1.
Fencing
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Fencing, also called Olympic fencing, is a sport in which two competitors fight using rapier-style swords, winning points by making contact with their opponent. Fencing was one of the first sports to be played in the Olympics, there are three forms of modern fencing, each using a different style of weapon and different rules, and as such the sport is divided into three competitive scenes, foil, épée, and sabre. Most competitive fencers choose to specialise in one weapon. Competitive fencing is one of five activities which have featured in every one of the modern Olympic Games, the other four being athletics, cycling, swimming. Fencing is governed by Fédération Internationale dEscrime, today, its head office is in Lausanne, Switzerland. The FIE is composed of 145 national federations, each of which is recognised by its countrys Olympic Committee as the representative of Olympic-style fencing in that country. The FIE maintains the current rules used for FIE sanctioned international events, including cups, world championships. The FIE handles proposals to change the rules the first year after an Olympic year in the annual congress, the US Fencing Association has slightly different rules, but usually adhere to FIE standards. Fencing traces its roots to the development of swordsmanship for duels, the ancestor of modern fencing originated in Spain, where several books on fencing were written. In conquest, the Spanish forces carried fencing around the world, particularly southern Italy, Fencing was mentioned in the play The Merry Wives of Windsor written sometime prior to 1602. The mechanics of modern fencing originated in the 18th century in an Italian school of fencing of the Renaissance, the Spanish school of fencing stagnated and was replaced by the Italian and French schools. There, he taught the aristocracy the fashionable art of swordsmanship and his school was run by three generations of his family and dominated the art of European fencing for almost a century. He established the rules of posture and footwork that still govern modern sport fencing. The first regularized fencing competition was held at the inaugural Grand Military Tournament and Assault at Arms in 1880, held at the Royal Agricultural Hall, the Tournament featured a series of competitions between army officers and soldiers. Each bout was fought for five hits and the foils were pointed with black to aid the judges, the Amateur Gymnastic & Fencing Association drew up an official set of fencing regulations in 1896. Fencing was part of the Olympics Games in the summer of 1896, starting with épée in 1933, side judges were replaced by the Laurent-Pagan electrical scoring apparatus, with an audible tone and a red or green light indicating when a touch landed. Foil was automated in 1956, sabre in 1988, the scoring box reduced the bias in judging, and permitted more accurate scoring of faster actions, lighter touches, and more touches to the back and flank than before. There are three weapons in modern fencing, foil, épée, and sabre, each weapon has its own rules and strategies
2.
Foil (fencing)
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A foil is one of the three weapons used in the sport of fencing, all of which are metal. It is flexible, rectangular in section, and weighs under a pound. As with the épée, points are scored by contact with the tip. A foil fencers uniform features the lamé, a vest, electrically wired to record hits in such cases and it is the most commonly used weapon in competition. There are two types of foils, the nonelectric foil—also known as steam or dry—and the electric. The components common to both varieties are the pommel, grip, guard, thumb pad, and blade. The blades of both varieties are capped with a plastic or rubber piece, with a button at the tip in electric blades, lacking the button and associated electrical mechanism, a judge is required to determine the scoring and the victor in a tournaments with nonelectric foils. Nonelectric ones are used for practice. The blade itself is subdivided into 3 regions, the foible, or weak, the last third of the blade near the tip, the medium, and the forte, or strong, the third of the blade near the guard. Inside of the grip is the tang, which is threaded at the end to allow the pommel to fasten the foil assembly together. When an Italian grip is used, see below, a ricasso extends from under the guard, inside of the grips quillons, into the tang. The guard is fastened to the blade, plug, and grip assemblies by the pommel, a type of threaded fastener, beginning with the 1956 Olympics, scoring in foil has been accomplished by means of registering the touch with an electric circuit. A switch at the tip of the foil registers the touch, the electric foil contains a socket underneath the guard that connects to the scoring apparatus via the body cord and a wire that runs down a channel cut into the top of the blade. Electric foil sockets are fixed so that the body cord plugs into the weapon at the fencers wrist, the tip of the electric foil terminates in a button assembly that generally consists of a barrel, plunger, spring, and retaining screws. Color-coding is used, white or yellow indicates hits not on the target area. The modern foil is descended from the weapon for the small-sword. Rapier and even longsword foils are also known to have been used, although the foil as a blunted weapon for sword practice goes back to the 16th century, the use as a weapon for sport is more recent. The foil was used in France as a weapon in the middle of the 18th century in order to practise fast
3.
Sabre (fencing)
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The sabre is one of the three weapons of modern fencing, and is alternatively spelled saber in American English. The sabre differs from the modern fencing weapons, the épée and foil, in that it is possible to score with the edge of the blade, for this reason, sabreur movements. For the other two weapons, valid touches are only scored using the point of the blade, like the foil, but unlike the épée, sabre uses the convention of right-of-way to determine who acquires the touch. The term sabreur refers to a fencer who fences with a sabre. The cross-section of the blade is l - or V-shaped, unlike the quadrangular shape of the foil. Adult blades are 88 cm in length, at the end of the blade, the point is folded over itself to form a button, although no actual button exists. The bell guard of the sword is curved around the handle, on electrical sabres, a socket for the body wire is found underneath the bell guard. A fastener known as a pommel is attached to the end of the sword to keep the bell guard, the handle of a sabre is standardly a straight sabre grip, as other grips are incompatible with the bell guard. Pistol grips are incompatible with the sabre, the entire weapon is generally 105 cm long, the maximum weight is 500g, but most competition swords are closer to 400g. It is shorter than the foil or épée, and lighter than the épée, the sabres blade is sometimes likened to a matchstick insofar as it is easy to snap but relatively cheap to replace. Like other weapons used in fencing, the modern sabre uses a connection to register touches. The sabreuse wears a lamé, a conductive vest, to complete the circuit, sabre was the last weapon in fencing to make the transition over to using electrical equipment. This occurred in 1988,32 years after foil and 52 years after the épée, unlike the other two weapons, there is very little difference between an electric sabre and a steam or dry one. The blade itself is the same in steam and electric sabres, an electric sabre has a socket, which is generally a 2-prong or bayonet foil socket with the two contacts shorted together. The electric sabre also has insulation on the pommel and on the inside of the guard to prevent a connection between the sabre and the lamé. This is undesirable because it extends the lamé onto the sabre. Early electric sabres were equipped with a capteur socket, the capteur was a device that was intended to detect a parry by use of an accelerometer. If a parry was detected, the electronics were supposed to invalidate any subsequent closing of the circuit due to the flexible blade whipping around the parry
4.
Fuller (weapon)
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A fuller is a rounded or beveled groove or slot in the flat side of a blade that is made using a blacksmithing tool called a spring swage. These grooves are often called blood grooves or blood gutters as well as fullers, a fuller is often used to lighten the blade, much the way that the shape of an I-beam allows a given amount of strength to be achieved with less material. When combined with proper distal tapers, heat treatment and blade tempering and this effect lessens as the blade is reduced in length. A blade is said to be fullered after introduction of the groove, the term fuller is from the Old English fuliere, meaning one who fulls cloth. It is derived from the Latin word fullo, the first recorded use of the term as a blacksmithing tool is from 1864, according to Websters Dictionary. The term used in historical Europe is largely unknown, and due to the changing nature of language. King Thrasamund of the Vandals was recorded in a letter to King Theodoric the Ostrogoth, giving thanks for a gift of swords, the French often use the term goutiere or cannelure. The ancient Viking term is unknown, as a verb, the old French term gutter meant to cut small hollows, as in the gutter of a crossbow. Therefore, in descriptions, fuller is often the preferred choice. As a blacksmithing tool, a fuller is a type of swage, a swage is a tool that has a particular shape forged into its surface, which is used to imprint that shape into the metal. Swage blocks are often anvil-like blocks with various shapes forged in them, the term swage is from the Old French souage, meaning decorative groove or ornamental moulding. Fullers, in particular, are swages that have a cylindrical or beveled face, if a groove is to be applied to both sides of the steel, two fullers may be used at the same time, sandwiching the workpiece in the middle. Often, one fuller will have a peg that holds it securely in the anvil, while the other fuller will have a handle and a flat head, for striking with a hammer. A blade being fullered will generally be pulled through the fullers as they are being hammered, until the entire groove is the proper depth. As the fullers make the groove, they typically displace material to the side and these ridges may be hammered flat, widening the blade, or they are often shaped with other swages, increasing the strength of the blade by creating thicker areas in its cross section. Fullers have a variety of uses beyond bladesmithing and they are often used for drawing out steel, which consists of hammering a short block into a long bar. The fullers will often be used to notch the block or bar, if the fullers are longer than the block is wide, they will tend to elongate the block rather than raise bulges from the surface. After notching, the block is hammered smooth, elongating it further, fullers are also used for many other shaping processes in blacksmithing, from making hinges and latches to plow parts and horseshoes
5.
Force
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In physics, a force is any interaction that, when unopposed, will change the motion of an object. In other words, a force can cause an object with mass to change its velocity, force can also be described intuitively as a push or a pull. A force has both magnitude and direction, making it a vector quantity and it is measured in the SI unit of newtons and represented by the symbol F. The original form of Newtons second law states that the net force acting upon an object is equal to the rate at which its momentum changes with time. In an extended body, each part usually applies forces on the adjacent parts, such internal mechanical stresses cause no accelation of that body as the forces balance one another. Pressure, the distribution of small forces applied over an area of a body, is a simple type of stress that if unbalanced can cause the body to accelerate. Stress usually causes deformation of materials, or flow in fluids. In part this was due to an understanding of the sometimes non-obvious force of friction. A fundamental error was the belief that a force is required to maintain motion, most of the previous misunderstandings about motion and force were eventually corrected by Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton. With his mathematical insight, Sir Isaac Newton formulated laws of motion that were not improved-on for nearly three hundred years, the Standard Model predicts that exchanged particles called gauge bosons are the fundamental means by which forces are emitted and absorbed. Only four main interactions are known, in order of decreasing strength, they are, strong, electromagnetic, weak, high-energy particle physics observations made during the 1970s and 1980s confirmed that the weak and electromagnetic forces are expressions of a more fundamental electroweak interaction. Since antiquity the concept of force has been recognized as integral to the functioning of each of the simple machines. The mechanical advantage given by a machine allowed for less force to be used in exchange for that force acting over a greater distance for the same amount of work. Analysis of the characteristics of forces ultimately culminated in the work of Archimedes who was famous for formulating a treatment of buoyant forces inherent in fluids. Aristotle provided a discussion of the concept of a force as an integral part of Aristotelian cosmology. In Aristotles view, the sphere contained four elements that come to rest at different natural places therein. Aristotle believed that objects on Earth, those composed mostly of the elements earth and water, to be in their natural place on the ground. He distinguished between the tendency of objects to find their natural place, which led to natural motion, and unnatural or forced motion
6.
Ground (electricity)
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Electrical circuits may be connected to ground for several reasons. In mains powered equipment, exposed parts are connected to ground to prevent user contact with dangerous voltage when electrical insulation fails. In electrical power systems, a protective ground conductor is an essential part of the safety Earthing system. Connection to ground also limits the build-up of static electricity when handling flammable products or electrostatic-sensitive devices, in some telegraph and power transmission circuits, the earth itself can be used as one conductor of the circuit, saving the cost of installing a separate return conductor. For measurement purposes, the Earth serves as a constant potential reference against which other potentials can be measured, an electrical ground system should have an appropriate current-carrying capability to serve as an adequate zero-voltage reference level. In electronic circuit theory, a ground is usually idealized as a source or sink for charge. Where a real ground connection has a significant resistance, the approximation of zero potential is no longer valid, stray voltages or earth potential rise effects will occur, which may create noise in signals or if large enough will produce an electric shock hazard. This is usually a large conductor attached to one side of the power supply which serves as the return path for current from many different components in the circuit. Long-distance electromagnetic telegraph systems from 1820 onwards used two or more wires to carry the signal and return currents. During dry weather, the ground connection often developed a high resistance, an electrical connection to earth can be used as a reference potential for radio frequency signals for certain kinds of antennas. The part directly in contact with the earth - the earth electrode - can be as simple as a rod or stake driven into the earth. Because high frequency signals can flow to earth due to capacitative effects, because of this, a complex system of buried rods and wires can be effective. An ideal signal ground maintains a fixed potential regardless of how much current flows into ground or out of ground. Some types of transmitting antenna systems in the VLF, LF, MF, sometimes a counterpoise is used as a ground plane, supported above the ground. Electrical power distribution systems are connected to ground to limit the voltage that can appear on distribution circuits. A distribution system insulated from ground may attain a high potential due to transient voltages caused by arcing, static electricity, a ground connection of the system dissipates such potentials and limits the rise in voltage of the grounded system. In a mains electricity wiring installation, the ground conductor typically refers to three different conductors or conductor systems as listed below. Equipment earthing conductors provide a connection between non-current-carrying metallic parts of equipment and the earth
7.
Etching
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Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types of material, as a method of printmaking, it is, along with engraving, the most important technique for old master prints, and remains in wide use today. In a number of variants such as microfabrication etching and photochemical milling it is a crucial technique in much modern technology. In traditional pure etching, a plate is covered with a waxy ground which is resistant to acid. The artist then scratches off the ground with an etching needle where he or she wants a line to appear in the finished piece. The échoppe, a tool with an oval section, is also used for swelling lines. The plate is dipped in a bath of acid, technically called the mordant or etchant. The acid bites into the metal where it is exposed, leaving behind lines sunk into the plate, the remaining ground is then cleaned off the plate. The plate is inked all over, and then the ink wiped off the surface, the plate is then put through a high-pressure printing press together with a sheet of paper. The paper picks up the ink from the lines, making a print. The process can be repeated many times, typically several hundred impressions could be printed before the shows much sign of wear. The work on the plate can also be added to by repeating the whole process, Etching has often been combined with other intaglio techniques such as engraving or aquatint. The process as applied to printmaking is believed to have been invented by Daniel Hopfer of Augsburg, Hopfer was a craftsman who decorated armour in this way, and applied the method to printmaking, using iron plates. Apart from his prints, there are two examples of his work on armour, a shield from 1536 now in the Real Armeria of Madrid. The switch to copper plates was made in Italy. On the other hand, the handling of the ground and acid need skill and experience, prior to 1100 AD, the New World Hohokam independently utilized the technique of acid etching in marine shell designs. Jacques Callot from Nancy in Lorraine made important technical advances in etching technique and he developed the échoppe, a type of etching-needle with a slanting oval section at the end, which enabled etchers to create a swelling line, as engravers were able to do. Callot also appears to have responsible for an improved, harder, recipe for the etching ground
8.
Jacques Callot
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Jacques Callot was a baroque printmaker and draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine. He is an important person in the development of the old master print and he made more than 1,400 etchings that chronicled the life of his period, featuring soldiers, clowns, drunkards, Gypsies, beggars, as well as court life. He also etched many religious and military images, and many prints featured extensive landscapes in their background, Callot was born and died in Nancy, the capital of Lorraine, now in France. He came from an important family, and he describes himself as having noble status in the inscriptions to his prints. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a goldsmith and he probably then studied etching with Antonio Tempesta in Florence, where he lived from 1612 to 1621. More than 2,000 preparatory drawings and studies for prints survive, but no paintings by him are known, during his period in Florence he became an independent master, and worked often for the Medici court. After the death of Cosimo II de Medici during 1621, he returned to Nancy where he lived for the rest of his life, visiting Paris and he was commissioned by the courts of Lorraine, France and Spain, and by publishers, mostly in Paris. Although he remained in Nancy, his prints were distributed widely through Europe and his technique was exceptional, and was helped by important technical advances he made. He developed the échoppe, a type of etching-needle with an oval section at the end. Previously the risk of foul-biting had always been present, preventing an engraver from investing too much time on a plate that risked being ruined by foul-biting. Now etchers could do the detailed work that was previously the monopoly of engravers. He also made extensive and sophisticated use of multiple stoppings-out than previous etchers had done. He achieved unprecedented subtlety in effects of distance and light and shade by careful control of this process, most of his prints were relatively small – as much as about six inches or 15 cm on their longest dimension. One of his devotees, the Parisian Abraham Bosse spread Callots innovations all over Europe with the first published manual of etching and his most famous prints are his two series of prints each on the Miseries and Misfortunes of War. These are known as Les Grandes Misères de la guerre, consisting of 18 prints published during 1633, at the end the generals are rewarded by their monarch. Callots series of Grotesque Dwarves were to inspire Derby porcelain and other companies to create pottery figures known as Mansion House Dwarves or Grotesque Dwarves. The former title comes from a father and son who were paid to wander around the Mansion House in London wearing oversized hats that contained advertisements. Varie Figure Gobbi - Series of 21 etchings,1616 A large series depicting commedia dellarte figures called Balli di Sfessania, in a simple, caricature-like style, Series on the Lives of Christ and Mary
9.
Spatha
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The spatha was a type of straight and long sword, measuring between 0.75 and 1 m, in use in the territory of the Roman Empire during c. the 1st to 6th centuries CE. Later swords from the 7th to 10th centuries, like the Viking swords, are recognizable derivatives, the Roman spatha was used in war and in gladiatorial fights. The spatha apparently replaced the gladius in the front ranks, giving the infantry more reach when thrusting, while the infantry version had a long point, versions carried by the cavalry had a rounded tip that prevented accidental stabbing of the cavalrymans own foot or horse. Archaeologically many instances of the spatha have been found in Britain and it was used extensively by Germanic warriors. It is unclear whether it came from the Pompeii gladius or the longer Celtic swords, or whether it served as a model for the various arming swords, the spatha remained popular throughout the Migration Period. It evolved into the sword of the High Middle Ages by the 12th century. The word comes from the Latin spatha, which derives from Greek σπάθη, meaning any broad blade, of wood or metal, the Greek word σπάθη was used in the middle Archaic period for various types of Iron Age swords. The word does not appear in Homeric Greek, but it is mentioned in the works of Alcaeus of Mytilene and it is likely that spatha is the romanization of a Doric Greek σπάθα The word survives in Modern Greek as σπάθη and σπαθί. The Latin word became the French épée, Catalan espasa, Portuguese and Spanish espada, Italian spada, Romanian spadă and Albanian shpata, the English word spatula comes from Latin spatula, the diminutive of spatha. English spade, from Old English spadu or spædu, is the Germanic cognate, derived from a Common Germanic *spadō, the earlier gladius sword was gradually replaced by the spatha from the late 2nd to the 3rd century. From the early 3rd century, legionaries and cavalrymen began to wear their swords on the side, perhaps because the scutum had been abandoned. In the imperial period, the Romans adopted the original Greek term, spáthē, as spatha, spatha appears first in Pliny and then Seneca with different meanings, a spatula, a metal-working implement, a palm-leaf and so on. There is no hint of any native Roman sword called a spatha, referring to an actual sword, the term first appears in the pages of Tacitus with reference to an incident of the early Empire. Tacitus does not identify the auxiliaries, and since the Romans employed both transplanted soldiers and local levies, it impossible to know the origins of the Roman auxiliaries in Tacitus account, most examples of spathae come from Germany and Eastern Europe, however. There is an excellent chance that the owners of the spathae were Germanic, there is no indication in Tacitus either that they were cavalry, overall, the Romans used both cavalry and infantry. When the spathae next appeared, after a lacuna of about two centuries, they became the standard weapon of heavy infantry. The Romans could have borrowed this weapon from the auxiliaries, probably Germanic mercenaries, spatha was certainly not a Germanic name, nor is there any indication anywhere what its Germanic name was. There are a plenitude of Germanic names, such as Old English sweord, bill, and so on, but no evidence to tie any name to the spatha, the spatha remained in use in the Byzantine Empire and its army
10.
Duel
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A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules. Duels in this form were chiefly practiced in early modern Europe with precedents in the code of chivalry. During the 17th and 18th centuries, duels were fought with swords. But beginning in the late 18th century in England, duels were more commonly fought using pistols, fencing and pistol duels continued to co-exist throughout the 19th century. The duel was based on a code of honor, on rare occasions, duels with pistols or swords were fought between women, these were sometimes known as petticoat duels. Legislation against dueling goes back to the medieval period, the Fourth Council of the Lateran outlawed duels, and civil legislation in the Holy Roman Empire against dueling was passed in the wake of the Thirty Years War. From the early 17th century, duels became illegal in the countries where they were practiced, Dueling largely fell out of favor in England by the mid-19th century and in Continental Europe by the turn of the 20th century. Dueling declined in the Eastern United States in the 19th century and by the time the American Civil War broke out, dueling had begun to decline, public opinion, not legislation, caused the change. In Western society, the concept of a duel developed out of the medieval judicial duel. In Medieval society, judicial duels were fought by knights and squires to end various disputes, countries like Germany, United Kingdom, and Ireland practiced this tradition. Judicial combat were of two forms in society, the feat of arms and chivalric combat. The feat of arms were done to settle hostilities between two parties and supervised by a judge. The battle was fought when one partys honor was disrespected or challenged upon in which the conflict cannot be resolved in court, a spiked hand guard for pumbling, and extra grip for half swording. The duel lasted until the party was too weak to fight back. In early cases, the party was then subsequently executed. If a traveling venans did not have weapons or horse to meet the challenge, one might be provided, if a lady passed unescorted, she would leave behind a glove or scarf, to be rescued and returned to her by a future knight who passed that way. The Roman Catholic Church was critical of dueling throughout medieval history, judicial duels were deprecated by the Lateran Council of 1215, but the judicial duel persisted in the Holy Roman Empire into the 15th century. The word duel comes from the Latin duellum, cognate with bellum, during the early Renaissance, dueling established the status of a respectable gentleman, and was an accepted manner to resolve disputes
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