The Edge Is A Ghost?

[Fred Sanford]

What is this? What does it mean?

The sticker came with the fully serrated K390 Delica I just bought. Yea, now it’s on my car.

Can’t get enough teeth.

[rgc]

I believe it means that it is ever elusive to attain, the perfect edge is always right there but not.

[ZrowsN1s]

Ghost hunters scope the edge.

[legOFwhat?]

Got one of those stickers with my last MT. One of my favorites, matches my coffee mug too.

[Bolster]

I believe it means that it is ever elusive to attain, the perfect edge is always right there but not.

Oh that's what it means! I thought it meant "It's something we believe in, but it doesn't really exist." LOL.

[Mushroom]

I believe it means that it is ever elusive to attain, the perfect edge is always right there but not.

Oh that's what it means! I thought it meant "It's something we believe in, but it doesn't really exist." LOL.

That phrase would be “The edge is perfect.”

[Bolster]

Good ^ one.

I recollect Sal elucidating at one point, saying the edge dies and is reborn. Maybe that partly explains "ghost." Sal believes in reincarnation...for edges at least.

[ladybug93]

I believe it means that it is ever elusive to attain, the perfect edge is always right there but not.

Oh that's what it means! I thought it meant "It's something we believe in, but it doesn't really exist." LOL.

there below the surface, but i'll never be able to prove it.


i don't actually believe in ghosts, but i believe a good edge is attainable. at least by others.

[Freediver]

It is ethereal.

[KITROBASKIN]

Maybe when a knife is so sharp, so willing to cut, and cuts so fast, Space/Time becomes just another opinion of what happened?

[Mr Blonde]

Sal shared the full quote on these forums:

I've said this before. "The edge is a ghost". It's been around for 40,000 years and still we study it. It's technically a wedge, the "W" must be silent. Bringing two bevels together is the beginning. Then we study materials that can support as thin an edge as possible at the apex, Then we study abrasives that can bring those two bevels to as fine an edge as the materials can handle. Time and practice takes you up through the grades and one day you are a graduate "edge Junky". In English, that means nuts.

This is a good place to learn.

sal

It was posted in this thread.

[Evil D]

The way I've interpreted it is similarly to the Zeno's Paradox where if you travel half the distance between two points, and then half that distance, and half that distance and so on for eternity, you'll technically never reach your destination. Theoretically an edge can get sharper and sharper in the same way, all the way down to where the apex is a single atom wide, but then you can cut that atom in half, and so on forever so there can never be "the absolute sharpest" because it can always be half as thick and thus sharper.

I'm still trying to work that out on my Sharpmaker though.

[VooDooChild]

The way I've interpreted it is similarly to the Zeno's Paradox where if you travel half the distance between two points, and then half that distance, and half that distance and so on for eternity, you'll technically never reach your destination. Theoretically an edge can get sharper and sharper in the same way, all the way down to where the apex is a single atom wide, but then you can cut that atom in half, and so on forever so there can never be "the absolute sharpest" because it can always be half as thick and thus sharper.

I'm still trying to work that out on my Sharpmaker though.

Sorry I just have to nerd out for a minute.

When Zeno had presented the idea of this paradox to some of his peers, the room fell silent. Then someone stood up, walked to the door, and proclaimed the paradox resolved...

The paradox is of course the mathematical concept of a limit. Luckily for us, the universe essentially wont let us infinitely divide time and space/ matter.

But I do get what youre saying as well. Its a pursuit of perfection sort of thing.

[Evil D]

The way I've interpreted it is similarly to the Zeno's Paradox where if you travel half the distance between two points, and then half that distance, and half that distance and so on for eternity, you'll technically never reach your destination. Theoretically an edge can get sharper and sharper in the same way, all the way down to where the apex is a single atom wide, but then you can cut that atom in half, and so on forever so there can never be "the absolute sharpest" because it can always be half as thick and thus sharper.

I'm still trying to work that out on my Sharpmaker though.

Sorry I just have to nerd out for a minute.

When Zeno had presented the idea of this paradox to some of his peers, the room fell silent. Then someone stood up, walked to the door, and proclaimed the paradox resolved...

The paradox is of course the mathematical concept of a limit. Luckily for us, the universe essentially wont let us infinitely divide time and space/ matter.

But I do get what youre saying as well. Its a pursuit of perfection sort of thing.

Apparently physics has solved this but honestly it's a bit over my head and/or I've never fully read into it. It's definitely more of a math paradox than real world. I like how it's both technically correct and completely unrealistic at the same time.

[KITROBASKIN]

Perhaps the challenge is to abandon all that might impair the cut, with the mind in a perfect follow-through.

[sal]

The following email is a conversation that I had with Shawn some time ago when he asked for more depth to the concept. I hope he doesn't mind my sharing the conversation:

sal

Hi Shawn,

Looks like you are gong to tax my memory?

In a message dated 11/7/2022 2:16:18 PM Mountain Standard Time, shawn.houston@live.com writes:

Yes, it looks like I understand. You have put that into words beautifully, I think this deserves another thread? may I quote you?

Sure.

May I ask more questions?

When did "the edge is of ghost" first come about?

As I remember, it was last year some time and we made several cups and a print ad for magazines quoting "The Edge is a Ghost".

I did a search on the Spyderco thread and saw that it was first mentioned by you in 2014?

We made a steel chart where I expressed comments about heat treat as the Spirit, but I don't remember the exact quote. Joyce or Kelly might have some input there.

Also there seems to be more to this saying? "The Edge is the ghost, the heat treatment is the spirit..."

I remember there was another excellent quote from you but I can't remember where it was maybe in one of the older Blade HQ videos where you talked about the how we cannot hold the edge itself and we need a blade to support the edge and a handle to hold the blade?

If you think of the edge as a "Pure Form", then it cannot exist by itself and it needs some type of a build up to support it. Think of a mountain range and the "Edge" is the very tip of the mountain range. The medium used, whether it be Quartz, Bronze, steel or ceramic is the mountain range built up to support the "Edge".

In my "pitch" on our kitchen knives, I said, "The edge is the knife, the blade is there to support the edge, the handle is there to control the edge. When you select a knife by looking at the handle, you are looking at the "wrong end" of the knife. Some people get married that way, but that's another story.

Hope that helps.

sal

In a message dated 11/7/2022 2:16:18 PM Mountain Standard Time, shawn.houston@live.com writes:

Yes, it looks like I understand. You have put that into words beautifully, I think this deserves another thread? may I quote you?

May I ask more questions?

When did "the edge is of ghost" first come about?

I did a search on the Spyderco thread and saw that it was first mentioned by you in 2014?

Also there seems to be more to this saying? "The Edge is the ghost, the heat treatment is the spirit..."

I remember there was another excellent quote from you but I can't remember where it was maybe in one of the older Blade HQ videos where you talked about the how we cannot hold the edge itself and we need a blade to support the edge and a handle to hold the blade?




Thank you


-Shawn
From: salglesser@aol.com <salglesser@aol.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 6, 2022 4:31:17 PM
To: shawn.houston@live.com <shawn.houston@live.com>
Subject: Re: "The Edge is A Ghost"


Hi Shawn,

I think you've got it. A ghost is something that we can never be sure of, know it all or even agree on if there is such a thing and the controversy is endless.

The way my thinking goes: Plato had what is called the "Theory of Pure Forms": There exits, in the ether, the "Pure Form" of a chair, Perfect in every way because it is just an idea. There are many physical manifestations of the "Pure Form" of a chair. They are all different, but they serve the "Pure Form" of being a chair because they fit within the idea, or "Pure Form" of the concept of a chair and serve its function".

Think of "the Edge" as a "Pure Form". An idea.

The "Edge", besides being something to be worshiped, (As you and I do) has been around for a eons. Humans have "Captured" the edge, some 50,000 years ago and they made it out of wood, stone, or anything they could find that could be "formed" into an edge. The "Edge" can die (become dull) and be re-born ( sharpened). Humans have made "Edges" out of many materials as the physical manifestation of an edge. Tin, brass, bronze, iron, steel, ceramic, etc.

That's why I say the "Edge is a Ghost", The "Pure Form", the perfect concept that we try to make. We sneak up behind it with support, chemistry. heat treat, abrasion, all to create that Ghost of a thing at the pinnacle of our intelligence. The '01 micron laser beam.

Hope that helps?

sal

In a message dated 11/4/2022 9:25:07 PM Mountain Standard Time, shawn.houston@live.com writes:

Sal,

May I ask directly in your own words what this means?

I was assuming it means the edge is mysterious, something ethereal.

But I don't want to misconstrue; I like how you explain things.




Thank you


-Shawn

[clinton1]

I'd say that's the definitive answer. Thanks for sharing that, Sal. Amazingly explained.

[RustyIron]

Humans have "Captured" the edge, some 50,000 years ago

But does one every really "capture" an edge?
Or do we just approach the ever elusive edge that we imagine?

If Werner Heisenberg had flunked out of math and became a togishi we'd have Heisenberg's Edge Principle.

[Zipper]

Or if Einstein didn’t become a physicist and was the ‘swordsmith’, the edge wouldn’t be a ghost.

[Bolster]

...A ghost is something that we can never be sure of, know it all or even agree on if there is such a thing...

"It's something we believe in, but it doesn't really exist." LOL.

Ha! If it weren't for guessing on answers and getting them right occasionally, I'd have never gotten my GED!

Thanks for the full context, Sal.