How Do White Walkers Shatter Swords?
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- Опубліковано 17 кві 2019
- For Game of Thrones fans winter is finally here, and with it comes the long foreshadowed White Walkers. These foes have proven to be a dangerous threat for many reasons, but one of the biggest is their seeming imperviousness to the average weapons of the Seven Kingdoms. We've witnessed firsthand what happens when one goes up against a White Walker's icy weapon, but is it really possible for steel to shatter under extreme temperatures the way it's seen on the show? Kyle takes on the black and heads beyond the wall for answers in this week's Because Science!
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Learn More:
CHEMISTRY OF SWORD CREATION: www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/ama...
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES IRON AND STEEL: en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introdu...
INTRO TO MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING: HERE
QUENCHED STEEL: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperi...
BCC AND FCC: www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/ama...
EFFECTS OF LOW TEMPERATURE ON STEEL PERFORMANCE: www.spartaengineering.com/effe...
#becausescience #GameofThrones #HBO - Наука та технологія
Thanks for watching super nerds! HUGE thanks to my good friend Allen Pan for his help on this -- definitely go subscribe to his channel if you want more stuff like this. And I hear you: do more of these kinds of videos! I'll try my best. Sometimes it's hard to get time/money/talent to come together, but I'll get some more going for you -- kH
Maybe bronze and copper swords? What we used before humans started working with iron.
It's like a real song of....
soooo... Lightsaber vs. White Walker?
4:14 idk Kyle that place doesn't look disgusting to me. Kinda good looking in there if you ask me! 😋😉
@@mrpink8951 Copper and bronze are much softer metals than steel. They are much, MUCH more ductile than even the mildest of steels. Bronze can be work-hardened to form a good cutting edge, but if it's pushed past it's yield strength, it will deform, not break.
"77 Kelvin above absolute zero"
also known as .... 77 Kelvin.
We are at 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin above absolute zero which is known as 77 Kelvin.
Whose Kelvin?
@@blazin4glory61 he is friends with Hobbes.
When you have a minimum word count and you're nearly there
@@justinsims7935 the Hobbes es has our precious!!!
The white walkers secretly has the reverse UNO card to shatter steel swords back
Zuzu it was just an icicle with a uno reverse card attached lol
But Jon has 3 reverse cards
7:55 That sword used was actually a Valyrian Steel one. They cheated.
Also it had a dragon glass core
That was a cool video bro
TheOutcast 55
Dragon glass is obsidian
It’s weaker than glass
Exactly, Damascine blades were strong because they removed most if not nearly all the stray minerals in the steel. Carbon steel is similar to the substance. They effectively explained how Valyrian steel is able to survive White Walker weapons
Is a real song of ice and fire
The science and jokes are balanced,it's just like a song of ice and fire
raul pop Well played, man, well played.
The jokes are so lame
@@FatboiReborn they're really not
@@ChineduOpara ice and fire
@@FatboiReborn thats what makes them Gold
"You gonna feel the cut of my better heat transfer rate steel....."
Technically badass.
See? So much better -- kH
*Kyle's intimidating voice* It has a cooling effect.
I will say, having sliced my hand open before, it certainly *feels* way colder than any else I've ever experienced. Nerves actually inside your hand are more temperature sensitive, who knew /sarcasm?
*cools sword to 77 kelvin*
*waves it around for several seconds in room temperature air so it warms back up a bunch*
Christopher Casasola exactly what I was thinking.
I believe you’re missing something. If you go back to the scene you can hear the sword “singing” before shattering. This implies that what the white walker does is first lower the swords temperature to make it more brittle and then begin an vibration in the metal that builds on itself due to magically induced constructive harmonics. This drastically increases the energy the sword is absorbing and if the increase were exponential across the entire blade may even account for the blade shattering into a million little bits. Love the show!
Because science is slowly become mythbusters and I love it
Someone needs to give Kyle and Alan their own mythbusters type show.
@@Random42 you uhhh... You mean the science behind mortal kombat? Because... You know... that's a thing now...
But yet, keeping to their roots.... kind of like a song of fire and ice
Would Thor's hammer shatter in Hela's hands? Yes
Is this an innuendo or am I reading into it too much?
Because it did
It shatters yes✅✅
Would it destroy all of Norway when it shattered? Yep. -- kH
@@becausescience You tell 'em Kyle. Put enough energy in and it'll shatter releasing that energy and boom no Norway.
So, Rhaegar Targaryen is not dead...
He is just making science videos.
not dead...but not at all well either...still has no intention to go on the cart
As demonstrated in the video, life and death are more fluid in the void.
Hey Kyle, I wished you would have compared that to the properties of Obsidian (dragon glass) as well. Please consider it for footnotes. Best regards :)
That will be in Allen's video when it comes out! -- kH
@@becausescience Hello from Peru, Kyle!!
monster energy
Obsidian actually makes pretty bad blades, at least in real life. It breaks like glass, as the nickname suggests.
@@FaeChangeling but it can get a very sharp edge. But you should only use it as a dagger.
Also consider that the S200 series of steel actually gets stronger at cryogenic temperatures, reason why it is being used for some rocket tanks
Depending on the period, medieval swords could have had slag inclusions (poor quality steel) or been pattern welded. Either option could have made them more likely to shatter. Maybe?
The sword they used also looks very thick for a real sword. Maybe it didn't broke because of that.
I know you said "depending on the period", and you'd be right for earlier periods, but if it was around the time of castles and plate armour like GoT, then they'd actually have quite high quality steel and very good forging processes, so that wouldn't really be a problem.
@UCMzQkcMv_9BKJ0Kmc4W73qw 4-3 mm? My sword has like 2mm. What swords do you have that taper so much, or is it 3mm at the point as well?
@@miyama8936 6:18 Not really, the sword looked like it had adequate thickness but that being said we can't tell from the comfort of our homes if it was thick either since wed have to go and measure with a caliper. If the sword is thinner than 4-3 mm at the base it'll get damaged easily.
Also, that sword was an attempt to make a modern reproduction of an English longsword.
Something else too; in the experiment, they were having the sword impact a STATIONARY "weapon" (the beam). However, in the examples we see in the show, the swords shatter during COMBAT, meaning that both weapons are in motion, making the force on the steel sword greater. Plus, the steel swords are being wielded by trained warriors who regularly engage in battle (and therefore have a lot of muscular strength, again increasing the pressure on the sword when impacted) against an enemy that seems to be notably physically stronger than even said trained warriors (judging by the how they physically toss people around at times), meaning that they can swing INCREDIBLY hard against a steel sword, so the overall pressure might have been double (or more!) than what was applied during the experiment.
I used to work in a freezer (-10°F). Steel was so brittle that tapping it with a pallet the wrong way could cause it to break.
Also, since the freezer was inside the cooler (34°F), having the freezer door and the cooler door open, exposing it to room temperature would create snow storms in the freezer. It was pretty wild.
4:21 The Many Faces of Kyle Hill 😂
A great example of a steel that's an amazing balance is "Super Steels" such as CPM S35VN Steel that requires cryo treating in order to reach a 60+ Rockwell hardness.
Carbon steel is a modern steel. The steel that fantasy is based on was a much different material. The forges weren't hot enough and the iron was full of impurities. Real carbon steel was so rare it was legendary. Like Damascus steel.
This is false, by the time GOT is based on, Europe had advanced forging techniques to actually forge carbon steel.
I have a different theory about the shattering of the steel swords. They are shattering to a million pieces as you said, not just in one or two. To do that, I can think of two different ways. The first is to use the eigenfrequency of the metal. If the hit of that ice-spear used was able to create an oscillation on the metal at its eigenfrequency then the metal would shatter, as one can shatter a glass using sound, which is just another type of impact, but instead of an ice-spear is an impact with air. Maybe their ice-spears are made in such a way that they create such oscillations upon impact destroying every metal thing, not only sword.
The second theory I have is that again by seeing the way these swords shatter, it is very similar to the shattering of materials that have microcracks within them. For instance like one can shatter glass with just pinching it with one of these safety pointy things. Also another example would be how a prince Rupert’s drop shatters, a small impact at the end shatters the entire nearly indestructible drop into a million pieces. So maybe the whitewalkers have a technic while making their ice weapons where it is possible to take advantage of all the microcracks of the metal.
My overall thought would be a combination of these two, with the difference of valerian steel having a different eigenfrequency and possibly less microcracks, making invulnerable to the hits of the ice weapons.
Also from a cryogenics point of view I don’t think that it would ever be possible, I am doing my PhD in cryogenics of helium below 2K, and although I haven’t studied the strength of metals at these temperatures, I am more than sure that even at such low temperatures metals have more than enough strength to withstand hits (we dropped a cryocooler at the lab once, thankfully it was fine 😂). So yeah if at
Rafael Domenikos ain’t nobody got time for that
They missed the fact that the sword that shattered in Game of Thrones was made of Iron rather than Steel. That's why the throne made of swords in King's Landing is The Iron Throne and not The Steel Throne
Rafael Domenikos but Prince Rupert’s drops have to do with the pressure that’s built up by rapidly cooling the outside and the stress that’s built up by the core of the drop cooling at a slower rate, when the break the tail of the drop it just releases all the pent up energy, something swords don’t have so they can’t release 🤷🏼♂️
Based on my understanding a metal that would be brittle at low temperatures would require some kind of impurities, such as having too much sulfur added during the smelting process.
Sulfur will improve machineability but reduces toughness. And if memory serves correctly, it increases the likelihood of failure at cold temperatures.
Hey Raphael, are you Cephallonian?
It’s not temperature but the vibrational frequency imparted from the white walker weapon to his opponent. Non valyrian steel swords have resonant frequencies which make them vulnerable to WW weapons. Think earthquakes vs non earthquake proof buildings.
Dude, awesome job ^-^
The steel we produce today is of pretty superb quality and uniformity, even when buying a sword on the cheap end. Thanks to the variety of options to us now, developing steel is much simpler, and consistent in it's production. GoT is usually accepted to be roughly based on the mid 1400's, which means medieval quality steel. That's extremely poor quality. If you'd want a more trustworthy lab test, smelting your own steel is the best option, using the poor quality materials n methods that'd have been used.
The Steel wasn't that bad. In the 14 c. we europeans already had springsteel, which is the best steel for a sword you can get.
Medieval steel actually wasn't bad quality for blades. Yes, our steel has less imperfections and can be made stronger now, but the steel used in modern swords is actually not much better than what they had at the time. And they had ways of making the carbon content more uniform, which is best demonstrated by Japanese sword making techniques, but Europe had good enough steel that in most cases, that simply wasn't necessary. Any half-decent medieval European style sword would easily hold up against a cheaply manufactured modern one.
@@FaeChangeling Our melting techics were also much better than the japanese one. Our ovens could reach much higher Temperaturs than the japanese ones.
@@FaeChangeling I don`t think thats completly correct because according to numerous studies of ancient european, medieval and renaissance steel products, it can be assumed that there were very different quality levels used for swords ranging from pure iron to high quality steels. So some swords would would easily hold up against a cheaply manufactured modern one but not nearly all of them.
@@Telendil Yeah, but then you might as well compare medieval pure iron swords against a modern iron one, the technique wouldn't make enough of a difference to say that medieval was worse.
How about a because magic show where you explain how rockets work using magic explanations
Vapors and humors and etheria to perpetuate motion...
Actually that would have made a great April first episode.
...just have Enya write a song about it
The answer is always "eye of newt".
magic is just science we dont understand (it's just a saying that works well with this joke). since no one understands rocket science, ez
This video was music to my ears.
I guess you could it was a Song of Ic... *gets stabbed*
Dude, your whole episode was like a Song I’d Ice and Fire! You’re Fire my friend, keep up with the great episodes!
I think white walker swords divide the opponent's sword by zero
By absolute zero!
I'll get my coat.
@@TheCrash480 😂 lmao YES!
4:29 Wait, we have magical heat sinks in real life?
Duh. Haven't you heard of Fontus?
It's how McDonald's makes ice. The 'machine' doesn't break, they are out of mana.
@@DeDraconis sick reference bro
The craziest thing about this show is that I've been taking college physics this semester and it seems like almost every episode comes out with something I'm learning in that class at that time. Thank you Because Science for teaching me more physics than my actual physics class! You are truly the keeper of my 4.0
I just love the background music. Pretty simple but if paid closed attention the simple two notes of melody it progresses and at some point it sounds like an epic super hero theme . LOVE IT
On my authority, as the Galactically feared, Globally reviled, and Universally despised. I demand Kyle to knight Allen Pan as Sir Allen of Science. Sir Allen's contributions demand the highest honors.
Kyle is my favorite science communicator. That is all
All I can ask for, thanks Bryan! -- kH
Because Science epic gamer moment
You don't listen to Neil DeGrasse Tyson huh?
@@evolancer211 Neil DeGrasse Tyson is also a very awesome. But would consider him an astrophysicist
@@BryanEshbaugh true, his profession is an astrophysicist, but what he does isn't just Astrophysics. He's a communicator of science. Not just space and physics, science of any kind. Have a question about chemistry, he'll answer it, got questions about biology, he's got you covered (all under the caveat of him reading the questions on Star Talk) Neil is about encouraging STEM to everyone
Thank you kyle for all you do....your show is informative and fun to watch.....glad we are all getting smarter together
9:08 - Wrong.
Dragon fire wasn't used for Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail, the swords "forged" from Ned Stark's sword, Ice.
Keep on rocking! I am forever indebted to you for all the inspiration these videos create. You are my son's hero (and mine too)
Thank you so much for sharing that with me John -- best praise I can get. Tell your son I said hello! -- kH
What if they cooled it to absolute zero? I know we can't really test that, but we can hypothesize!!
wouldnt work. the lost in material strengh scales with the temperatur. going colder than liquid co2/n2 woudnt change much more.
Absolute zero would make that object invincible in theory iirc, because it would essentially be like that object is stuck in time.
Patrick Murphy how high are you
@Patrick Murphy -- So that could be how they shatter swords maybe, rather than cooling the enemy's weapon, the White Walker's weapon is simply at Absolute Zero itself, making it basically invincible. Would also explain how they can hibernate for hundreds of years too, they bring their own body temperatures down to Absolute Zero, freezing themselves in time until they are woken up (GOT never really did clarify EXACTLY what woke them up, did they?🤔).
@@patrickmurphy8008 they are not stuck in time. The Molekuls just can't move anymore. And yes, if you could somehow manag it, everything would break at this Temperatur
You and Allen work really well together. Glad to see him featured outside the MK stuff! Definitely going to check his channel out now!
Hey, Kyle, love the show! I was recently rewatching GOT and thought 'I'd love to see a Because Science episode on how white walkers shatter weapons', and here it is. One thing I do miss about your show is how you used to focus more on what must be different about a situation to create the results we see in movies and TV shows, instead of just confirming or debunking them. I loved how that could recontextualize what we saw and make it even more awesome, instead of just saying, "yeah, that wouldn't actually happen." Still, don't ever stop making these because they are excellent and informative and fun, and because science.
Hey Kyle, I have a quest about the shatter test. Would the force double if the attacker and the defenser would swing their weapons at the same time?
Love your show mate
dhuskoditeki It wouldn't exactly double but you're on the right track. You have to figure in the mass and velocity of both weapons, but yes the kinetic energy would be much greater than simply hitting a stationary object with a sword.
Yes, potentially (it would depend on the precise speed of each swing, distance from the forward hand at which they contact each other, and the mass of each weapon to determine how much extra force there would be), though I doubt it would make much of a difference in the test they performed.
Also the other weapon would produce more force than the steel they used because it would be focusing all of its energy into a smaller area on impact. When two swords collide it can already break one or both of them without them being frozen.
It would increase the chsnce of breaking it, but not very much. The weapons would bounce back after they hit each other. But if two robots would swing the swords while holding them as strong as a vice then yes, it would increase the force very much.
Nah dude equal and opposite lol
I imagine the localized freezing matters; get some heat strain on a bit at the same place that's being stressed
Very valid point
Love the collaboration. Please do more of them.
Just learned about a lot of this metallurgy in welding school two weeks ago, pretty cool!
Maybe the white walkers are flash freezing the swords the exposing them to high temperatures wry quickly to create a thermal shock effect.
That and also swing much much harder than the guy that did the test.
And also know how to properly swing said sword
there's always plot convenience with just a dash of suspension of disbelief...and glitter
Just seen it pop on my phone and I was already on UA-cam
So glad to see more of Allen Pan here, I hope he becomes a regular fixture on this show, he's fantastic and deserves it.
Kyle, you have just been blowing it out of the park lately. All your videos have such incredible comedic timing and production value. It really is turning into a more numbers based mythbusters (and yes please do take that compliment). Keep it up man👍
Dang dude, I really needed to hear that. Thank you Yoni, seriously. Also, nice avatar. What are you climbing? Imma guess V....4 in that pic -- kH
@@becausescience I really do mean it all, keep it up. And thanks, yeah I think that was a v4 in Utah at the Front.
So, the void also gives you immortality? Or are you undead? Or the Lord of light loves you? Love the show, always learning.
Wildlings may not have access to the same quality steel as down south. Perhaps they were using pure iron?
Pure iron would be less likely to shatter, as it's the carbon inclusions that create the more rigid crystal structures.
@@dynamicworlds1 Either mild steel or cast iron, on the other hand, could be more brittle when frozen. I don't know how they react to low temperatures
Pure iron is exceptionally rare. Even before tempering, Iron has at least some carbon in it, so chances are, their iron/steel would just have carbon contents all over the board ranging from barely any carbon to having a fair amount, depending on where the iron came from and the skill of the swordsmith.
Idea for the next Footnotes episode: Explain to the layman how cryogenically treating metals causes them to be stronger (or last longer), when you stated that the colder they get, the more brittle they become!
Though I missed the reasoning why Kyle kept getting stabbed in the back with a thrown sword, I laughed everytime. It just didn't get old!
"Crappy carbon steel"
🅱oi! A good sword is supposed to be made of out high carbon or spring steel.
That was something I was thinking about too. Isn't carbon steel something that would be stronger than typical steel?
More carbon increases hardness but also brittleness. Lower carbon results in a softer steel which makes a worse sword since it can't hold as keen an edge, but it gains in ductility because it deforms more easily.
To my understanding, swords (at least, ones that are intended to be actually used, like machetes) are usually made from steel with between 0.5% and 1% carbon content. "Carbon steel" is a broad term, and can refer to steels with anywhere from about 0.2% to 2% carbon content IIRC -- too low and it's undesirably soft, too high and it's too brittle.
Also, since there are names for steel of every carbon content and other elemental inclusion, if the sword was bought off the internet and was being advertised as being made from just "carbon steel," my hunch is it's _probably_ not an ideal type of steel having been used.
Could Magneto lift Thor's hammer? (prior to Ragnarok)
Fantastic question
Yes
Kyle, I could smell your Song of Ice and Fire joke since you started talking about forging steel.... you did not disappoint me.
Interesting episode.
I like sword science. Looking forward to more Because Science stuff relating to swords.
Lol just found this Chanel and my name is Kyle hill XD and I have the same color hair kinda this is amazing
Hey how do Gundam's Beam Weapons work( except beam sabers that's old territory).
They're generally described as charged particle cannons. Basically, they're giant murder beams of plasma.
@@NereidAlbel yes but it would be fun for power figures for the famous beam weapons.
Well can’t think of much to say other then great episode, and I love the channel. Keep up the great work.
That's all I need, thanks Michael! -- kH
Such a musical sound in the slowmo part when the cold sword is being hit against that metal rail or whatever it is
. . . Have I been saying "ductile" wrong for years?
Ps. I need more almost swearing, please. It's hilarious
Duck-tile
@@FaeChangeling Right?!
Ductile tape.
Have you thought about doin a episode/series on my hero academia? I feel like you could get some great content from that
I think his "why you don't want super strength " episode pretty much covers Deku
So an epsode about "Why you wouldn't want explosive sweat"
@@pizzas4breakfast Heck DEKU covers that subject pretty darn well.
Maybe the effects of Todoroki's body temperature fluctuating so wildly
Hi Kyle! Love you and love the show.
The only sauce that I can have on this particular subject is that the normal swords that people used are more akin to iron and that Valerian Steel is actual steel alloy. Iron reacts more dramatically to cold temperatures which could be why Valerian steel does not break but a regular sword will
This reminds me of how ceramic bits from a spark plug shatters glass in an instant, could be the same principle in the show but obviously with differed materials lol
Kyle can never die because he gains his power from the void, especially when in the void
Allen is really great! Glad to have him onboard.
Kyle, you really do make science fun! Another great video. Going to check out Allen's channel. Thanks for all your hard work & dedication. You have a wonderful sense of humor. Wish my high school science teachers were like you (way back in the days of the awful 80's!). 😄
Allen was great Kyle! Thanks for another wonderful episode!
Another intersting place where these kind of extreme temperature variations are found in our modern times is space rocket things. For the next gen space rocket thing SpaceX is building right now (called Starship) the engineers had to consider these things for the material to use for the hull of the spacecraft. As the Metal used for that would experience very low temperatures because of the cryogenic propellants used, as well as the extremely high temperatures of reentry the material has to withstand a crazy amount of temperature variation. Usually rockets used Aluminium or sometimes carbon composites for hull but these Rockets often weren't reuseable. The Space Shuttle used heat shield tiles which were lightwheigt but they had to be individually checked after every flight which took a lot of manhours. So what the Spacex engineers ended up settling on was regular old Stainless steel, which is heavier than aluminium but considering the heat gradient they would have had to use so much aluminium that it would have endet up heavier than when using steel. The kind of steel they chose has a very interesting temperature/toughness curve because as it gets hotter it (at least up to a point) gets stronger before becoming too ductile and at some point melting. All that is to say that I don't know what point I was trying to make but rockets are cool i guess.
The steel used for modern swords is "spring metal", flexible and hardy (they can witstand a lot of punishment); back in times like the medieval age (the time that GoT takes inspiration from) steel wasn't of that much quality, it's somethin people tend to forget, the steel we use ain't the steel our ancestors used, their steel was more frail, less pure and with other problematics, and that's why folding and differential tempering existed (that's why katanas have that that weird wavy thing).
Allen's reaction was my favorite thing
Your reaction to my reaction is my favorite thing
Gosh, the editing and scripting on these are just friggin' genius. xD
I appreciate the shirt change... As for being technically accurate, well technically, metal could be considered 'cold' relative to let's say...the sun.
You also brought up this topic of heat transference during the GOW axe episode, except you used the difference between a tile floor, and a carpeted floor, when stepping out of a shower.
Excellent format 👍
This is easy one of the best videos. I've learn and laugh so much. Thanks.
ever since someone pointed out in the footnotes that you say "tempature," I haven't been able to unhear it
Im surprised that you didnt mention vibration. If you vibrate it at a specific frequency it might be able to break it especially if it was colder and more brittle. This would also account for the high pitched sound you hear before they shatter in the show.
Hi smart man Kyle! Loved the video.
A quick point though. A better quality sword with more of a hardened edge may be more likely to shear or shatter than a low quality sword with a lower quality of steel.
Additional side note that sword wasn't tested against an I beam strictly speaking, it looked more like a box section of steel. Further depending on the grade of steel you are testing against you may be better testing against iron rather than a mild steel, due to the reduced ductility of the material.
Really love the show keep up the hard work in educating and entertaining us 😊
that look between the Other and Jon. fucking priceless
Kyle this episode was amazing. I never knew that our swords were this durable but I did know about the tempering process. I feel like I learned a lot and added on to some info that I had already retained.
you could say it was a real song of Ice and Fire :D
Best praise I can get! Thanks Austin -- kH
@@becausescience senpai noticed me
Best editing on that episode! Hilarious!
i congratulate u on this impeccably impressive video
"You will feel the bite of apparently cold but actually room temperature steel" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Hi Kyle, good episode, love the show, but I do have one small minor correction. The steel sword you used was a modern steel. Even if it's a very poor quality steel, it is NOT a good analogue to ancient and medieval swords.
For a VAST majority of time, steels were smelted, carborized and forged directly, using a "folding" process in order to try and create a more homogeneous internal structure. Because of this folding process the quantities of carbon, iron, and other materials like vanadium (important for making Wootz Damascus steel which I'll touch on later) at any point along the blade are NOT always the same. And THIS is the problem that allows older swords to be FAR more brittle than your test piece. The issue is those impurities in the atomic structure of the steel allow for many many points within the grain structure for sudden shifts between the Face centred-cubic, and the body centred cubic forms. Those sudden transitions become VERY weak, and are the reason why many medieval swords are found in pieces.
In contrast MODERN steels are what can be called "crucible steels". They have been melted down AFTER being carborized, and ergo they have one single homogeneous carbon-content throughout the steel. This means that even the CHEAPEST modern steel does NOT have those sudden transitions from face-centred cubic to body-centred cubic, or from high to low carbon content. This means that ALL modern steels have a MUCH higher toughness and ergo a lower brittle-ductile transition temperature than the vast majority of ancient and medieval steels. Even with the tempering processes that swords went through in order to maintain their toughness in battle conditions, it was still a crap-shoot as to whether or not they would really be tough enough to survive the battlefield.
This is why the Wootz Damascus steel was so prized in the ancient world as nearly magical (The precursor to such things as Valerian Steel) as it WAS a crucible steel, melted down in clay pots creating single pucks of homogeneous steels that would allow smiths to make blades that were of a MUCH higher quality (and ergo toughness) than other steels of the era. The fact that all Wootz Damascus steel also have an easily recognizable pattern merely helped smiths, and warriors alike know that what they had was going to be superior to anything their opponents might have, and is why it was so sought after, giving it it's almost "magical" reputation. Although the process to make original Wootz Damascus steel had been thought lost, recently a smith called Al Pendray has discovered what he believes to be a majority of the process if not identical. (Remarkably a 0.1% vanadium content was required).
In short, your test is flawed, due to the materials you used to conduct it. You DID use a poor quality steel which helps, but it's still NOT a good analogue for the steels that would have been commonplace in an era like Game of Thrones. The steel you used would have been MUCH closer to the mythical Valerian Steel than you may have known.
What if both people were swinging at each other with full force?
Allen seemingly swung somewhat weak since it was really cold of course and also to be safe in case it *did* shatter, plus the "white walker" didn't swing at all.
He also waited for quite awhile after removing the sword from the liquid nitrogen, so it had some time to heat back up.
@@calebfish3416 true, though since I saw the sword still had the cold fog around it, I figured it was still almost as cold as when it had the nitrogen poured on it.
Hey, Kyle. Great episode as always, I only have one question though that is why didn't you consider the physical strength or the force at which the white walker hits Jon?
Hey Kyle, nice video as always (You should wear some back protection against all those backstappings ;) )
One comment though, in the opening video you can see the white-walker shatter an axe (I believe with wooden handle) instantly. Isn't this just some GoT magic anyway as the wood would probably explode by the sudden freezing of the water within it, while the metal would only crumble...
Keep up the good work, like the channel :)
Love this channel so much
Found your channel in the paper, great stuff! Subbing now
“Oh come on, you knew I wouldn’t stay dead”
Me: “GOD DANMIT”
Great to see Alan on this!
Hey Kyle, love your videos, always good brain food. Not sure if this might make a difference, but there is often a high pitched ringing, like when the white walkers grab a sword to break it. This being the case could it be possible for vibrations from sound to be the true cause, or add to the cause of the swords shattering?
Kyle, I loved today's topic and I also enjoyed the exerpiment that was conducted outside of the "void", but I feel the experiment wasn't handled correctly. Your associate for whom I cannot remember his name (don't take offense) made several mistakes during his testing. His first one was where he removed the sword from the container of liquid nitrogen and then proceeded to talk. While that is happening, the sword his rising in temperature very quickly decreasing its chances for a shatter. Secondly, his swing was incorrect. He should have planted himself firmly and swung confidently. I mean not a dramatic overhand swing or swinging so hard he over extends himself. I refer to some standard HEMA swings. Lastly he reacted to the cross guard breaking which is a standard occurrence from online bought cheap swords. All this being said I believe the outcome would have been the same. I appreciate everything you do and I love this channel. Thank you
The reason why your "el cheapo from the internet" didn't shatter is probably because it's made of mild steel, a low-carbon steel which is quite ductile even when cryogenically cooled.
A proper carbon tool steel which can take a good edge would be harder and more brittle when super-cooled.
First of all, an awesome episode as always, love your show and watched all your episodes. How many are there? At least, a few hundred and they're all so good.
But the real magic here is that Kyle has risen several times. Or is it the void that makes him practically immortal? Maybe time will tell.
Keep it up! Greetings from Germany!
P.S. Times zones break my heart once a week every Friday.
Kyle, do you really charge sleep time? I have to stay awake until midnight to be able to watch your live streams.
Thank God, I can have a lie-in at the weekend then. Otherwise, I would quickly be sleep deprived because of you. ;)
If you wanna retry this I've been a blacksmith since I was 15 and know a bit about metallurgy. I've had spring steel shatter at room temperature due to not properly heat treating after an initial quencher
*quench
Two things:
1.Allen Pan should have used a sharp object( like another sword)as the White Walker's weapon, so that it decreases the area of contact and therefore creating more force into the brittle sword.
2. Game of Thrones is set in medieval times where the technology of forging good swords are not there and often there are a lot of slag in the swords. therefore the swords in Game of Thrones have a higher chance to break than your modern carbon-steel sword
It's not just that the swords are frozen, it's that they were frozen to an absolute extreme in a fraction of a second
What if it is not the impact that shatters the steel swords but maybe the sword’s rapid decline in temperature that shatters it? Maybe like a kind of thermal shock.
The Best episode so far ! ofc all episodes r good ! :D
That weapon shattering scene reminds me the ice axe from your science of mortal kombat
In that the test could have been done better? Yes.
Wasted too much time after picking it up before striking...
Shoulda called Joerg to hit it with one of his ork swords.
In the books, Castle forged steel swords don't just shatter into a thousand pieces like they do in the show. They can exchange many parries with the Other's(White Walker's) blade, and only eventually breaks after many impacts. Just another strike against the show's adaptation...It would be cool if you just read the 1 page sword fight of the prologue to the first book in the Ice and fire series; Game of Thrones( page 10 in my copy); it's when Waymar Royce duels an Other toward the end of the prologue is when we see a sword break against an Other's, and then spoke about that encounter in your followup to this episode. Thanks bro! you're the best! Also i'm interested in the properties of interaction between obsidian(dragon glass) and the Others(White Walkers), i remember hearing something about how at absolute zero that its a perfect resistor or conductor, and was thinking that may have something to do with why it kills the Others.
Finally an episode where I can something correct :-)
the "sword", well better said the steel club, is way thicker than a usual medieval manufactured sword. A typical longsword usually weighs 1,7 to max. 2 kg. It also is important if the sword was meant to be used for battle fields or duell fights, not even mentioning the period it was made. So called Viking sword are shorter and have more rounder top, gothic longsword are very very pointy and thin at the top.
But lets stay in the late 15th century... there you have two different type of longsword, and Longclaw is a longsword, you have battle field longsword (like Longclaw) and you have duelling longswords (like Gandalfs Glamdring or Narsil).
If you would use a "longsword for duells, you want them to be light and fast, because only have to last for a couple of strikes - the COG (center of gravity) is around 50-65mm before the cross guard and the weight is around 1,5-1,7 kg. The COP (center of percussion) is around a third behind the point. This way you have a very agile and flexible weapon, but of course not the sturdiest one.
If you use a battle field longsword, you want to be heavier and sturdier. I said heavier NOT heavy - you never want a heavy sword. With heavier I mean weapon which weighs around 2 kgs at a length between 1300-1400 mm - so it is still not really heavy at all, but the COG is now at around 110 mm before the cross guard and the COP is only a quarter of the blade length behind the point. So the weapon is much more useable for blows and not so much for thrusts anymore.
So depending on which sword are will use you have to choose the time for how long the sword must be in the liquid nitrogen to really freeze through and through.
The battle field longsword most probably will never shatter, at least not with liquid nitrogen, but the duelling longsword which way thinner at the point will break easily.
You also must not forget the reduction of the
notch impact strength when two sharpened object do collide and cut into each other.
all in all the test of Mr. Penn was quite useless - wrong steel, wrong sword, too short in the liquid nitrogen and not properly sharpened.
Never the less - waiting for you shows has become a weekly routine for me. Please continue - you and your team are awesome!
thx for all amusement and information.
cheers from Vienna (the real one in Austria, not one of your fake ones in the US ;-) ).
Harry
btw. Sauzechn means literally translated "pig toe" ;-)
It's like a real song of ice and fire