Super metal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In science fiction, super metals are fictional metals which possess unnatural physical properties including:

• strength
• hardness
• thermal tolerance
• elastisicity
• density

Examples of super-metals include:

• X, the metal which made space flight possible in The Skylark of Space by E.E. "Doc" Smith.
• Resistium, (which had a nucleus of negatrons and had orbital protons) was first featured in The Incredible Planet by John W. Campbell, Jr.
• Durium, an alloy made from resistium and other ultra-elements from The Infinite Atom by John W. Campbell, Jr. (and was also used by E.E. "Doc" Smith in later works).
• Radium X, the extra-terrestrial element which Dr. Janos Rukh (Boris Karloff) made a death beam device in the film The Invisible Ray.
• In Marooned by John W. Campbell, Jr., the Jovian exploration ship Mercury was constructed from Parium and Synthium, elements which had great tensile strength.
• Byzanium, a fictional fissile element from Raise the Titananic! by Clive Cussler.
• Unobtanium, the material from which the ship "Virgil" was constructed in the film The Core starring Hillary Swank. the word unobtanium is also colloquially used by engineers to describe non-existent materials with desirable mechanical properties ("That shaft would have to be made of unobtanium in order to carry such a high load").
• In the Marvel Comics universe, Wolverine's claws and metal skeleton are made of the super alloy adamantium.
• Neutronium (incredibly dense, degenerate ionised matter) is featured in many works of science fiction.
• Bendezium of the Metroid Prime series can only be destroyed by the Power bomb weapon.