The sharpest blades are made of finely knapped obsidian. Made the way “cavemen” made them before written history. A contemporary anthropologist made surgical instruments of obsidian for use on his own surgery. They were examined under an electron microscope and were indeed sharper than any steel blade.
Japanese Katana: The Japanese katana is renowned for its sharpness and precision. The careful crafting and specific heat treatment processes used by Japanese swordsmiths, combined with the high-quality Tamahagane steel, contributed to the katana's reputation for exceptional cutting ability.
And that tip is, wait for it, just one atom wide. You cannot get any tinier than that! It's because of this ridiculously small radius that the Guinness Book of World Records declared the tungsten nanoneedle the sharpest human-made object in the world.
Frequently Asked Questions. What is the sharpest knife material? Knives with an Obsidian blade are considered the sharpest in the world, but this material is not fit for making kitchen knives as they're extremely coarse and brittle.
The sharpest object ever made is a tungsten needle that tapers down to the thickness of a single atom. It was manufactured by placing a narrow tungsten wire in an atmosphere of nitrogen and exposing it to a strong electric field in a device called a field ion microscope.
While modern materials like steel and titanium dominate the knife-making industry, obsidian's ability to fracture at the molecular level makes it the sharpest knife on Earth.
Carbon steel blades are also well-known for having high wear resistance, which enables them to keep their edges sharp for longer than stainless.
Obsidian knife blades: overkill for slicing your sandwich. The thinnest blades are three nanometres wide at the edge – 10 times sharper than a razor blade. These are made by flaking a long, thin sliver from a core of obsidian (volcanic glass).
Obsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass. It is a hard wearing material and can cut through materials such as marble and bone. It is shown here with a piece of skull trephined with an obsidian knife. The hole produced is 19 mm in diameter.
Since obsidian will fracture down to a single atom, it is claimed to have a cutting edge five hundred times sharper than the sharpest steel blade, and under a high magnification microscope an obsidian blade still appears smooth, whereas a steel blade has a saw like edge.
Obsidian is a naturally-occurring glass, usually black and opaque. It's harder than steel, and it fractures smoothly. By splitting it, you can create murderously sharp blades.
Lonsdaleite is also an allotrope of a carbon atom which is considered a 58% harder material than the diamond because of the enhancement of bone density per unit area and it has a hexagonal geometry.
Nuclear weapon
The proliferation of nuclear weapons has provided humankind with the ability to inflict upon itself the sort of extinction-level event that was previously achievable only by straying into the path of an asteroid.
In general, swords are not designed to cut through solid steel. Most traditional swords, including katanas and European swords, are made primarily for cutting flesh, fabric, and other relatively soft materials. They are not intended to be used as tools for cutting through metal.
But there has been little academic research into the efficacy of obsidian blades compared with steel scalpels, and they do have disadvantages: Obsidian scalpels are not Food and Drug Administration-approved, and they are extremely brittle and prone to breaking if lateral forces are applied, meaning they are unlikely to ...
Obsidian can now be destroyed with explosives by summoning a fireball with custom data. An infinite obsidian glitch (MC-4239, allowing conversion of redstone into obsidian) has been fixed during the implementation of the new block metadata format. Obsidian can now be found inside chests in nether fortresses.
Because of its conchoidal fracture (smooth curved surfaces and sharp edges), the sharpest stone artifacts were fashioned from obsidian. Some of these, mostly arrowheads, have been dated by means of the hydration rinds that form on their exposed surfaces through time (see obsidian-hydration-rind dating).
Stainless steel with a high content of carbon (C > 0.8%) and chromium (Cr > 10%) stays sharp for a long period of time, but is slightly more difficult to resharpen.
After making thousands of great knives, they had the idea to infuse diamonds into a blade to make their blades even sharper. Thus, DiamondBlade Knives was born.
Tungsten: The Strongest Metal in the World
Of all the metals, tungsten reigns supreme in terms of tensile strength.
Vanadium carbides are among the hardest that form in steel, and chromium carbides are in between iron carbide and vanadium carbide. Steels with very high vanadium content like Vanadis 8, CPM-10V, K390, CPM-15V, etc. have extremely high edge retention.
420 is a popular martensitic stainless steel for knife making because it offers excellent corrosion resistance and good strength and hardness. 420 takes a magnetic form in both annealed and hardened conditions, but it only has maximum corrosion resistance when it is hardened and tempered.