Unobtainium: Difference between revisions
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== Aerospace and electronics == |
== Aerospace and electronics == |
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Engineers have long used the term unobtainium when referring to unusual or costly materials, or when theoretically considering a material perfect for their needs in all respects save that it doesn't exist. For example, see the paper, ''[http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://www.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php%3Frequester%3Dgs%26collection%3DTRD%26recid%3D200114009286MT%26recid%3DA9116974AH Towards unobtainium [new composite materials for space applications<nowiki>]</nowiki>]'', by Misra and Mohan, which can be found in ''Aerospace Composites and Materials'', Vol. 2, pp. 29-32. Nov.-Dec 1990. In this article they note that the ideal material (unobtainium) would weigh almost nothing, but be very stiff and dimensionally stable over large temperature ranges. They then discuss how modern composites are approaching this ideal. |
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The word ''unobtainium'' may well have been coined within the aerospace industry. [[Aerospace engineering|Aerospace engineers]] are frequently tempted to design aircraft which require parts with strength or resilience beyond that of currently available materials. |
The word ''unobtainium'' may well have been coined within the aerospace industry. [[Aerospace engineering|Aerospace engineers]] are frequently tempted to design aircraft which require parts with strength or resilience beyond that of currently available materials. |
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Revision as of 23:05, 19 March 2007
Unobtainium is a colloquial term, collectively describing rare, costly, or physically impossible materials that are needed for a given application. The name is a portmanteau derived from unobtainable + ium (the suffix for many elements).
The properties of unobtainium depend on the intended use. For example, a pulley made of unobtainium might be massless and frictionless. However, if used in a nuclear rocket, unobtainium would be light, strong at high temperatures, and resistant to radiation damage.
Aerospace and electronics
Engineers have long used the term unobtainium when referring to unusual or costly materials, or when theoretically considering a material perfect for their needs in all respects save that it doesn't exist. For example, see the paper, Towards unobtainium [new composite materials for space applications], by Misra and Mohan, which can be found in Aerospace Composites and Materials, Vol. 2, pp. 29-32. Nov.-Dec 1990. In this article they note that the ideal material (unobtainium) would weigh almost nothing, but be very stiff and dimensionally stable over large temperature ranges. They then discuss how modern composites are approaching this ideal.
The word unobtainium may well have been coined within the aerospace industry. Aerospace engineers are frequently tempted to design aircraft which require parts with strength or resilience beyond that of currently available materials.
During the development and service period of the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, engineers working for Lockheed Corporation at the Skunk Works used the term unobtainium as a euphemism for titanium. This was not because of the radical decision to use the untried new material, but because at the time the Soviets were cornering the market in this material and were careful not to allow the American military to get hold of it.[1] In modern times, titanium is readily obtained.[2]
In maintaining old equipment (electronic and other) unobtainium is often used to refer to replacement parts that are no longer made (e.g. many parts for reel-to-reel audio recorders used to play back archive tapes for digitization). Uncommon, or rare, vacuum tubes are often said to be made of "unobtainium" when they cost more than the equipment they are fitted to (especially true of certain tubes, such as the 1L6, used exclusively in American battery powered shortwave radios).
Science fiction
The term has been used in science fiction for materials that have incredibly strong properties. For example scrith, the fictional material forming the foundation of the Ringworld in Larry Niven's novel of the same name, requires a tensile strength on the order of the forces binding an atomic nucleus together. Since no such material is thought to be possible, a ring world is therefore said to be built out of unobtainium. Unobtainium can be used in a disparaging context (e.g., "that idea is silly; you'd need unobtainium wires to hold the planet up!") or a hypothetical one ("If one were to build an unobtainium shell around a black hole's event horizon, what would happen to the material piling up on it?") The term handwavium (suggesting handwaving) is another term for this hypothetical material, as is "flangium" (from "to flange" meaning to make up something improbable, especially in fiction or interactive entertainment such as larp). In the movie The Core, one of the characters invented a material to build the hull of the craft that dug to the Earth's core — he explicitly dubbed this material unobtainium (due to its real name having 37 syllables). Unobtainium also is mentioned as being used in a probability-field weapon in the Uplift Saga by David Brin. (See the list of unreasonably strong materials for more examples.)
Hard SF - a sub-genere of SF - uses a more restrictive definition of these terms:[citation needed]
Handwavium: It violates all known laws of physics. There is no accepted physical theory for this effect and no theoretical pathway to the construction of such machinery. Most faster-than-light travel ideas or designs ignoring thermodynamics are handwavium.
Unobtanium: We can't build a physical example of it, but insofar as we can postulate that it can be built at all, the laws of physics say it would behave like thus and so.
Modern usage
More recently "unobtainium" has come to be used among people who are neither science fiction fans nor engineers, to denote an object that actually exists, but which is very hard to obtain either because of high price or limited availability. It usually refers to a very high-end and desirable product, e.g. in the mountain biking community, "These titanium hubs are unobtainium, man!", or a first-time indie film director saying that a sound stage to film in would be unobtainium.
Oakley, Inc. has trademarked the word Unobtanium [sic] to refer to a rubber compound used on the frames of their sunglasses. This compound is designed to grip the nose and temples when it becomes wet with perspiration. Due to rampant prior use of the term, US trademark laws are unlikely to protect Oakley's claim on the word, particularly if another company chooses to use it outside of the eyewear/clothing industry.
Because of the long-standing usage of the term "unobtanium" within the space elevator research community to describe a material with the necessary characteristics, HighLift Systems CEO Brad Edwards has advocated assigning the term as the generic name for cables woven of carbon nanotube fibers, which do seem to have met the requirements for this application. Since sufficiently long nanotube cables will be prohibitively expensive to develop without inexpensive access to microgravity, these cables would still be close enough to unobtainable to meet the definition. However, this usage does not seem to have become widespread at this time.
Unobtanium is also the name of an intense, sparkly color of blue glass, produced by Northstar Glass.
Popular culture
As stated above, Unobtanium is commonly used in many science fiction settings. Recently, the 2003 motion picture The Core portrayed a deep drilling craft composed of a material dubbed "unobtanium" by its developer (due apparently to its unwieldy technical name, and its exceptionally unusual properties). The hull remains solid at deep Earth temperatures that would melt or even boil other metals, is a near-perfect thermal insulator, and remains usually unaffected by the intense pressures that would exist within the Earth. The only time in which the hull seems to be affected by pressure is when it would add dramatic tension. The unobtainium metal in this movie is also able to convert heat directly into usable energy.
Footnotes
- ^ Titanium was required because of the high temperatures that the SR-71 airframe reached. Although titanium alloys have a strength/weight ratio which is much the same as aluminum alloys at room temperature, titanium maintains much of its strength at 600°C whereas aluminum weakens dramatically at this temperature. In spite of efforts by the Soviet Union to prevent it, a large quantity of titanium somehow found its way to the United States after an apparently innocent European company bought a considerable quantity. The company was in fact a front set up for this very purpose. Relatively large amounts of titanium are used in aircraft such as the F-15, F-18, and F-22 fighters and the B-1 bomber.
- ^ Large deposits of titanium dioxide, usually in the form of sand, exist in places such as Florida and are mined there. By heating titanium dioxide with metallic sodium or potassium in an inert atmosphere (e.g. argon), metallic titanium is obtained.