Talk:Unobtainium

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on December 4, 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents

[edit] Date of Origin

We start off with "Engineers have long used (at least since 1980[1])" but then go into some discussion about the SR-71 which is 1960's. It appears that the second invalidates the first. I think this needs to be resolved but I don't have the quals to do so. k thx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.234.18.138 (talk) 17:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I tried to clarify the two different uses - does not exist, and exists but you can't get it. They have two different histories. LouScheffer 18:27, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Black hole shell

So what would happen to the material piling up on a hypothetical unobtainium shell around a black hole's event horizon?

This is just a guess, mind you. I suspect you'd end up with a layer above the unobtainium structured like a neutron star. -- Cyrius|✎ 08:30, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Hm... wouldn't the increased mass of the hole-plus-shell result in the event horizon expanding slightly? If the event horizon reaches the unobtainium shell, it will swallow it no matter how insanely strong the stuff is. That's a guess too, BTW. :) Bryan 17:55, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Of course it wouldn't swallow it! You don't seem to grasp the nature of Unobtainium. Maybe the material expands slightly when subjected to intense gravitational forces. :D 124.182.99.105 14:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

A spherical shell of matter has no gravitational effect on its interior; so assuming that the shell is spherically uniform, it wouldn't result in the event horizon expanding until such a time as the hypothetical event horizon of the combined mass of hole-plus-material would exceed the radius of the shell, at which time the actual event horizon would abruptly expand to swallow the whole thing and there would just be a bigger black hole.

(Or slightly before that, actually: as Kip Thorne figured out, if you think of a black hole's event horizon as a "membrane", it responds in an "anticausal" manner to events in the future, since an event horizon is not a material thing but a kind of statement about what can happen in the future. So the event horizon would remain stationary until just before the critical moment, then bloat outward just in time to meet the critical bit of matter to tip the scale.) --24.147.149.53 01:28, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I said, though much more thoroughly grounded, so sounds good to me. :) Bryan 06:50, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Company name

"In spite of efforts by the Soviets a large quantity of titanium somehow found its way to the USA after an apparently innocent European company bought a considerable quantity. The company was in fact a front set up for this very purpose." Anyone know the name of the company refered above?

I don't know about the details, but this story has been extensively cited in Wikipedia articles and in other major websites. It would be very interesting to find the "original source" or at least something very authoritative on the subject. I think there is no reason at this point to doubt the story, but it still has shades of grey. -- Hugo Dufort 01:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unobtainium's construct

What kind of metals is unobtainium supposedly made of? What's its melting point?

Supposedly it's not made of metals. It's melting point is the one which ends this sentence. Rbarreira 14:42, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

--- could it reach the earths core if something like the movie portrayed??? please answer oh yea and isnt it like two types of metal at supercolled temps??

Alas, there is no such thing as unobtainium. It's a fictional material with properties that no real material is expected to be able to have. Bryan 05:03, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
No; it is the result of all matter in the universe being compressed into a single black hole which decays into a cloudy mass of unobtainium. This unobtainium is immune to black holes--it'll bounce right off the event horizon--and therefore the whole universe will fill itself with unobtainium which slowly decays into "real" matter. Since being touched by matter forces unobtainium into a material state, the only way to control it is via black coins: the neutron-star-esque two-dimensional version of a black hole. If it's tweaked in just the right ways, a black coin becomes a "black wall" between matter and unobtainium: anything that crosses this wall will be converted into the other state. (The unobtainium side is almost ecessarily the outside.) The really interesting stuff is the collision between two black walls: the two walls' black coins will fall into each other, which will make the two matter sides merge. In the process, however, some of the matter will leak out. A "safewall", consisting of a black wall inside another, will be required to keep this matter explosion from destroying the universe. Some scientists believe that a safewall may automatically form in one of these explosions. --Ihope127 00:36, 17 August 2005 (UTC) (By the way... the word is "cold"; not "colled".)
Now, now. Save the made-up nonsense for Uncyclopedia, Wikipedia's supposed to be about the real nonsense. :) Bryan 17:10, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Huh?? "[This article or section contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please check for inaccuracies and modify as needed, citing sources.]"

I don't know who inserted this at the beginning of this article, and it is rather foolish and quare, as are many of the comments about "unobtainium" below. They miss the whole point: as its name says, "unobtainium" does not exist. It is a "substance" that comes straight from science fiction and the humorous quips of aerospace and electrical engineers and physicists. It is a quare idea to speculate about the exact properties of "unobtanium", just like it would be quare to speculate about the properties of "upsiedaisium" or "thiotimoline".

The whole point of this article is that it is all about "inaccuracies". Got it? User:Dale101usa

...what the hell is wrong with you? The article mentions real-life facts (such as the part about SR-71 Blackbird), but doesn't give its sources. Just because the article is about a fictional material doesn't mean that it shouldn't meet the usual Wikipedia standards. Aardark
And the fiction can be cited too, as it mostly is in this article already (Scrith is from Ringworld, etc.) Bryan 17:10, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Titanium discourse

Quote a bit of the text covering titanium as "unobtainium" is not really relevant to this article. I've reduced it to the basic point, removed some total irrelevancies, and footnoted the rest to leave it available for potential transfer to the Titanium article. The footnotes should probably be removed (or at least trimmed down) once that article's editors decide if they want it. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intro

I change the intro for the following reason. Any fictional material referred to as "unobtanium", even if the real-world existence of is currently thought to be unlikely or impossible, may prove at some point in the future to not be so. Our understanding of the universe is limited and our understanding of science is based on assumption that certain rules could never be violated. In the future we may find that there are ways around certian rules of science. I felt it was important to make it clear that the unlikeliness or impossibility of "unobtanium" is based current scientific thought and not claim that such a substance is impossible as we might some day find a far off planet where such a substance really exists. --Cab88 12:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Um

Is the chemical symbol for Unobtainium "Um" ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.51.166.250 (talk • contribs) 08:55, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

There is no chemical symbol for Unobtainium because it's not a real material. Bryan 08:55, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Is there a chemical symbol for "doesn't have a sense of humour?" --Charlene 18:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Sadly, it's not without precedent that people have posted on this talk page genuinely believing that there is such a thing as the element "unobtainium". Lacking any other cues suggesting humor IMO it warranted a serious response. Bryan 07:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Science fiction section

I had to remove a lot of content from the SciFi section; it was filled with awful speculation: "unobtainium is an informal one, apparently developed within science fiction fandom..." If the editor even read the listed world wide words source, a very good source for word etymology, he'd know that statement is wrong. I cleaned of all speculation but a better historic perspective is needed; right now it just makes references to a couple of scifi series. —Mitaphane talk 19:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

What happened to good ol' Balonium?Rich 10:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Don't delete the page !

The word "unobtainium" popped into mind during a discussion on manufacturer's pseudo-scientific claims about speaker-construction materials. I wanted to explain the concept, but couldn't remember where I first heard. Wikipedia to the rescue: I thoroughly enjoyed and found the info very helpful. My one suggestion would be to lead off with the engineering info, because I believe that's where the term really started. The length of the titanium discourse is really tangential and could be cut to a sentence. Also, I don't know how many sf citations are really necessary, but if people want to add that trivia to the end, I see no harm in it. Richard Grossman 07:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Useful info but way to many words .. to tell the meaning of a word... I first heard it in HAM RADIO to tell of a radio tube no one could find and later to describe how rare a part for an old motorcycle was ..THE subject needs a complete rewright to less than 150 words 65.78.219.138 15:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC):) ar wd8cyv David Thompson

If the purpose of the article was simply to tell the meaning of the word it'd be a candidate for moving to Wiktionary. Encyclopedia articles should go into more depth than just defining it, I don't see how the information currently present could possibly be condensed down to 150 words. Bryan 20:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Proposed addition to the SF section: usual useage of unobtainium and handwavium

unnobtainium: a material/mechanism that is theoreticaly possibly - however we have not way to produce it at this time

handwavium: a material/mechanism that is theoretically not possible - its existance needs lots of handwaving .. see also: techno babble ..

the lower the content of handwavium in a story is the more it is considered "hard SF"

Markus84.112.41.61 13:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Problem is that I've seen "unobtainium" used in both contexts, so we can't simply declare that one of them is the correct one and one's incorrect. That'd be attempting to define the term ourselves rather than describing how it's used in real life. Do you have any external sources suggesting this distinction? Bryan 00:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

how far would discussions with hard SF authors and gamedesigners count as evidence in this case .. ? it is there that the difference between "unobtainium" and "handwavium" was pointed out to me. if we add the information that this particular usage is possibly limited to hard SF only?84.112.41.61 10:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

If it's just personal conversations you've had with authors there isn't any way to cite that and it can't really be used as a source. It needs to be at the barest minimum fixed in some tangible form where other editors would have some chance at getting access to it as well to verify it. If it's in interviews that have been published in some manner then by all means dig them up and we'll mention it here. Even a Usenet posting by a notable author or game designer might be useful. Bryan 16:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

woud this be considered adequate or should i seek more references?:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3a.html

about mid-page - tihs is a quote from Ken Burnside - designer of a very interesting and critically acclaimed §D space combat game, that REALLY pays attention to physics .. "attack vector tactical" 84.112.41.61 20:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that looks like a decent source for this sort of thing. Bryan 21:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unattainium?

Is unattainium a variant or just a mispelling? Google shows only 68 references for unattainium, versus about 93,000 for unobtainium. Is it worth pointing out such a small usage in the very first sentence?

[edit] Modern?

The article makes a number of references to "modern". From the context, it appears that "modern" in the mind of the respective contributors is sometime in the last 3-5 years; the design and construction of the SR-71 is, therefore, "ancient". Such terminology makes the article sound ridiculous, written from the perspective of an adolescent. It's definitely not scholarly or encyclopedic. For practical purposes, the modern age may include the last two or three centuries, not just years. —QuicksilverT @ 16:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

OK I fixed it. Why does your username not match your username? 76.247.105.28 04:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

But context is often used, even in technical and encylopedic documents, to define "modern". You will certainly find articles referring to "modern art", and "modern programming models", referring (unambiguously) to very different timescales. In fact, it would sound very stilted to speak of Linux, for example, as "a late-contemporary operating system", rather than a "modern operating system". Since the article states that the term dates from the 1980s, "modern", in this context, clearly refers to the last few years. I don't feel strongly enough to change it back, but I think it was fine the way it was. LouScheffer 04:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Impossible with conventional materials?

I think the addition "that is impossible with conventional materials" makes the definition more complex without helping. If conventional materials would work, then no exotic ones would be needed, so this is already covered. So I think the original sentence makes the same point, but more succinctly. Also, I'm not sure the reference adds anything - the reference seems like many others on the topic, and is not an early one or one that is special in any way, so it seems not to add much. But if others think differently please chime in here. LouScheffer (talk) 03:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

At first, I simply wanted to add a citation for the initial definition and so looked up for a good source that tried to explain it under the context of science/engineering, not from science fiction. I read the reference I added which stated:

[Unobtainium] is the term coined for a smart material with properties once considered unimaginable: a material that would self-heal; self-replicate; turn invisible on demand; automatically shrivel up to sneak through wall cracks yet remember its original shape afterwards; generate its own power; be able to store and transmit huge amounts of data; flap like a bird and one day, replace human organs on demand.

That quote showed what kind of applications unobtainium would have been used for, most, if not all, of them impossible with the materials that exist. So I thought it was also better to elaborate not only what this fictional material is, but what kind of application that requires it. From the initial definition, one could say gold and diamond are unobtainium since it's costly, probably extremely rare too, and used for various applications. Basically, I tried to close up what I thought was a loophole in the definition.
That said though, I think what I chose as a citation was poor since it dealt with being able to obtain obtainium.
I have another reason why, but that depends on paradox and how one thinks of unobtainium, and I already got confused just by thinking about it :x --BirdKr (talk) 10:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Edit: On reflection though, I shouldn't really give much concern to the definition as we're talking something imaginary >_> --BirdKr (talk) 10:42, 24 April 2008 (UTC)