Edward Scissorhands? Are they scissors really?
When you have a pair of scissors, theres two blades and each blade is connected to the other by a pivot or fulcrum. As you rotate either of the blades around that pivot point, the blades rub against each other, staying in contact with each other to create friction throughout the entire rotation.
Edwards blade-fingers, in contrast, have independent motion and are not connected by a fulcrum. They all rotate independently, via their own knuckles like normal human fingers, and as they rotate they do not maintain contact and friction with their neighbouring blades.
If you take apart a pair of scissors, is each blade separately still called a scissor, even when in isolation? I suppose you could argue that on its own, an individual blade is a scissor, but I personally dont think so - I think scissors only become scissors when connected by that fulcrum, and when independent and disconnected, theyre simply blades.
This concludes my TED talk.
Edwards blade-fingers, in contrast, have independent motion and are not connected by a fulcrum. They all rotate independently, via their own knuckles like normal human fingers, and as they rotate they do not maintain contact and friction with their neighbouring blades.
If you take apart a pair of scissors, is each blade separately still called a scissor, even when in isolation? I suppose you could argue that on its own, an individual blade is a scissor, but I personally dont think so - I think scissors only become scissors when connected by that fulcrum, and when independent and disconnected, theyre simply blades.
This concludes my TED talk.
Comments (22)
The design is based on the first and best scissors, the spring scissors, where the two blades loop around a U that provides spring action.
Quoting THE INVENTION OF SCISSORS: A JOURNEY THROUGH HISTORY
You must have very very different knuckles from the rest of us.
You can see in this clip that they are moving independently of each other - he can rotate one without keeping it in friction with any adjacent ones, just like your own fingers.
https://youtube.com/shorts/KikEXZ95ygQ
The basic scissor design is two blades connected, as you state in your OP, well obviously knuckles provide that connection of two blades.
Most, if not all of us here, have made the scissor motion with our hands to represent cutting at one point in our lives. Clearly putting actual blades on the fingers will result in scissor hands.
You are attempting to get us to reject the evidence of our eyes and ears using TED talk hypnosis. But I resist.
Virtual fulcrum? Couldn't he slide the blades against each other such that a point in space is a fulcrum, but it's not permanent?
Is that obvious to you? It's not to me. Each of my knuckles is connected to one finger only, and allows a pretty wide range of motion that the blades of scissors don't have.
I could use "scissor" as a verb for rubbing blades against each other:
The chef accidentally scissored his thumb, turning the salad pink.
So if you scissor something, it would involve... scissors?
Key word "knuckles" which are all connected to 1 finger and then 1 or 2 other knuckles connecting to more fingers thus providing articulation that can, among other things, provide a scissoring motion, which can be described further in terms of anatomy if that is required.
Does that make his thumbs scissors
:lol: Edward ScissorThumbs.
Lots of things can provide a scissoring motion. My wrists can provide a scissoring motion, that doesn't make my hands scissors
How would your wrists make a scissoring motion, and if so why wouldn't such a motion become scissors when blades are fitted?
The difference being the wrists are just placed next to each other, whereas knuckles are quite clearly fastened together, though if you put giant blades attached to your arms then clearly it becomes scissor arms. I honestly don't see the problem.
But even so, they are called scissor hands so we must expect some reasonable combination of the characteristics of scissors and hands.
It's like taking issue with potato salad because it is not made of whole potatoes.
I don't know what that is. You mean spring loaded scissors or something else?
Quoting THE INVENTION OF SCISSORS: A JOURNEY THROUGH HISTORY
No pictures.
You're supposed to just accept that his hands are functioning scissors and not to delve too deeply into how the prop functions.
This would be excellent content for Adam Savage, of Mythbusters fame, since he loves functional movie props. An close up inspection of how they work and the possibility of fabricating true scissor hands would be right up his alley.
When I watch the movie that's exactly what I do. This thread is just for fun really.