Posted on 12/23/2017 11:49:18 AM PST by BenLurkin
"I don't think it's plausible that there's any alloys that we can't identify," Richard Sachleben, a retired chemist and member of the American Chemical Society's panel of experts, told Live Science....
Alloys are mixtures of different kinds of elemental metals. They're very common — in fact, Sachleben said, they're more common on Earth than pure elemental metals are — and very well understood. Brass is an alloy. So is steel. Even most naturally occurring gold on Earth is an alloy made up of elemental gold mixed with other metals, like silver or copper.
"There are databases of all known phases [of metal], including alloys," May Nyman, a professor in the Oregon State University Department of Chemistry, told Live Science. Those databases include straightforward techniques for identifying metal alloys.
If an unknown alloy appeared, Nyman said it would be relatively simple to figure out what it was made of. For crystalline alloys — those in which the mixture of atoms forms an ordered structure — researchers use a technique called X-ray diffraction, Nyman said.
"The X-ray's wavelength is about the same size as the distance between the atoms [of crystalline alloys]," Nyman said, "so that means when the X-rays go into a well-ordered material, they diffract [change shape and intensity] … and from that diffraction [pattern] you can get information that tells you the distance between the atoms, what the atoms are, and how well-ordered the atoms are. It tells you all about the arrangement of your atoms."
With noncrystalline, amorphous alloys, the process is a bit different, but not by much.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
are you from the past?
2D carbon based systems have been studied for years as the perfect conductor.
Graphene can be both conductive and non-condutive depending on electronic conformation (s,p,d) which makes it a very good candidate for ultrathin (as in a atom thick, one Angstrom) nanosize gates (the building block of computing).
computing is growing at a logarithmic rate.
The article takes an idiotically simple view of metallurgy by ignoring that the processing and arrangement of elemental metals can drastically affect the behavior of alloys. The reporter was likely sent out to solicit disparaging views from experts and got what was instructed.
Even rich people like $22 million.
Yabbut, it sounds so cool to the liberal idiots that read the NYT.
---
That we've got.
.jpg)
Speaking of hiding the remote; I have Xfinity Triple Play, which means I had to get the fancy new DVR. Fine. Then in the mail came a vocal remote you just TALK to. Oh no ya’ don’t! I don’t want anything listening to ME. I buried it, in the packaging, in the bottom of the TV stand, behind my DVDs, etc.
http://www.tssbulletproof.com/optically-clear-aluminum-provides-bulletproof-protection/
Some are detrimental in specific applications -- like the decades-known Au5AL2 intermetallic reaction (aka "Purple Plague") that cause failures of bonds between gold wires and aluminum IC metallization...
That doesn't mean that it (or other stoichometric ratio compositions) could not be useful for other purposes...
... and also, the element of surprise!
Adamantium?
Vibranium?
Uru?
E.G., elemental carbon, common or diamond.
Illudium Phosdex, the Shaving Cream Atom.
http://www.supercartoons.net/cartoon/656/duck-dodgers-in-the-24th-century.html
Gorp doesn’t occur naturally in nature either - takes special blending skills....
Two (no more, no less) layers of graphene together can exceed the hardness and strength of diamond when stressed:
As I said, we now understand the elements of the periodic table fairly well. Now, the materials science door is opening into a whole new world of nano and micro-scale elemental structures.
Next? Products of reactions between nanostructures...?
We've come a long way in the last century. There's no telling where a culture with a few millennia of a head start might be in their knowledge and applications of materials...
This must be what Galadriel gave Frodo.
This must be what Galadriel gave Frodo.
I liked this quote at the end: “As for whether there’s an explanation at least for the metals themselves, Sachleben said: “There’s not as many mysteries in science as people like to think. It’s not like we know everything — we don’t know everything. But most things we know enough about to know what we don’t know.”
I think this Sachleben should be nominated for the double-speak award, for 2018. I think he’d win too.
“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.