On The Edge

The sharpest blade possible would literally split atoms and produce nuclear fusion, which would destroy the blade and kill the user. In short, it's a really stupid idea.

>>32218279
what if we made really sharp bullets and then could shoot nukes

>>32218279
Wouldn't the edge be the thickness of an atom, making your example equivalent of cutting a brick with a brick aka retarded?

>>32218288
different atoms are different sizes. His example is retarded, but i guess a blade with an edge the thickness of a hydrogen atom would be way thinner than an atom of something big like uranium

>>32218268
I suppose it's theoretically possible to use atomic tweezers to place a perfectly straight row of atoms to make a monatomic blade.

Realistically, an obsidian scalpel is the sharpest blade you're going to get.

With technology that will exist in the foreseeable future, I'm guessing that some form of carbon will give the sharpest possible edge. Amorphous hyperdiamond, perhaps.

Sharpness probably by the tip radius. With a 'Focused Ion Beam' we can get needles to 100nm radius and small sections of foil to 10nm ish. The electrochemical polishing techniques theoretically get to atomically thick sections, and you may be able to get to that on a knife blade. The cutting ability has to do with the strength of your blade and of the material you are cutting, so no, you wouldn't be able to just effortlessly cut through hard objects.

>>32218268
>How do you measure "sharpness"?

Sharpness is determined by how much energy is need to cut though mass. Less energy, more sharp.

>>32218292
Yeah, that's like cutting a cinderblock with a bathroom tile.

>>32218292
That is a valid point. Now if we can only solve the problem of making a practical thermonuclear knife...

>>32218288
>>32218292
No, you retards. The edge would be made of anti-matter. lrn2 physics before posting noob.

>>32218318
>anti-matter
Cool. In 0,0000000001 microseconds we'd have a knife with no edge. All that inconvenient matter (pun intended) of matter and antimatter canceling each other out.

>>32218268
>superiority of only being sharp

The practical uses of such a blade are limited at best.

>>32218268
Make it out of diamonds.

>>32218268
Laser/fire/lightning sword.

>>32218365
Plasma

Vibro-blade.

>>32218379

This. The sharpest knife in the world will never compare to a knife that resonates at the right frequency to break the bonds between atoms with no actual cutting force.

Hot knives are basically an example of this, or hotwire even.

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>>32218279
>split atoms
>fusion

>>32218283
This man deserves a medal

>>32218279
I heard this word before but I'm an asshole and want to come off as smart

>>32218405
wouldn't those damage the surrounding material?

>>32218279
you surely meant fission

>>32218279
dude splitting atoms would be like trying to hit a star in the cosmos with a random pebble thrown in any direction. there are many stars but the distance between them is vast.

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>this whole fucking thread

>>32218268
>How sharp can a knife be made (with full state/global resources behind the project)?
perfectly.
get some soda lime glass and drop it.

>>32218268
you guys might not believe me but i had a cold steel sword that was that sharp. i stuck it blade down on a picnic table and it went right through it.

>>32218296
>amorphous hyperdiamond
words that dont exist. also diamond has a cubic structure.

>>32220310

> not enjoying /k/ sperging out about technological absurdities.

lurk more faggot

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>>32218279
holy fugg you are misinformed

>>32220346
>cold steel
2016
not using lukewarm steel
ISHYGDDT

>>32218268

>would slice through the counter like it were water


Any blade has a width. you would still have to make room for that blade by eithier deforming what you are cutting or removing material as you cut deeper.

This is also why the teeth of saws are flared to the side to make room for the rest of the saw and why the Chainswords in Warhammer 40k make no sense at all.

>>32218268
>Can it be made so sharp that if it were put to rest on a counter top, it would slice through the counter like it were water - only stopping once the hilt stopped it from sinking?
Sure, just make it heavy enough for the wedge shape of the edge to push the counter top material aside and overcome the friction against the material pushing back in from the sides.

>>32218279
You'd need to create a chain reaction of splitting atoms to do anything we'd notice.

An infinitely sharp object would create some weird electrical effects as electrons would be pealed from their companion nuclei.

>>32218279
just to beat a dead horse, splitting an atom doesn't release a lot of energy, on a human scale. splitting a kilogram of atoms, however...

>>32220669
>friction
>not intermolecular bonding forces

>>32220369
>Amorphous carbon is free, reactive carbon that does not have any crystalline structure (also called diamond-like carbon).
>In a crystallographic sense, however, the materials are not truly amorphous but rather polycrystalline materials of graphite or diamond[2] within an amorphous carbon matrix.
So there's a form of amorphous carbon that has many of the same properties as diamond. There's also a form that has nanocrystalline formations in an amorphous matrix. The nanocrystalline structures give the material immense hardness, and the random layout of crystalline structures increases fracture toughness as it can't shear across a single plane.

tl:dr: diamond-like carbon isn't diamond, and hyperdiamond isn't diamond either. Put them together and you get something that also isn't diamond.

>>32221251
>Not Van Der waals

>>32221208
>splitting a kilogram of atoms
Why not whole bucket?

>>32218268

Do you want the knife to actually be usable as a utility knife? An obsidian blades scalpel can have a much thinner and more uniform apex than a steel knife, but obsidian is so brittle that a scalpel blade is about the only type of bladed tool you could make with it.

Also, what do you mean by sharp? Apex thinness, or minimum force to complete a cut?

>>32218279
Not how fusion works.

>>32222243

If the sharpness was extrodinary, it wouldn't matter how brittle it was, would it? If you struck it with anything, it would just slice through it.

The knife wouldn't necessary need a broad side. Nail shaped.

Both I guess?

>>32218360

Diamond is well known to be the hardest metal

>>32222840

That's not how cutting works.

No matter how sharp you get the apex of an edge, it will always be thicker behind the apex than at the very apex, and thus there will necessarily be some level of wedging after the cut is initiated, and this wedging effect requires at least some force to overcome, and a downward force imparted by a human hand will always carry some lateral torsion.

Thus, no matter how sharp the apex is, the blade will steel need to not be excessively brittle to be usable.

We already have the technology to make blades out of materials much harder than steel (e.g. ceramic knives), but in practice they usually aren't worth the trade off because they tend to be so brittle that their edges microscopically chip very easily and they are a pain in the ass to sharpen and they can only be used for light kitchen duty without being at an extremely high risk of catastrophic failure.

>>32222916

thats dragonforce

I worked in a lab that used electron microscopes to study tissue samples, they used a machine that knapped quartz crystals into cutting edges. Kind of funny that the same thing was used by cavemen for cutting.

>>32218268
RULES OF NATURE

Jesus fuck, no one has mentioned the Chris sebenza? The sharpest knife already exists lads.

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>>32223824
>>32222916

It's spreading from /o/

>>32218480
It's always some dude from Utah dreaming about nuclear fusion.