How Does a Water Jet Cutter Work?

Water jet cutters may be still alien to many of us. To me it wasn't known until a few weeks ago, when a telly series on cutting metal and other substances amazed me. Along with high-end cutting machines with razor-sharp cutting technologies, it surprised me when they showed something as liquid as water being used to cut the hardest of substances. Now this is some technology and after this I truly believed in the capacities of engineering and the human mind. Using water pressure to cut substances, was roughly practiced during the mid 1800's. But the concrete concept of using water pressure as a cutting tool was discovered by Dr. Norman Franz, who was an engineer in forestry, in the year 1950. This was founded as an attempt to find new options to cut trees. He studied the technology of 'ultra high water pressure' (UHP) to be used as a cutting tool. Later to cut high-end solid substances, abrasives were added with the stream of water, which would let them cut even metals, with ease. With advancements today, the water jet cutter has been used in many sectors for cutting, drilling and milling. With water jet cutters being a revolutionary tool in the industrial sector, a little insight into its work mechanism will be interesting.