Arrow, Kenneth Joseph, 1921-, American economist, b. New York City, grad. City College of New York (B.S. 1940), Columbia (M.A. 1941, Ph.D. 1951). He taught economics at the Univ. of Chicago (1947-49) and Stanford Univ. (1949-68) before serving on the faculty at Harvard (1968-79). A member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers (1962), he has been a consultant for the RAND Corp. since 1948. A specialist in welfare economics and general equilibrium theory, he shared the 1972 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Sir John Richard Hicks. Arrow's publications include Social Choice and Individual Values (2d ed. 1963), Aspects of the Theory of Risk-Bearing (1965), General Competitive Analysis (1972), and The Economics of Information (1984); he has also edited Barriers to Conflict Resolution (1995) and Increasing Returns and Economic Analysis (1998).

An arrow is a pointed projectile that is shot with a bow. It predates recorded history and is common to most cultures.



Arrow sizes vary greatly across cultures, ranging from eighteen inches to five feet (45 cm to 150 cm). However, most modern arrows are two-and-a-half to three feet long (75 cm to 90 cm), similar to the length of English war arrows (which were made to be half the height of the man who shot them). Very short arrows have been used, shot through a guide attached either to the bow (an "overdraw") or to the archer's wrist (the Turkish "siper"). These may fly farther than heavier arrows, and an enemy without suitable equipment may find himself unable to return them.




Footed arrows




  • Bodkin points are short, rigid points with a small cross-section. They were made of unhardened iron and may have been used for better or longer flight, or for cheaper production. It has been mistakenly suggested that the bodkin came into its own as a means of penetrating armour, but research has found no hardened bodkin points, so it is likely that it was first designed either to extend range or as a cheaper and simpler alternative to the broadhead.In a modern test, a direct hit from a bodkin point penetrated Damascus chain armour. However, archery was not effective against plate armour, which became available to knights of fairly modest means by the late 1300s.
  • Broadheads were used for war and are still used for hunting. Mediaeval broadheads were made from steel, sometimes with hardened edges. They usually have two to four sharp blades that cause massive bleeding in the victim. Their function is to deliver a wide cutting edge so as to kill as quickly as possible. They are expensive, damage most targets, and usually not used for practice. There are two main types of broadheads used by hunters. One is the fixed-blade, while the other is the mechanical. While the fixed-blade broadhead keeps its blades rigid and unmovable on the broadhead at all times, the mechanical broadhead deploys its blades upon contact with the target, its blades swinging out to wound the target. The mechanical head flies better because it is more streamlined, but has less penetration as it uses some of the kinetic energy in the arrow to deploy its blades.
  • Safety arrows are designed to be used in various forms of reenactment combat, to reduce the risk when fired at people. These arrows may have heads that are very wide or padded. In combination with bows of restricted draw weight and draw length, these heads may reduce to acceptable levels the risks of shooting arrows at suitably armoured people. The parameters will vary depending on the specific rules being used and on the levels of risk felt acceptable to the participants. For instance, SCA combat rules require a padded head at least 1 1/4" in diameter, with bows not exceeding and of draw for use against well-armoured individuals.



Fletchings are found at the back of the arrow and provide a small amount of drag used to stabilize the flight of the arrow. They are designed to keep the arrow pointed in the direction of travel by strongly damping down any tendency to pitch or yaw. Some cultures, for example most in New Guinea, did not use fletching on their arrows.

Fletchings are traditionally made from feathers (often from a goose or turkey) bound to the arrow's shaft, but are now often made of plastic (known as "vanes"). Historically, some arrows used for the proofing of armour used copper vanes. Flight archers may use razor blades for fletching, in order to reduce air resistance.


Fletchings may be straight or helical, i.e. arranged with a slight offset around the shaft of the arrow to provide a slight rotation which improves accuracy. Most arrows will have three fletches, but some have four or even more. Fletchings generally range from two to six inches (152 mm) in length; flight arrows intended to travel the maximum possible distance typically have very low fletching, hunting arrows with broadheads require long and high fletching to stabilize them against the aerodynamic effect of the head. Fletchings may also be cut in different ways, the two most common being parabolic (i.e. a smooth curved shape) and shield (i.e. shaped as one-half of a very narrow shield) cut. Whenever natural fletching is used, the feathers on any one arrow must come from the same side of the bird.

With conventional three-feather fletching, one feather, called the "cock" feather, is at a right angle to the nock, and is conventionally placed so that it will not contact the bow when the arrow is shot. However, many modern target archers have no "cock" feather on their arrows, thus improving accuracy. Four-feather fletching can have the advantage of no cock feather, so making nocking the arrow slightly easier, though some four-fletched arrows are not evenly placed in order to make the fletches towards the bow closer to vertical.

A flu-flu is a form of fletching, normally made by using long sections of full length feathers, in most cases six or more sections are used rather than the traditional three. Alternatively two long feathers can be spiraled around the end of the arrow shaft. The extra fletching generates more drag and slows the arrow down rapidly after a short distance, about 30 m or so.

Flu-Flu arrows are often used for hunting birds, or for children's archery, and can be used to play Flu-Flu Golf.


The nock serves to keep the arrow in place on the string as the bow is being drawn. Nocks may be simple slots cut in the back of the arrow, or separate pieces made from wood, plastic, or horn that are then attached to the end of the arrow. Modern nocks, and traditional Turkish nocks, are often so constructed as to curve around the string or even pinch it slightly, so that the arrow is unlikely to slip off.

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