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weapons have always been important to
the Mortal Kombat universe from
scorpions famous spear to Kung Laos
especially sharp choice in headgear but
not all fighters weapons are so
traditional sub-zero makes his entirely
out of ice but can you make a viable
cutting weapon out of nothing more than
frozen water this is the science of
Mortal Kombat
welcome to my mortal kombat version of
the void complete with a legion of
minions ready to do my science e-bidding
and entire areas dedicated to the over
analysis of kicking and punching in
today's episode we are testing the
viability of ice based weapons
specifically we are looking at sub-zero
giant ice axe that he wields in mortal
kombat xi the latest entry into the
series from NetherRealm Studios and
Warner Brothers the game at least makes
it seem that ice can be as strong and as
sharp as any other weapon material and
deadly enough to cut opponents to pieces
minions we will test whether or not you
can really make a usable ice axe out of
nothing more than water and freezing
temperatures and then we will swing it
at one of our minions nope nope no no
not you
one of our more gelatin based minions if
the axe can hold up to the stress and do
some real damage
then sub-zero's weaponry will be
plausible but if that doesn't work we
can't get some damage and the weapon
doesn't hold together then we'll have to
think of some scientifically supported
way to replicate what we see in the game
but yet nothing let's go I just like
keeping them on their toes today's
testing will be fairly straightforward
making axe out of ice and then hit
something with it but for context we
should at least know what kinds of
properties ice has would it even
theoretically make a decent weapon when
water freezes the molecules assume a
number of different geometries and
orientations based on the temperature
and pressure around them the most common
structure for ice though is what
scientists call ice phase 1 this is what
most of the ice on earth is in the form
of the structure of ice phase 1 looks
something like this hexagonal rings of
water molecules bonded together in a
three-dimensional lattice structure you
may know that when water freezes the
molecules actually push themselves
further apart than they otherwise would
be in the liquid phase that's why for
example ice cubes float Kraig it's a bit
much man
float in your drink and not sink the
structural peculiarities of ice give it
certain mechanical properties and those
mechanical properties can give us some
idea of how good a weapon ice would make
in ax form there are two main ways you
can test how strong a material is the
first way is to take a sample of the
material you are interested in and load
it in such a way that the forces act to
reduce its size or squishin and the
second way as you might suspect is to
load it in such a way that the forces
act to elongated or stretch it out this
is a way to test for the compressive and
tensile strengths of the material
respectively when we do this kind of
testing with ice we find that it is
incredibly weak these pressures here in
tensile and compressive strengths are
far below just about every other
material that you would make a weapon
with lower than concrete lower than bone
lower than wood lower than glass and
certainly lower than iron or steel and
that's the problem
ice is weak and its weakest in tension
the big potential problem with ice
weapons is that if we want to pick them
up and swing them at something the mass
of the ice and the mass of the axe head
in our case specifically will provide
large tension forces to the handle of
these weapons which could mean that even
before we swing the weapon at an enemy
the handles will snap like a twig and
easier than twig snap so if I were
sub-zero I would be really worried about
the mechanical properties of ice but
we'll have to do our own testing first
to see if I'm right
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to help me out with today's testing I
have enlisted the help of super nerd
youtuber and friend Ellen pan hello
Ellen hi Kyle you can get that away from
my face what do we have today well I'm
making a mold in the shape of an ax head
and I'm gonna be filling this water and
freezing it I'm also gonna be making a
handle Brian would be filling these with
water and freezing them hopefully we'll
be able to make an axe entirely out of
ice that will maybe decapitate a dude
it's always nice to help what I'm
worried about though is the tensile
strength of ice especially in the handle
when our minion tries to pick it up like
an axe it might just snap ice has really
great compressive strength like you can
stand on a block of ice but you're right
it's really brittle so I think that if
someone tries to take a really good
swing with that handle if anything fails
it's probably gonna be bad yeah well you
mentioned the brittleness what do you
think is the cutting capacity of ice
even if we had the sharpest edge well
ice is really hard and that's what you
need to keep a fine edge when your main
problem is it's gonna melt you might be
able to get a sharp piece of ice but not
for very long
yeah I guess you'd have to keep all of
it it's so zero all the time anyway I'll
let you get back to work Megan come and
help me all right I love having these
Winnie and helper no no no no no you
work this is this is our thing no you
don't wanna I don't get up no of course
not I don't get minions no of course not
thank you thank you no no no while Allen
gets to work on our ice axe let me
introduce you to our test-subject
mounted here one of my stickiest minions
what's important about this head and
this flesh is that it has a similar
resistance to penetrative injury that
human flesh does so that if our ice axe
can cut this it could probably cut a
real fighters flesh and it has cast
bones with a similar strength to human
bones I think we will have a successful
test if our real ice axe can make it all
the way through our test subjects neck
but if our axe can't cut it Allen and I
will have to come up with another way to
replicate what we see in the game maybe
by supplementing the strength properties
of ice
one piece one piece thinks our thoughts
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oh yeah I love capillary action so Alan
hook do it
oh hi Kyle you didn't see it down there
I think we're doing really well I'm
pretty much welding these two pieces of
ice together by syringes watter at their
interface so that's a great idea
theoretically this should be freezing as
one solid piece ice now are you
destroying my table I learned something
today okay so the table we got like a
nice acrylic or plexi tabletop so that's
translucent yeah and dry ice is really
really really cold so the temperature
difference between the different areas
of table kind of start and you can see
the carbon dioxide right now it's not
flowing up because it's so much colder
than the ambient air it is flowing down
and around the table it is not cold here
it is very cold down here and so we had
to put it up on some foam very quickly
so we didn't destroy this beautiful void
I've set up science is pretty amazing
yeah that doesn't look pretty damn good
see there's even bit of a Filat
especially underneath it's gonna freeze
extra thick yeah all right well I guess
we give it a little bit more time maybe
give it a bit of an edge and then we
test it
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all right Ellen this looks amazing I
think this is about as good as it's
gonna get
are we ready to test this thing I think
it's as ready as we're gonna get what do
you think is gonna happen oh I I give it
50/50 odds here of even making it up to
an upright position I I've welded the
two pieces together but ice is just so
brittle and the accent is pretty heavy
yeah well looks good from here so I
guess there's nothing left to do but
maybe slice that guy
oh that was great slash terrible no no
it's okay you can put those down you did
great yeah okay so um kind of what we
expected yeah not the best possible
condition
I think the tensile strength you can see
just shattering at the handle which is a
problem but hey picked it up hey you
picked it up and it moved that was
pretty cool but not exactly the fatality
no I think we can do better what do you
think yeah I think I can do something a
little bit better
great so Ellen this looks like still a
very frigid weapon how is this gonna
help us so we've got an axe head made
out of pykrete Oh pykrete traditionally
is a mixture of sawdust and water this
is paper towels in water that's frozen
in the shape of an axe head right so
it's a composite material then and it's
gonna provide additional strength yeah
so ice as we know has great compressive
strength and is really hard but is
brittle we just saw that right paper
towels are floppy but they have high
tensile strength in their device so when
you mix the two together you get the
best of both worlds you got a really
durable and hard material oh so it's
kind of like putting rebar in concrete
to make it stronger yeah exactly or a
carbon fiber and I see here you've
replaced the handle with a wood handle
which I would suspect is because what's
important here is that the ice weapon is
doing the cutting we still have an ice
edge and we don't want the handle to
break because that's not the most
important part yeah we're really just
concerned about the blade part and how
that axe especially since with the cross
section of the handle we saw how easily
that broke in the last test what do you
think the chances of this actually are
doing some damage I honestly think that
this is at least gonna leave a mark it's
pretty tough stuff all right well
nothing to do but to test it hey guy
cut that guy
went to Fort
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okay so first thing I want to point out
is his head still on still here no
decapitation but I think there are bits
of his skull they got chipped off here
oh yeah definitely and this is where the
skin is split so this looks like
blunt-force trauma to me dr. Mann yeah
well I wonder if we can look at his look
at his face oh no covered in bits of
sores this would be the worst curb stop
ever and they're already bad okay
well realize snow pykrete no no
decapitation yeah I think this is much
better as a bludgeoning weapon the song
completely exploded just from the force
yeah what we cut into our own material
that's not what we're trying to do I
think it points out though that all the
force wasn't going into the blade edge
like a normal sword or axe would have
and instead going through our test
subject and into our material more like
this was just a structural element yeah
I don't think we're gonna see any heads
rolling but he's not having a good day
he is not having a good day we set out
today to test whether or not you can
make a real ice axe out of nothing more
than frozen water and I think that we
have to say that if sub-zero really is
slicing and dicing his enemies in his
fatalities that he needs to be using
magic in order to shore up the
structural weaknesses inherent to h2o
like we did with our pykrete or else
sub-zero won't be getting through
anything or anyone anytime soon so for
now this weapon has to stay in the
mortal kombat universe and not ours
until next time I'll see you in the void
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coming up next on the science of MORTAL
KOMBAT
it's a days episode we're gonna figure
out just how strong you have to be to
pull a fighter all the way across the
battlefield on the end of your sweet
bring me my biggest minion myth luck
buddy
are you ready
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