Homeland Security's worst nightmare.

[Dinner]

I was at the store today and I noticed they were selling ceramic knives which contain no metal what so ever. I'd never heard of this so I started talking to a salesman about them and I heard they're 1) lighter then steel knives 2) sharper then steel knives 3) they only need to be sharpened once every ten years though the sharpening must be done at the factory with a laser as attempting to sharpen it at home will not work.

So there you have it folks. Not only do we have guns made out of ceramics & nonferrous metals so that they don't set off metal detectors but now we have knifes made out of ceramics. How will Homeland Security keep this stuff off of planes?

[MarkG]

cancel all flights

[C0ckney]

it's the only way to be sure

[Dinner]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_knife

The wiki page says manufacturers have deliberately put small amounts of metal in to prevent them from getting through metal detectors. Of course right now there are only 3 makers of these ceramic knives so they can get away with that. What happens when there are 100 makers all competing for market share? Surely someone will advertise their paramilitary knife as "totally non detectable" just like gun makers have done with ceramic guns.

[Sir Og]

They should invent pottery detectors?

[onodera]

Strip searching. Or putting everyone to sleep, like in Fifth Element, or shackling everyone to the seats.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sir Og
They should invent pottery detectors?

Wiki mentions a technology known as Extremely High Frequency which can detect ceramic and no ferrous metal objects but it's not currently being deployed in numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_high_frequency

I also found an article from the Straight Dope which was written back in 1995 saying there are no ceramic guns but now there are so the information is now out of date. Interestingly enough General Motors did a lot of the early research on ceramic foam because they were interested in lighter & stronger engine valves and they determined the material worked well but was to expensive for mass production. Now days F1 race engines are just about the only place you see ceramic engine parts because those teams are just about the only ones who can afford it.

[Patroklos]

Ceramic knives are very brittle and break easily when bent or encountering an object harder than itself (metal).

But yeah, definetly easier to smuggle.

[Dinner]

Found some interesting articles on ceramic engines which are much, much lighter then metal engines plus have vastly improved heat resistance so that the engines can run much hotter (2-4 times hotter) thus insuring full burning of fuel improving fuel economy and reducing emissions. If you want to radically lower weight and improve fuel economy then it seems like ceramics is the way to do it.

http://ceramicrotaryengines.com/

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Ceramic knives are very brittle and break easily when bent or encountering an object harder than itself (metal).

But yeah, definetly easier to smuggle.

Supposedly the new generation of ceramics are much stronger. It seems materials science is advancing rapidly.

[SlowwHand]

If someone tries to get on a plane with a damn ceramic knife, they need to be assumed a highjacker. An everyday person isn't going to be that stupid. It's really not that hard of a decision. Emptying pockets, a near strip search and the first person will be an example to all others.

[Chemical Ollie]

Back to the stone age?

No one will be able to pull a new 9/11 with melee weapons anyway. The moment of surprise is gone and the restistance will be much harder.

The highjackers in 2001 could have killed the crew with almost anything: a pencil through the eye, smashing a whiskey bottle in the head, or strangling them with a shoe string or using bare hands. It was the surprise and the ruthlessness that was effective, not the matress knifes themselves.

But as I said, the moment of surprise is gone. so it will never work again. Banning knifes on flights changes nothing.

[Winston]

Issue hammers to all airline crew members. Problem solved.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/04/28/body.scanner/index.html

That's how.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Found some interesting articles on ceramic engines ....

how did you explain to your boss when he found out you were looking on the interweb for ceramic engines?