Magnetic weapons

[Rivkin]

You are welcome.

Btw, the thing I always wondered about archaeomagnetism people - do you take in mind only the total magnetization and connect it to the strength of the Earth's magnetic field at the time of making of the object, or you actually use oomf/rkmag to see how the object with such chemistry and shape would react to the applied magnetic field of such strength ?

[Jim McDougall]

Hello Ann,
I would like to also welcome you to our forum, and to say what an honor it is to have you join us. I have had your outstanding work "Crucible Damascus Steel"for some time now, and it is brilliantly written!
For someone such as myself who is fascinated with history, yet lost with the complexities of physics, science and technology, it is an entirely readable and well crafted blend of history with well explained technical details.

This thread, as well as that of meteoric iron, have really become high profile and I am delighted that Jens posted them, as the knowledge and discussion has become irresistable! Aside from your extremely interesting article, most discussions on these topics can be quite dry to most of us in the lay world....but this thread keeps getting better, and your joining us is outstanding!

All the best,
Jim

[Ann Feuerbach]

Thank you Jim for your kind praise. Believe it or not, I was condemed by my PHD supervisor for not writing "academic" enough. I think that means big words and complicated sentence structures! However, my Russian friends said they like it because they can actually read/translate it easily. I always thought that the was the point of academic writing. Obviously I am not of the elitest academic type. I have so much more to add for the book that could not be put in the PhD
As to archaeomagnetism testing. I believe that the process involves carefully measuring the angle of declination as well as intensity and direction before it is removed from the ground, and then again in a special chamber to eliminate outside forces. I do not recall off hand how much the objects make up is involved.

[Mare Rosu]

OK ALL
I said I was winding down on my part of this thread started by JENS, and after reading
Ann and RIVKIN input on this magnetic stuff I should have stopped last week! Do all you follow their exchange? Man that is some heavy stuff. Anyway I said I would do as FEARN suggested and acquire a magnetic knife holder and zap a carbon blade.
I used a Case butcher knife, as was in contact with the magnetic holder for approximately five minutes, the pictures show that the blade did take magnetic profile with three pols.
I also took a picture of the Mysore dagger with four compasses on the blade to show you that it has the four changes all at the same time.
Gene

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Ann,
That is exactly what is great! You are able to discuss material that is typically pretty involved and technical and integrate fascinating historical data, which makes it possible to understand
The original course of this thread was to try to discover how extensively lodestone was involved in the wootz in blades. In some of the material we discovered it seems that it inadvertantly occurred in the raw material from Hyderabad, which remained in certain janbiyya blades found in Arabia.

The ensuing discussion here has been fascinating, and I think I've learned more than in any science class I ever took! ( as far as I can remember...the little red schoolhouse ya know!!

Gene,
You better not bail out on us here!!! You have been doing an incredible job of scientific experimentation, I think the first of this type I can recall. What you are doing presents some excellent hands on perspective for some of the somewhat complex ideas that have come up. Thank you for following through on this !!! Outstanding work!

All the best,
Jim

[Jens Nordlunde]

Gene, you are doing excellent with the compasses – tell me did you empty the shop ?
Allow me just one question, when you show the blade with the compasses, it seems as if the magnetism north-south is farther away from each other than the magnets on the knife holder – is that so?

Jens

[Mare Rosu]

JENS
You are very astute MR. JENS
I failed to take a picture of the knife on the magnetic holder at the tip end.
I placed the knife on the holder in two different places that is why you see two areas of magnetic fields and not just the one, both times were approximately five minutes each time with the tip end placement being the last one.
I thing the Case knife picture was different in that the knife profile came out very well while on the Mysore dagger just the magnetic fields are shown.
You ask about the compasses, yes I had to go to two different stores to get them, I tried to get all of them to be the same but could not find four just alike.
One other thing JENS, is that if you look closely at the Mysore dagger with the four compasses on the blade you will see that the tip end compasses is pointing North not South. I do not know why that happened as I did not notice it myself until I posted the pictures, another mystery on the never ending quest for information on Magnetic Weapons!
JIM
I thank you for your comments and will of course stay around as this thread is now becoming a college course for the uninformed (me).
With folks like you and ANN, as well as RIVKIN and I must also add
FEARN for his input/suggestions ( I think he is getting all of his "smarts" from his mother! ) it is hard not to learn from all of this. I also think it is a very interesting subject and not well understood. I do "blame" all of this on JENS, why cant he just read an not ask all of these hard questions?
Gene