
Wootz steel - ezhil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel
======
vinceguidry
One of the things that threw me off when watching forging YouTube videos like
Alec Steele was that he would take on these historical projects like
Renaissance weaponry but using super-modern power hammers and such. But they
actually had power hammers in the Renaissance, Wikipedia calls them trip
hammers. They didn't appear in Europe until the Middle Ages, but similar
devices were used in China 2000 (!) years ago.

The things you can do with just water, wind, and wood are incredible.

~~~
mrec
"They" had analogue computers [1] and steam turbines [2] two millenia ago.
Power hammers a few centuries ago seem pretty mild by comparison.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile)

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thfuran
I don't think I'd really call that a computer any more than I'd call an old
watch a computer.

~~~
close04
The line is pretty blurry. This (relatively) modern device [0] is a computer
although it's probably less complex than some of the ancient ones.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumaresq](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumaresq)

~~~
adrianN
Mechanical computers for fire control where the standard solution until very
recently. Here's a very interesting video about them:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4)

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rmbryan
Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle has about 35 enjoyable pages on this process,
if anyone's interested.

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arethuza
As an aside: I really wish someone would produce _The Baroque Cycle_ as a GoT
scale epic.

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rmbryan
Oh, yeah. As amazing as the Baroque Cycle Movie or series could be, or
Cryptonomicon, or Diamond Age, etc... I'd vote for Seveneves over everything
else.

~~~
jtms
Seveneves has been in my reading queue for quite awhile... I think I might go
ahead and move it to the top of the stack. Thanks for posting this!

~~~
moultano
One of the best books I've read in years. If you have any space-geek in you,
you won't regret it.

~~~
avian
To be honest, I found it long and depressing. It must be something about this
theme of the demise of society and space exploration that gets me. Same with
Baxter's NASA trilogy. His early novels, like Snowcrash and Diamond age, are
amazing, but Seveneves is really quite a different kind of a story.

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hardlianotion
There's a highly entertaining account of the uses and properties of Wootz
steel in Neal Stephenson's The Confusion, part of his Baroque Cycle.

(edit - beaten to it - see below)

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eyeball
Hour documentary on wootz:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OP8PCkcBZU4](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OP8PCkcBZU4)

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dsfyu404ed
The illustrative picture on that article is absolutely useless without a scale
of some sort. The feature look small, like maybe on the order of a weld bead
but it might be on the order of mill scale but under massive magnification and
I have no way to tell.

~~~
galangalalgol
I think that is the fullered flat of a sword blade, so a couple inches or more
across. The pattern exhibits at scales you'd need magnification to see all the
way up to bands a mm across. I have a blade that was created using one of the
reproduction processes. I have heard some say it is simply a very specific
type of alloy banding.

~~~
galangalalgol
I will add that while it cuts well and has good abrasion resistance, it isn't
anomalously better than modern tool steel.

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L_226
Here's Niels Provos (author of bcrypt) attempting to make Wootz:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9j9vUGi0QA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9j9vUGi0QA)

~~~
TomNomNom
Wait, what?! I've been subscribed to Niels Provos on YouTube for years for his
swordsmithing content without realising who he was outside of that. What an
amazing guy :) Thanks for pointing that out!

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mrec
Nitpick: it's Wootz steel, not Wootz's steel. It wasn't named after someone
called Wootz.

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wrong_variable
India prior to the Brits, should be a case study in how to integrate places
like the Rust Belt in US, Afghanistan into global trade.

Each village was an autonomous unit of production that traded directly with
nearby villages, silk road and through merchant ships with the world. ( In
some cases they had their own local currency ! )

A single village could be directly linked to markets in Europe and China, or
form part of a supply chain of villages to larger markets. Shenzen is similar
being a SEZ, allowing it to trade directly with any unit across the globe.

It is kinda ironic that we went from a more libertarian trade system to a more
restrictive one, as technology helped the state exert more control.

Places like the Rust belt can't directly trade with Kenya, they have to go
through hordes of middle men.

Same thing happens in inner India, even though its filled with excess cheap
labor in close proximity.

~~~
justin66
I have no idea what you're on about but this lept out at me as being very
obviously wrong:

> Places like the Rust belt can't directly trade with Kenya, they have to go
> through hordes of middle men.

"The Rust Belt" can pretty easily trade with Kenya, thanks to the Saint
Lawrence Seaway. I'm sitting in my office in the "rust belt," looking out at a
shipping channel that accommodates ships from Europe pretty routinely.

If we're using "middlemen," e.g. relying on rail to bring Kenyan products
across Africa to one of its western ports, or relying on rail to bring those
products from an Eastern US port, it's because that is inherently more
economical. There aren't "hordes" of middlemen involved.

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bostonpete
It seems like a link to a random Wikipedia page should be accompanied by an
explanatory comment...

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netfl0
This happens a lot here. I don’t mind it.

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LyndsySimon
I think it's a good thing.

If I'm not knowledgeable about the topic, I read the article. If I feel like I
am knowledgeable about it, I jump straight to the comments. There I either
learn something, or share knowledge.

It's one of my favorite types of HN posts :)

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jlarocco
As a counterpoint, I think it drops the signal to noise ratio and makes HN
less useful.

If I want to read a random Wikipedia article I can use the "Random Article"
link on their website.

I don't think it's too much to ask for people posting random wiki links to
explain why the article is worth reading about and discussing. Especially in
cases like this one, where the linked article (apparently?) has little or
nothing to do with the usual content posted.

I have no idea what the poster wants me to get out of this article.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> If I want to read a random Wikipedia article I can use the "Random Article"
> link on their website.

Ah, but that's the thing - it's not "random". It's an article that someone who
likely shares many of my interests found interesting. That's valuable enough
for me :)

Have you considered adding a user stylesheet that hides or minimized
submissions that link to Wikipedia? It shouldn't be difficult.

