'Magic materials' in a sci-fi context

[Davey]

I've been surfing around the net armed with what meagre knowledge I've got about TEH INTRAWEBZ!!11 and I managed to find a few good, a few bad, a lot more worse, and a whole whackadoodle of goddamnedeffingIwanttoripmyeyesoutandeatthem-awful fanfics. Been meaning to ask this question a lot earlier but I never got around to it before I got swept away on a trip.

With all the magic of Star Wars and the sheer scale of the numbers, I can't help but wonder: does anyone here get tired of magic materials or magic metals? I sure do. I have a small collection of science-fiction-oriented fan fiction I wrote myself on my computer. It's not much, but I've tended to avoid throwing in 'miracle technologies' like magic metals that are supposedly lighter than Aluminium, a thousand times stronger than steel, etc... you get the idea. To illustrate how extreme I am, until this date I've been very, very careful to avoid, even paranoid of even mentioning the prefix 'nano' and anything more advanced than nuclear fusion. I don't particularly enjoy tangling with what I don't fully understand and leaving the rest of the explanation up to 'magic' or trying to cover it with loads of technobabble or made-up, phony science.

The big question I've got is: I've been wondering how many people think it's the mark of a bad author to 'invent' new fictional elements like "OMGWTFPWN-ium" and such that are supposedly many times stronger than steel and a fraction of the weight? How many of you guys think this is all alright, and more importantly, if so, when? Let's hear it.

Always open to other peoples' opinions, views, and expertise.



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Edited to correct a little goof-up.

[Starglider]

Moderately 'magic' materials are actually relatively plausible. But they involve that 'nano' prefix! Oh noes!

See here.

Relatively simple nanomaterials (e.g. mass-manufactured flawless iron, diamond, bundled carbon nanotubes) can do about 10 times better than the best available steels and 200 times better than typical structural steel (in tensile strength, but other nanostructured materials can improve other properties over current ones by similar levels). More complex nanocomposites will probably be a couple of factors better than that, but be more difficult to manufacture.

Conventional physics may well be adequate to get up to 10^15 N/cm^2 tensional strength using the most exotic nanostructures, which is pretty damn impressive (steel maxes out at about 2 x 10^6 N/cm^2). That's good enough to build Orbitals but not good enough for Ringworld. Of course we have no idea how to build this kind of material in practice. The one thing none of these nanomaterials help with much is melting point; vibrate the atoms enough and the bonds will break, no matter what the structure (although nanostructured materials can be laced with hyperconductors to dissipate heat very quickly).

Doing better than that requires something other than conventional molecular bonds; i.e. making things out of 'strange matter'. Currently this is soft sci-fi; it's not as bad as FTL, in that there's nothing in physics explicitly ruling it out, but we have no real idea how to use the strong nuclear force on a large scale.

Inventing new elements is always a bad idea of course. Having stable subcritical lumps of neutronium is even worse, particularly if they're non-spherical and don't exert noticeable gravitational force on their immediate surroundings.

[Winter]

I'm usually of the opinion that magic stuff in sci-fi is a cop-out, particularly where biotech is involved. Yes, there's a bunch of improvements to be made over current materials, but it only goes so far and it can easily push your story into soft sci-fi. Same thing for the future of the interwebs. Handling it stupidly will lower my opinion of any work.

Inventing actual new elements pretty much equals an immediate crash into Star Wars territory. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with nanotech.

FTL is a special case because it's pretty much required in order to have more than one habitable (non-terraformed) world in your setting. If you do need it for your setting to work, then at least make sure it's remotely original and entertaining.

Regards,
Winter

[Darth Smiley]

Having a science fiction universe with stronger, lighter materials isn't that bad - advances are made in material sciences all the time. Just don't give them ridiculous scientific names (example: "neutronium alloy"), and keep them reasonable.

[Darth Ruinus]

Damn, I didnt know people put so much attention into the stuff their ships are made of. As you can probably tell, I dont give a fuck about if the story is hard or soft sci-fi, or if the materials in the universe are super strong pwnzorring strong.

As long as the story is good.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The first observation is that there are islands of stability in the periodic table that we haven't discovered yet which may contain useful things. The second is that some people have theorized that metastable metallic hydrogen could be used as a building material; and that would be about ten times lighter than steel for the same rough strength.

Also, it isn't always necessary to use what we think of as armour--big chunks of metal--for that purpose. A sufficiently effective explosive-reactive armour could provide viable protection against heavy nuclear blasts at close range, for example.

Though it's good to remember that even at ground zero of a thermonuclear device test, a steel sphere survived perfectly intact with coated with graphite.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Remember, composites, composites, composites - TODAY basic heavy metal and metal alloys don't get the job done by themselves. We must layer and lace materials with different characteristics.

[Darth Wong]

Moderately 'magic' materials are actually relatively plausible. But they involve that 'nano' prefix! Oh noes!

See here.

Relatively simple nanomaterials (e.g. mass-manufactured flawless iron, diamond, bundled carbon nanotubes) can do about 10 times better than the best available steels and 200 times better than typical structural steel (in tensile strength, but other nanostructured materials can improve other properties over current ones by similar levels). More complex nanocomposites will probably be a couple of factors better than that, but be more difficult to manufacture.

Conventional physics may well be adequate to get up to 10^15 N/cm^2 tensional strength using the most exotic nanostructures, which is pretty damn impressive (steel maxes out at about 2 x 10^6 N/cm^2).

How was this figure derived?

That's good enough to build Orbitals but not good enough for Ringworld. Of course we have no idea how to build this kind of material in practice. The one thing none of these nanomaterials help with much is melting point; vibrate the atoms enough and the bonds will break, no matter what the structure (although nanostructured materials can be laced with hyperconductors to dissipate heat very quickly).

I don't think it's reasonable to take tensile strength figures for these laboratory-grown super-thin whiskers and assume that you could make I-beams that strong.

Doing better than that requires something other than conventional molecular bonds; i.e. making things out of 'strange matter'. Currently this is soft sci-fi; it's not as bad as FTL, in that there's nothing in physics explicitly ruling it out, but we have no real idea how to use the strong nuclear force on a large scale.

Inventing new elements is always a bad idea of course. Having stable subcritical lumps of neutronium is even worse, particularly if they're non-spherical and don't exert noticeable gravitational force on their immediate surroundings.

To make matters worse, most sci-fi magic materials are mined, usually on planets which are perfectly normal and habitable for purposes of plot.

[Darth Wong]

Remember, composites, composites, composites - TODAY basic heavy metal and metal alloys don't get the job done by themselves. We must layer and lace materials with different characteristics.

Even some of these high-strength experimental fibres actually use magnetic fields to increase their strength. Maybe some kind of "structural integrity field" is the way of the future after all, at least for objects which can afford to have strength that is not at maximum 100% of the time.

[Darth Wong]

Note: many sci-fi magic materials are not magic for sheer strength, but for other magic properties. For example, Star Trek dilithium isn't particularly strong, but it's this magic stuff that makes their warp cores work by acting as an antimatter sponge: a ridiculous concept at best.

Other sci-fi magic materials are given the names of real science concepts, but treated as magic, like "plasma" in Star Trek. And then there's the material used in warp nacelles, which is the basis for all Star Trek technology and which apparently interacts with "subspace" when you hit it with the magic "plasma".

[Illuminatus Primus]

Even some of these high-strength experimental fibres actually use magnetic fields to increase their strength. Maybe some kind of "structural integrity field" is the way of the future after all, at least for objects which can afford to have strength that is not at maximum 100% of the time.

I thought pure elemental iron was weaker than steel? That impurities and introducing carbon into the structure hardened it and made it tougher? Is this a special case? What's going on with these whiskers?

Note: many sci-fi magic materials are not magic for sheer strength, but for other magic properties. For example, Star Trek dilithium isn't particularly strong, but it's this magic stuff that makes their warp cores work by acting as an antimatter sponge: a ridiculous concept at best.

Other sci-fi magic materials are given the names of real science concepts, but treated as magic, like "plasma" in Star Trek. And then there's the material used in warp nacelles, which is the basis for all Star Trek technology and which apparently interacts with "subspace" when you hit it with the magic "plasma".

I think its symptomatic of a more general thing. Personally, if you look at postmodernists and cultural anthropologists, they tend to have a big complex with science, being a culture of people claiming true authority and objectivity (scientists context-specific with their authority, but they are all about egalitarianism, even if its stupid). And they like to pretend like scientists are just the sainted clergymen and prophets of our age, handing down their words as dogma just the same as primitive shamans. Of course this is retarded, but I really do think the mental and social-cultural way the average 100 and sub-100 IQ person looks at science is largely like "magic that works." Look at the dismissive and stupid way people treat global warming, expecting some feel-good, effortless technotriumphant solution from these great mages despite discounting their own words on the issue.

[Darth Wong]

Even some of these high-strength experimental fibres actually use magnetic fields to increase their strength. Maybe some kind of "structural integrity field" is the way of the future after all, at least for objects which can afford to have strength that is not at maximum 100% of the time.

I thought pure elemental iron was weaker than steel? That impurities and introducing carbon into the structure hardened it and made it tougher? Is this a special case? What's going on with these whiskers?

To be honest, I never got into that part of the research. That stuff is so far away from practical commercial application that nobody in industry gives a shit. But the game is a bit different when you're dealing with pure tensile strength in extremely fine microfibres. When you're dealing with something like an I-beam, you've got all kinds of stresses in different directions pushing and pulling on the metal. But in a microfibre in pure tension, you have the rather artificial situation of pure unidirectional stress: something that material scientists normally only consider in a purely hypothetical problem in second-year, not in a practical environment.

In that kind of environment, grain boundaries are really bad mojo because the fibre will just pop at the grain boundaries, whereas in an I-beam which must withstand all manner of complex multi-directional stresses, grain boundaries are good; a single-grain I-beam would be softer than shit.

Personally, I'm a little tired of micro-fibre wanking. Yes, you can achieve really really high tensile strength (at the expense of every other kind of strength), but nobody's going to build a bridge out of pure-tension micro-fibres.

I think its symptomatic of a more general thing. Personally, if you look at postmodernists and cultural anthropologists, they tend to have a big complex with science, being a culture of people claiming true authority and objectivity (scientists context-specific with their authority, but they are all about egalitarianism, even if its stupid). And they like to pretend like scientists are just the sainted clergymen and prophets of our age, handing down their words as dogma just the same as primitive shamans. Of course this is retarded, but I really do think the mental and social-cultural way the average 100 and sub-100 IQ person looks at science is largely like "magic that works." Look at the dismissive and stupid way people treat global warming, expecting some feel-good, effortless technotriumphant solution from these great mages despite discounting their own words on the issue.

Yeah, I basically feel the same way. For most people, science is voodoo. That's why they think they can refute accepted science as long as they have a single scientist on their side. It's like saying "I have a wizard on my side too, so he can fight your wizards. And my wizard is a Level 8, while yours is only a Level 6!"

That's why they try to arrange scientific educations in an order of hierarchies rather than qualified applicability to any given situation. To them, a quantum mechanics guy is a Level 12 Wizard, whereas a lowly professional engineer like myself is a mere Level 6, and therefore inferior even when discussing matters such as physical damage to metallic structures or technological reverse-engineering where the QM guy doesn't really know shit.