How Do White Walkers Shatter Swords? 

Thanks for watching super nerds! HUGE thanks to my good friend Allen Pan for his help on this -- definitely go subscribe to his channel if you want more stuff like this. And I hear you: do more of these kinds of videos! I'll try my best. Sometimes it's hard to get time/money/talent to come together, but I'll get some more going for you -- kH

"77 Kelvin above absolute zero" also known as .... 77 Kelvin.

7:55 That sword used was actually a Valyrian Steel one. They cheated.

The white walkers secretly has the reverse UNO card to shatter steel swords back

"You gonna feel the cut of my better heat transfer rate steel....." Technically badass.

The science and jokes are balanced,it's just like a song of ice and fire

*cools sword to 77 kelvin* *waves it around for several seconds in room temperature air so it warms back up a bunch*

I believe you’re missing something. If you go back to the scene you can hear the sword “singing” before shattering. This implies that what the white walker does is first lower the swords temperature to make it more brittle and then begin an vibration in the metal that builds on itself due to magically induced constructive harmonics. This drastically increases the energy the sword is absorbing and if the increase were exponential across the entire blade may even account for the blade shattering into a million little bits. Love the show!

Because science is slowly become mythbusters and I love it

Hey Kyle, I wished you would have compared that to the properties of Obsidian (dragon glass) as well. Please consider it for footnotes. Best regards :)

Also consider that the S200 series of steel actually gets stronger at cryogenic temperatures, reason why it is being used for some rocket tanks

I used to work in a freezer (-10°F). Steel was so brittle that tapping it with a pallet the wrong way could cause it to break. Also, since the freezer was inside the cooler (34°F), having the freezer door and the cooler door open, exposing it to room temperature would create snow storms in the freezer. It was pretty wild.

So, Rhaegar Targaryen is not dead... He is just making science videos.

Would Thor's hammer shatter in Hela's hands? Yes

Depending on the period, medieval swords could have had slag inclusions (poor quality steel) or been pattern welded. Either option could have made them more likely to shatter. Maybe?

4:21 The Many Faces of Kyle Hill 😂

A great example of a steel that's an amazing balance is "Super Steels" such as CPM S35VN Steel that requires cryo treating in order to reach a 60+ Rockwell hardness.

This video was music to my ears. I guess you could it was a Song of Ic... *gets stabbed*

Carbon steel is a modern steel. The steel that fantasy is based on was a much different material. The forges weren't hot enough and the iron was full of impurities. Real carbon steel was so rare it was legendary. Like Damascus steel.

I have a different theory about the shattering of the steel swords. They are shattering to a million pieces as you said, not just in one or two. To do that, I can think of two different ways. The first is to use the eigenfrequency of the metal. If the hit of that ice-spear used was able to create an oscillation on the metal at its eigenfrequency then the metal would shatter, as one can shatter a glass using sound, which is just another type of impact, but instead of an ice-spear is an impact with air. Maybe their ice-spears are made in such a way that they create such oscillations upon impact destroying every metal thing, not only sword. The second theory I have is that again by seeing the way these swords shatter, it is very similar to the shattering of materials that have microcracks within them. For instance like one can shatter glass with just pinching it with one of these safety pointy things. Also another example would be how a prince Rupert’s drop shatters, a small impact at the end shatters the entire nearly indestructible drop into a million pieces. So maybe the whitewalkers have a technic while making their ice weapons where it is possible to take advantage of all the microcracks of the metal. My overall thought would be a combination of these two, with the difference of valerian steel having a different eigenfrequency and possibly less microcracks, making invulnerable to the hits of the ice weapons. Also from a cryogenics point of view I don’t think that it would ever be possible, I am doing my PhD in cryogenics of helium below 2K, and although I haven’t studied the strength of metals at these temperatures, I am more than sure that even at such low temperatures metals have more than enough strength to withstand hits (we dropped a cryocooler at the lab once, thankfully it was fine 😂). So yeah if at

Dude, awesome job ^-^ The steel we produce today is of pretty superb quality and uniformity, even when buying a sword on the cheap end. Thanks to the variety of options to us now, developing steel is much simpler, and consistent in it's production. GoT is usually accepted to be roughly based on the mid 1400's, which means medieval quality steel. That's extremely poor quality. If you'd want a more trustworthy lab test, smelting your own steel is the best option, using the poor quality materials n methods that'd have been used.

It’s not temperature but the vibrational frequency imparted from the white walker weapon to his opponent. Non valyrian steel swords have resonant frequencies which make them vulnerable to WW weapons. Think earthquakes vs non earthquake proof buildings.

How about a because magic show where you explain how rockets work using magic explanations

4:29 Wait, we have magical heat sinks in real life?

I think white walker swords divide the opponent's sword by zero

Dude, your whole episode was like a Song I’d Ice and Fire! You’re Fire my friend, keep up with the great episodes!

What if they cooled it to absolute zero? I know we can't really test that, but we can hypothesize!!

9:08 - Wrong. Dragon fire wasn't used for Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail, the swords "forged" from Ned Stark's sword, Ice.

On my authority, as the Galactically feared, Globally reviled, and Universally despised. I demand Kyle to knight Allen Pan as Sir Allen of Science. Sir Allen's contributions demand the highest honors.

Kyle is my favorite science communicator. That is all

Love the collaboration. Please do more of them.

Thank you kyle for all you do....your show is informative and fun to watch.....glad we are all getting smarter together

Keep on rocking! I am forever indebted to you for all the inspiration these videos create. You are my son's hero (and mine too)

I imagine the localized freezing matters; get some heat strain on a bit at the same place that's being stressed

Hey, Kyle, love the show! I was recently rewatching GOT and thought 'I'd love to see a Because Science episode on how white walkers shatter weapons', and here it is. One thing I do miss about your show is how you used to focus more on what must be different about a situation to create the results we see in movies and TV shows, instead of just confirming or debunking them. I loved how that could recontextualize what we saw and make it even more awesome, instead of just saying, "yeah, that wouldn't actually happen." Still, don't ever stop making these because they are excellent and informative and fun, and because science.

I just love the background music. Pretty simple but if paid closed attention the simple two notes of melody it progresses and at some point it sounds like an epic super hero theme . LOVE IT

Maybe the white walkers are flash freezing the swords the exposing them to high temperatures wry quickly to create a thermal shock effect.

Hey Kyle, I have a quest about the shatter test. Would the force double if the attacker and the defenser would swing their weapons at the same time? Love your show mate

You and Allen work really well together. Glad to see him featured outside the MK stuff! Definitely going to check his channel out now!

The craziest thing about this show is that I've been taking college physics this semester and it seems like almost every episode comes out with something I'm learning in that class at that time. Thank you Because Science for teaching me more physics than my actual physics class! You are truly the keeper of my 4.0

Wildlings may not have access to the same quality steel as down south. Perhaps they were using pure iron?

Just seen it pop on my phone and I was already on RU-vid

Another intersting place where these kind of extreme temperature variations are found in our modern times is space rocket things. For the next gen space rocket thing SpaceX is building right now (called Starship) the engineers had to consider these things for the material to use for the hull of the spacecraft. As the Metal used for that would experience very low temperatures because of the cryogenic propellants used, as well as the extremely high temperatures of reentry the material has to withstand a crazy amount of temperature variation. Usually rockets used Aluminium or sometimes carbon composites for hull but these Rockets often weren't reuseable. The Space Shuttle used heat shield tiles which were lightwheigt but they had to be individually checked after every flight which took a lot of manhours. So what the Spacex engineers ended up settling on was regular old Stainless steel, which is heavier than aluminium but considering the heat gradient they would have had to use so much aluminium that it would have endet up heavier than when using steel. The kind of steel they chose has a very interesting temperature/toughness curve because as it gets hotter it (at least up to a point) gets stronger before becoming too ductile and at some point melting. All that is to say that I don't know what point I was trying to make but rockets are cool i guess.

Just learned about a lot of this metallurgy in welding school two weeks ago, pretty cool!

So, the void also gives you immortality? Or are you undead? Or the Lord of light loves you? Love the show, always learning.

Could Magneto lift Thor's hammer? (prior to Ragnarok)

Interesting episode. I like sword science. Looking forward to more Because Science stuff relating to swords.

Well can’t think of much to say other then great episode, and I love the channel. Keep up the great work.

Lol just found this Chanel and my name is Kyle hill XD and I have the same color hair kinda this is amazing

"Crappy carbon steel" 🅱oi! A good sword is supposed to be made of out high carbon or spring steel.

Kyle, you have just been blowing it out of the park lately. All your videos have such incredible comedic timing and production value. It really is turning into a more numbers based mythbusters (and yes please do take that compliment). Keep it up man👍

Allen was great Kyle! Thanks for another wonderful episode!

Hey how do Gundam's Beam Weapons work( except beam sabers that's old territory).

. . . Have I been saying "ductile" wrong for years? Ps. I need more almost swearing, please. It's hilarious

Such a musical sound in the slowmo part when the cold sword is being hit against that metal rail or whatever it is

Excellent format 👍

Have you thought about doin a episode/series on my hero academia? I feel like you could get some great content from that

So glad to see more of Allen Pan here, I hope he becomes a regular fixture on this show, he's fantastic and deserves it.

This reminds me of how ceramic bits from a spark plug shatters glass in an instant, could be the same principle in the show but obviously with differed materials lol

Allen's reaction was my favorite thing

Kyle, you really do make science fun! Another great video. Going to check out Allen's channel. Thanks for all your hard work & dedication. You have a wonderful sense of humor. Wish my high school science teachers were like you (way back in the days of the awful 80's!). 😄

This is easy one of the best videos. I've learn and laugh so much. Thanks.

i congratulate u on this impeccably impressive video

Hi Kyle! Love you and love the show. The only sauce that I can have on this particular subject is that the normal swords that people used are more akin to iron and that Valerian Steel is actual steel alloy. Iron reacts more dramatically to cold temperatures which could be why Valerian steel does not break but a regular sword will

Love this channel so much

Kyle, I could smell your Song of Ice and Fire joke since you started talking about forging steel.... you did not disappoint me.

Im surprised that you didnt mention vibration. If you vibrate it at a specific frequency it might be able to break it especially if it was colder and more brittle. This would also account for the high pitched sound you hear before they shatter in the show.

Kyle can never die because he gains his power from the void, especially when in the void

What if both people were swinging at each other with full force? Allen seemingly swung somewhat weak since it was really cold of course and also to be safe in case it *did* shatter, plus the "white walker" didn't swing at all.

Allen is really great! Glad to have him onboard.

Best editing on that episode! Hilarious!

What if it is not the impact that shatters the steel swords but maybe the sword’s rapid decline in temperature that shatters it? Maybe like a kind of thermal shock.

Hi smart man Kyle! Loved the video. A quick point though. A better quality sword with more of a hardened edge may be more likely to shear or shatter than a low quality sword with a lower quality of steel. Additional side note that sword wasn't tested against an I beam strictly speaking, it looked more like a box section of steel. Further depending on the grade of steel you are testing against you may be better testing against iron rather than a mild steel, due to the reduced ductility of the material. Really love the show keep up the hard work in educating and entertaining us 😊

That weapon shattering scene reminds me the ice axe from your science of mortal kombat

Gosh, the editing and scripting on these are just friggin' genius. xD

“Oh come on, you knew I wouldn’t stay dead” Me: “GOD DANMIT”

that look between the Other and Jon. fucking priceless

Kyle this episode was amazing. I never knew that our swords were this durable but I did know about the tempering process. I feel like I learned a lot and added on to some info that I had already retained. you could say it was a real song of Ice and Fire :D

Great to see Alan on this!

Though I missed the reasoning why Kyle kept getting stabbed in the back with a thrown sword, I laughed everytime. It just didn't get old!

Found your channel in the paper, great stuff! Subbing now

The steel used for modern swords is "spring metal", flexible and hardy (they can witstand a lot of punishment); back in times like the medieval age (the time that GoT takes inspiration from) steel wasn't of that much quality, it's somethin people tend to forget, the steel we use ain't the steel our ancestors used, their steel was more frail, less pure and with other problematics, and that's why folding and differential tempering existed (that's why katanas have that that weird wavy thing).

Idea for the next Footnotes episode: Explain to the layman how cryogenically treating metals causes them to be stronger (or last longer), when you stated that the colder they get, the more brittle they become!

In the books, Castle forged steel swords don't just shatter into a thousand pieces like they do in the show. They can exchange many parries with the Other's(White Walker's) blade, and only eventually breaks after many impacts. Just another strike against the show's adaptation...It would be cool if you just read the 1 page sword fight of the prologue to the first book in the Ice and fire series; Game of Thrones( page 10 in my copy); it's when Waymar Royce duels an Other toward the end of the prologue is when we see a sword break against an Other's, and then spoke about that encounter in your followup to this episode. Thanks bro! you're the best! Also i'm interested in the properties of interaction between obsidian(dragon glass) and the Others(White Walkers), i remember hearing something about how at absolute zero that its a perfect resistor or conductor, and was thinking that may have something to do with why it kills the Others.

It should also be mentioned that a sword would be much more vulnerable to a strike on the flat of the blade as opposed to the edge. Given that some historic sword fighting forms encourage blocking with the flat, perhaps this could be a more likely scenario for the "shatter."

If you wanna retry this I've been a blacksmith since I was 15 and know a bit about metallurgy. I've had spring steel shatter at room temperature due to not properly heat treating after an initial quencher

Hey Kyle, nice video as always (You should wear some back protection against all those backstappings ;) ) One comment though, in the opening video you can see the white-walker shatter an axe (I believe with wooden handle) instantly. Isn't this just some GoT magic anyway as the wood would probably explode by the sudden freezing of the water within it, while the metal would only crumble... Keep up the good work, like the channel :)

Hey, Kyle. Great episode as always, I only have one question though that is why didn't you consider the physical strength or the force at which the white walker hits Jon?

This was a cool episode!

It's like a real song of ice and fire

The Best episode so far ! ofc all episodes r good ! :D

ever since someone pointed out in the footnotes that you say "tempature," I haven't been able to unhear it

Well, that steel beam wasn't ice cold, nor was the surrounding room. I'm guessing that the temperature beyond the wall is at least -10°C. I think it'd impact the shatterability of the sword.

First of all, an awesome episode as always, love your show and watched all your episodes. How many are there? At least, a few hundred and they're all so good. But the real magic here is that Kyle has risen several times. Or is it the void that makes him practically immortal? Maybe time will tell. Keep it up! Greetings from Germany! P.S. Times zones break my heart once a week every Friday. Kyle, do you really charge sleep time? I have to stay awake until midnight to be able to watch your live streams. Thank God, I can have a lie-in at the weekend then. Otherwise, I would quickly be sleep deprived because of you. ;)

Kyle, you got your Iron atoms backwards. Body Centered Cubic is the shape of pure ferritic iron, before reaching transformation temperature and is more ductile. Heating it makes it more brittle and turns it into Face centered or body centered tetragonal depending on how hot you get it, and makes it much more brittle. According to my college metallurgy textbook, anyway. : p

Hi Kyle nice hair as always and greetings from Spain. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the opposite of brittleness is plasticity, not ductility as the former is the property of making strings out of a material or the ability to elongate or deform the material under stress. For example ceramics are brittle as is cast iron, Gold is very ductile and malleable and for plastic materials it may sound redundant but well... most plastics are very plastic. Thank you very much and good luck with the new cards of War of the Spark for EDH

I appreciate the shirt change... As for being technically accurate, well technically, metal could be considered 'cold' relative to let's say...the sun. You also brought up this topic of heat transference during the GOW axe episode, except you used the difference between a tile floor, and a carpeted floor, when stepping out of a shower.

really nice video, as always. id like to point something out, though... when the blacksmish quenches a steel sword, he is turning the BCC crystal structure into TCC, tetragronal body centered structure, which has fewer slip systems... that and the trapped carbon atoms in the crystal gives a high strengh and hardeness to the steel and, by consequence, lower toughness... the reheating process that you mentioned do not turn de BCC back to FCC structure... it releases part of the imprisioned carbon and that is what gives to the material some toughness back, by sacrificing some strengh... this is a heat trreatment called tempering

Kyle, I loved today's topic and I also enjoyed the exerpiment that was conducted outside of the "void", but I feel the experiment wasn't handled correctly. Your associate for whom I cannot remember his name (don't take offense) made several mistakes during his testing. His first one was where he removed the sword from the container of liquid nitrogen and then proceeded to talk. While that is happening, the sword his rising in temperature very quickly decreasing its chances for a shatter. Secondly, his swing was incorrect. He should have planted himself firmly and swung confidently. I mean not a dramatic overhand swing or swinging so hard he over extends himself. I refer to some standard HEMA swings. Lastly he reacted to the cross guard breaking which is a standard occurrence from online bought cheap swords. All this being said I believe the outcome would have been the same. I appreciate everything you do and I love this channel. Thank you

I always enjoy watching MythBusters Art Class with you!