The Future in the Past

Like his character, Christopher Pelant, actor Andrew Leeds attended Stanford University, graduating with a degree in Computer Science.

Hodgins identifies the traces of metal as tamahagane, and the team links it to the fact that Pelant's grandfather fought in the Pacific theatre during the Second World War. The tamahagane is just a traditionally made steel and its composition can vary greatly between batches. Furthermore, average composition does not differ from average tool steel used throughout 20th century, so spectrometric identification of tamahagane is virtually impossible. (Hodgins could have matched the trace to a sword only if he had been asked to check that particular weapon). Additionally, vast majority of swords carried by Japanese officers were mass-produced from stamped steel, as tamahagane smelting and processing is a time-consuming and thus expensive process.