ChromSten feasibility

[Ahriman238]

So, a while back I read the "March Upcountry" series by John Ringo. A commonplace material there was called 'ChromSten' a metallic substance made of 'collapsed molecules.' Essentially they used tractor beams to compact matter to such an insane artificial density that it could no longer be easily divided into individual atoms, so much as a mass of compressed subatomic particles.

Throughout the books ChromSten is treated as a very dense metal would be, it is extremly heavy, but also incredibly durable, and is described as looking "silvery." 2 microns of the stuff is used to plate the hulls of hyper-capable vessels so they may withstand FTL stresses. That thickness is also used for power armor, most of which consists of enough artifical muscle to actually move 2 microns of the stuff, and the security gate at the Imperial Palace on earth, which requires a vast hydraulic system to open and close. A battleship will have a full two inches of ChromSten armor, and thus be nearly invincible.

So, my first question is: Is something like this even theoretically possible? I've heard a little about real-world neutronium, but I though we didn't understand much about it (hard to set up a lab inside a neutron star.) I also vaguely recall something similar from the Star Wars EU, Star's End prison from Han Solo at Star's End, but I digress. My second question, if this material actually existed, what would it's qualities be besides being extremely dense? What would it be useful for, besides building bunkers?

[Simon_Jester]

Realistically the stuff would just explode- sure, you can make it that dense by squeezing, but how are you going to keep it squeezed? What stops the stuff from flying apart when the pressure comes off?

There might be other ways of achieving hyperdense materials, but I have trouble picturing it without some kind of active technomagic holding the stuff together, or physics well beyond the standard model.

[Serafina]

I think it would be superconducting, because it's essentially all "one large atom" (not really, but kinda-sort off describable that way if you're simplistic). But i could be very wrong on that, i just wanted to point out the possibility.

[Darth Tedious]

Realistically the stuff would just explode- sure, you can make it that dense by squeezing, but how are you going to keep it squeezed? What stops the stuff from flying apart when the pressure comes off?

There might be other ways of achieving hyperdense materials, but I have trouble picturing it without some kind of active technomagic holding the stuff together, or physics well beyond the standard model.

It does have the same problem as RL neutronium, with an added issue: putting protons and electrons into the mix would give you even more nuclear forces to struggle against while trying to make the stuff.

I've said it before and I'll say it again- It is easier to make a spaceship hull composed entirely of forcefields than to make one with neutronium.

[Lord of the Abyss]

My second question, if this material actually existed, what would it's qualities be besides being extremely dense? What would it be useful for, besides building bunkers?

Well, as far as your first question goes it occurs to me that their plasma weapons being so effective against it makes sense. Whatever metastable state ChromSten is in, heating the stuff until it transitions from that state into a more normal one strikes me as likely to be very effective. As for how it holds together, perhaps the nuclei are packed so close together that nuclear forces are involved?

As for other uses, a few come to mind. Radiation shielding for example, given how dense it is. For the same reason it might be useful for detecting neutrinos and other "ghost" particles; its exotic density means there's a greater likelihood of a neutrino interacting, so you could get the same sensitivity from a smaller block of material than we get with our huge water based neutrino detectors. It might also be useful in making small yet massive high speed gyroscopes, being very durable and very dense. You also might be able to make that sci-fi staple, a "mole machine" out of it.

[Simon_Jester]

My second question, if this material actually existed, what would it's qualities be besides being extremely dense? What would it be useful for, besides building bunkers?

Well, as far as your first question goes it occurs to me that their plasma weapons being so effective against it makes sense. Whatever metastable state ChromSten is in, heating the stuff until it transitions from that state into a more normal one strikes me as likely to be very effective. As for how it holds together, perhaps the nuclei are packed so close together that nuclear forces are involved?

Nuclear forces don't work that way.

A blob of particles held together by nuclear forces stops being stable at a little over 200 nucleons; this is why heavy elements are radioactive. The bigger you make the blob, the stronger the blob's tendency to shed particles via decay becomes; a blob the size of a suit of power armor wouldn't just be unstable; it'd be actively, incredibly explosive without some kind of external confinement indistinguishable from magic.

[Vehrec]

One kind of thing that can act like a single atom is a Bose-Einstein Condensate. At very low temperatures, the wave packets of atoms lengthens until they blur together, loosing their identity, simultaneously in all points within the condensate while standing still.

But you can't make that more than a millionth of a degree above Absolute zero. Heat it up beyond that, and individual behavior reasserts itself.

[Simon_Jester]

Also, a Bose-Einstein condensate isn't ultradense; it's not one physical giant blob of nucleons. It's just a bunch of atoms all moving in lockstep.

[Ahriman238]

Ah. Thank you all.

Second question, rather off-topic. In those books the primary personal weapon is called a bead gun. It fires glass beads, each containing a small flake of iron allowing it to be fired from a rail or coilgun. It's never made terribly clear which the bead guns are, or even if they're all one type.

What point is there in using glass beads? You can't expect me to believe they don't have enough metal to make metal projectiles, and glass beads lack most of the qualities I'd normally expect in a futuristic projectile weapon.

[Simon_Jester]

I believe it's some kind of fancy-pants ceramic, not glass; the motive for making them ceramic is probably heat resistance given how fast they're supposed to be going.

But then, I am really not sure about this.

[Darth Tedious]

As an anti-personnel weapon, a glass projectile fired at faster-than-a-bullet speed would be pretty vicious... if it shatters on impact. Organ laceration, anyone?

[Ahriman238]

I believe it's some kind of fancy-pants ceramic, not glass; the motive for making them ceramic is probably heat resistance given how fast they're supposed to be going.

But then, I am really not sure about this.

IIRC, they say the beads are glass and explain the working of the bead pistol when one of the Marines finds the saboteur and there's a shootout. I don't have the book on hand though.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I believe it's some kind of fancy-pants ceramic, not glass; the motive for making them ceramic is probably heat resistance given how fast they're supposed to be going.

But then, I am really not sure about this.

IIRC, they say the beads are glass and explain the working of the bead pistol when one of the Marines finds the saboteur and there's a shootout. I don't have the book on hand though.

I do:

Ensign Guha smiled faintly as an aiming grid dropped across her vision. Her right hand, hidden inside the bag, flipped the bead gun off of safe, and triggered a five-round burst.

The five-millimeter steel-coated, glass-cored beads were accelerated to phenomenal speeds by the electromagnets lining the barrel. The weapon's recoil was tremendous, but all five of the beads had cleared the barrel before recoil began to take effect. Ensign Guha's hand was thrown violently out of the now smoking bag, but the beads continued their flight towards the Marine guard.
* * *
Hegazi was fast. You had to be in the Regiment. But he also had less than an eighth of a second between the instant his instincts shrilled a warning and the impact of the first bead on his upper chest.

The outer layer of his heavy uniform was a synthetic that simulated buff wool but was fire resistant. It wasn't ballistic resistant. The next layer, however, was kinetic reactive. As the beads struck, the polymers of the uniform reacted instantaneously, their chemical bonds shifting under the imparted energy to change the textile from soft and flexible to solid as steel. The armor had weaknesses and was vulnerable to cuts, but it was light, and well-nigh impregnable to small-arms fire.

Yet any material has a breaking point. In the case of the Marines' uniform armor, that point was high but not infinite. The first bead shattered on the surface, the metal and glass bits flicking out in a fan to pepper the underside of the Marine's chin even as his hand reached once more for his own sidearm. The weight was coming off his feet as he started to drop to a kneeling position when the second bead hit a few centimeters above the first. This bead also shattered, but the extra energy began to splinter the molecular bonds of the resistant material.

The third bead did the trick. Coming in on the heels of the second and slightly lower, it shattered the kinetic armor like glass, finally throwing some of its mass into the now unprotected Marine's sternum.

[Ahriman238]

So... instead of being a glass bead with a metal core, it's a glass bead encased in metal?



WTF?

[Ahriman238]

So... a glass bead with a metal casing.

I've got nothing. Is it supposed to be some sort of gimmicky ammo that just has to be semi-plausible and different from all the rest of sci-fi? Is it even semi-plausible?

[Rayo Azul]

Apart from this they also had mono-molecular weapons - the edge of a knife that never dulled, could be used as a bore for brass cannon (field expedient) and also as mono-filament weaponry.

This is one of my favourite series of Space Opera.

Cheers

Rayo

[Vehrec]

The problem with a monomolecular blade is that you need to send it back tot he factory to get sharpened. And it will blunt over time-that's a given. Even if you don't store it in a reactive environment full of nasty oxygen trying to break it's molecular bonds, it's going to either pick up or get atoms torn off it's leading edge.

[Ahriman238]

The problem with a monomolecular blade is that you need to send it back tot he factory to get sharpened. And it will blunt over time-that's a given. Even if you don't store it in a reactive environment full of nasty oxygen trying to break it's molecular bonds, it's going to either pick up or get atoms torn off it's leading edge.

The mono-wire is kept specially sealed and used once. The blades are multi-tools, 'memory plastic' that can reconfigure itself into a number of pre-set shapes with similar mass. It can be a mono-edge machete, a shovel, a sack, umm and I think either a pick or a crowbar. Anyway, if it loses it's edge, all you have to do is refresh the 'machete' setting and it will reform the edge good as new.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around metal bullets with a glass core. Why. sweet gods of sanity and reason, why?