Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Chain mail

2011-02-02T08:55:10Z

GOreilly: Adding more information again, will need a full rewrite soon

[[Image:chainmail.jpg|thumb|right|Some chain mail]]
A simple, relatively light form of [[armor]], '''chain mail''' was one of the main forms of defense during the [[Middle Ages]]. As opposed to the heavier, more protective plate armor, chain mail consists of various interlocking links throughout. Chain mail was never designed to completely protect the wearer, as the energy of a blow would be transferred into the body with minimal resistance, leading to fractured and broken bones. The purpose of chain mail was to deflect glancing blows and to protect the body from cuts and gashes, which it excelled at. A strike from a sword would be able to break a bone, but the medicine of the time was sufficient enough to set and heal a broken bone (although not perfectly). An open wound, however, was likely to become infected, which the doctors of the time were not able to reliably treat. Chain mail became obsolete after the construction of firearms, which made the armor entirely useless.
During [[World War One]], experiments were carried out to determine whether or not chain mail would be an effective bulletproof material. Testing proved that chain mail actually increased the damage a bullet caused to a body, by fragmenting and carrying more metal into the wound. Chain mail did, however, find limited use in masks designed to prevent shrapnel damage, which proved effective in testing but in practice were unpopular with soldiers due to the appearance and weight.

In more recent times, modernised chain mail can be seen in protective gloves for butchers and others who use sharp cutting tools, as well as in shark-proof diving suits.

Properly speaking, it should be referred to as either "Chain" or "Maille". "Chainmail" is a [[neologism]] created by [[Victorian]] historians.

==Weaves==
There are many different ways of making chain mail, and these different methods are known as '''weaves'''. The most common (and well known) weave is '''"European 4-in-1"''', which is the type seen in the image displayed above. This is the main type used for armor throughout Europe, but was also seen in Asia. The 4-in-1 part of the name refers to the layout of the rings; every one ring is connected to four others. There are variants such as 6-in-1 and 8-in-1 which makes for a tighter (but far heavier) weave that offers more protection at the cost of weight and flexibility (as well as cost).

The other most common type of weave used for armor is the Japanese weave. This type usually comes in 4-in-1 or 6-in-1 patterns, and is laid out very differently to the European style. The "main" rings are laid out horizontally in a cross or hexagonal pattern, and smaller vertical rings are used to connect them. This style can appear more ornamental than the European weave, and was used more often to connect plates of solid armor rather than to provide protection by itself. As the name suggests, this style of chain mail was found mostly in Japan.

==See Also==
* [[Hauberk]]
* [[Knight]]
* [[Armor]]

[[Category:Armor]]

Chain mail

2011-01-30T23:51:30Z

GOreilly:

Chain mail

2011-01-30T21:27:58Z

GOreilly: Slowly building up the page, might do a full rewrite at a later date

A simple, relatively light form of [[armor]], '''chain mail''' was one of the main forms of defense during the [[Middle Ages]]. As opposed to the heavier, more protective plate armor, chain mail consists of various interlocking links throughout. Chain mail was never designed to completely protect the wearer, as the energy of a blow would be transferred into the body with minimal resistance, leading to fractured and broken bones. The purpose of chain mail was to deflect glancing blows and to protect the body from cuts and gashes, which it excelled at. A strike from a sword would be able to break a bone, but the medicine of the time was sufficient enough to set and heal a broken bone (although not perfectly). An open wound, however, was likely to become infected, which the doctors of the time were not able to reliably treat. Chain mail became obsolete after the construction of firearms, which made the armor entirely useless.
During [[World War One]], experiments were carried out to determine whether or not chain mail would be an effective bulletproof material. Testing proved that chain mail actually increased the damage a bullet caused to a body, by fragmenting and carrying more metal into the wound. Chain mail did, however, find limited use in masks designed to prevent shrapnel damage, which proved effective in testing but in practice were unpopular with soldiers due to the appearance and weight.
[[Image:chainmail.jpg|thumb|right|Some chain mail]]

In more recent times, modernised chain mail can be seen in protective gloves for butchers and others who use sharp cutting tools, as well as in shark-proof diving suits.

Properly speaking, it should be referred to as either "Chain" or "Maille". "Chainmail" is a [[neologism]] created by [[Victorian]] historians.

==See Also==
* [[Hauberk]]
* [[Knight]]
* [[Armor]]

[[Category:Armor]]

Chain mail

2011-01-27T20:37:02Z

GOreilly:

A simple, relatively light form of [[armor]], '''chain mail''' was one of the main forms of defense during the [[Middle Ages]]. As opposed to the heavier, more protective plate armor, chain mail consists of various interlocking links throughout. Chain mail was never designed to completely protect the wearer, but instead helped to make a glancing blow non-fatal. Chain mail became obsolete after the construction of firearms, which made the armor entirely useless.
During [[World War One]], experiments were carried out to determine whether or not chain mail would be an effective bulletproof material. Testing proved that chain mail actually increased the damage a bullet caused to a body, by fragmenting and carrying more metal into the wound. Chain mail did, however, find limited use in masks designed to prevent shrapnel damage, which proved effective in testing but in practice were unpopular with soldiers due to the appearance and weight.
[[Image:chainmail.jpg|thumb|right|Some chain mail]]

In more recent times, modernised chain mail can be seen in protective gloves for butchers and others who use sharp cutting tools, as well as in shark-proof diving suits.

Properly speaking, it should be referred to as either "Chain" or "Maille". "Chainmail" is a [[neologism]] created by [[Victorian]] historians.

==See Also==
* [[Hauberk]]
* [[Knight]]
* [[Armor]]

[[Category:Armor]]

Chain mail

2011-01-21T01:09:02Z

GOreilly:

Black hole

2009-01-12T20:43:31Z

GOreilly: Just made some minor changes to the grammar and flow of the page, I don't think I added/removed or changed any information/facts. If I've obscured some with my edits, please revert them.

[[Image:Iu8969hu.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Artist's conception of a binary system consisting of a black hole and a main sequence star. The black hole is drawing matter from the main sequence star via an [[accretion disk]] around it, and some of this matter forms a gas jet.]]
A '''black hole''' is a theoretical mass with an [[escape velocity]] greater than the speed of light. There is no direct evidence that they actually exist, although some scientists claim to have identified black holes based on circumstantial evidence.<ref>http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/971124b.html</ref><ref>http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/04/01/smallest-black-hole.html</ref> While matter and energy, even light, may not escape a black hole, [[Stephen Hawking]] has shown that they should emit [[Hawking radiation]], which absent of an influx of mass-energy would lead to the evaporation of the black hole. However, it is not currently possible to test this theory.
The outer surface of a black hole is an [[event horizon]], a non-material dimensional boundary, beyond which nothing can escape.

Black holes are thought to form when supermassive stars more than ten times the mass of the Sun run out of hydrogen fuel and die. When this happens, the iron core at the center of the star implodes under its own gravity in a supernova, and the outer layers of the star are blasted into space in one of the most energetic events in the universe. Not all supernovae result in black holes though; if the mass of the core is large enough, [[Chandrasekhar limit|about 1.2 times the mass of the Sun]], the leftover gravity of the shrinking core stalls the outward rush of the initial blast, and crushes the core into a point of infinite gravity: a black hole. This rare event is known as a hypernova and is even more energetic than a supernova.

Schwarzchild discovered that black holes were possible in the [[theory of relativity]]. [[Albert Einstein]] tried to re-work the whole theory to eliminate the need for these [[Singularity|singularities]]. However, [[Roger Penrose]] and Stephen Hawking proved the first of many [[Singularity Theorems]], which states that singularities must form under certain conditions. This demonstrated that, rather than mathematical oddities, singularities are a fairly generic feature of realistic solutions to [[relativity]]. According to relativity, any mass with radius less than its [[Schwarzchild Radius]] is a black hole.

Contrary to popular myth, a black hole is not a cosmic vacuum cleaner. In other words, a one-solar-mass black hole is no better than any other one-solar-mass object (such as, for example, the Sun) at "sucking in" distant objects. However, a one-solar-mass black hole has the same amount of matter as any other one-solar-mass object but compressed into a much smaller space.

===Supermassive black holes===
There is a growing belief among astronomers and physicists that at the center of each galaxy, including our own the Milky Way, is a supermassive black hole binding the galaxy together under its gravatational field.

== External links ==

*[http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/black_holes.html Black Holes]
*[http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/BHfaq.html Black Holes (Frequently Asked Questions)]

== References ==
<References/>

[[category: physics]]