of the axe starts the
>cut, and then the axe itself follows behind and splits the wood. The same
>thing would happen with a monosword. The sword itself acts as a control
>element (allowing one to wield monowire easier than say with a monowhip),
>it's mass drives the monowire, and the edge of the sword efficiently opens
>the wound made by the monowire.

I forgot to point out how I envision monoswords.

I always figured that the monowire was at tension a little distance away
from the edge of the sword, as opposed to actually being on the edge of the
blade.

attachment point monowire attachement point
\ _______________________ /
_-^-----------------------^- edge
tip of sword <-{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ blade

To Life,
-Graht
ShadowRN Assistant Fearless Leader II
--

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Graht)
Subject:	Ares Monosword: Unreal? Of course. Not scientifically
Date:	Wed Aug 29 12:00:01 2001

Message no. 4 At 11:30 PM 8/29/2001 +1000, Damion Milliken wrote:
>Fenris F-e-n-r-i-s writes:
>
> > Ok guys, I got into a fight with a guy the other day who was a
> > self-proclaimed Physics know-it-all, and who said that the Ares Monosword
> > was a really impractical idea, and that theoretically placing the monowire
> > along its edges would in fact REDUCE the sharpness due to a shift from an
> > extremely small cleaving surface to a very LARGE cleaving surface ( from
> > mono-wire to blade, of course ).
>
>I think that unless the weapon either used Graht's idea, or was made of some
>very unusual materials, then he would be about right. Simply placing a
>monowire on the edge of the blade of a sword would be like placing a sword
>alongside a mountain ridge and hoping that the mountain ridge would be able
>to cut through something that the sword was able to. Unless the sword
>actually tapered to a point that wasn't incredibly large compared to the
>size of the monowire, of course. Otherwise, the cutting edge would still be
>the sword edge, and the monowire would actually do nothing (it'd be like a
>microscopic ridge down the sword edge, and when the sword was used, the
>entire sword edge, monowired bit and all, would be the cutting edge). OTOH,
>if the sword did somehow taper to a very fine edge, then it might be
>usedful. Of course, I would wonder about the strength of the sword, then.

Or, instead of a single monowire there could be a tappering stack of
monowires on the edge of the sword. Looking along the edge of the sword on
a microscopic level it might look like:

\
\
\
|*
|***
|*****
|***
|*
/
/
/

The / and | characters represent the edge of the sword and the * characters
each represent a strand of monowire. The angles wouldn't be as steep and
the monowire would be stacked more efficiently, but I hope I got the idea
across.

I still think that suspending a single strand of monowire a short distance
away from the edge of the blade would be the way to go, but this
alternative would work too :)

To Life,
-Graht
ShadowRN Assistant Fearless Leader II
--

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