Tetcho

Adrian Good luck with your 2012 research trip. I would hope that you would be allowed to perform some compositional analysis of the site ore samples to get an elemental fingerprint. It would be very informative to compare those findings with any analysis you might be able to perform on the blades illustrated in your paper. It would also be interesting to see if you could get some analysis done on some blades by Yukimitsu to assess your hypothesis. Regards, Mel

Hello Adrian Mea culpa. I took the time to read the background on the instrument on a previous thread. I noted the comment by Veli regarding lower limits of detection required to have meaningful measurements and the range of accuracy for this technology. In my laymans understanding, the instrument can detect differences of 1-2 in 100 (e.g., 1-2%) when the elements of intrest are at levels of parts per million (e.g., 1-2 in 1,000,000). Does this instrument operate with accuracy in the parts per million range? I am just wanting to understand the numbers that the instrument produces. On another note, an obvious function of this kind of test (assuming the test numbers are accurate and precise) would be great as an ID tool for the specific sword. An accurate and sensitive list of the elements found distributed across the blade would be hard for even the same smith using the same materials and tools to replicate if the detections limits were down in the parts per million/billion. Equivalent to DNA profiles for an individual. Interesting work. Regards, Mel

Hello This thread is quite interesting. Can anyone comment about/on this instrument's (or technology's) ability limits of detection, precision,and accuracy? Also any comments about linearity of measurement values would be useful. Mel O.