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"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Unobtainium | ||
| A humorous reference to a substance both rare and unlikely. |
Although Brin did not coin the word "unobtainium" he might well be the first user of it in science fiction. See the discussion below.
| None of the other moons in the Kthsemenee system had the one attribute this one possessed: a core of almost one percent unobtainium. Already thirty of the Brothers' ships had landed, to begin construction of the Weapon. |
| Technovelgy from Startide Rising,
by David Brin. Published by Bantam in 1983 Additional resources -
|
The best guesses as to the origin of the word place it in the field of aerospace, which has been pushing the envelope in the field of materials science for at least a century.
As reported in the Marshall Evening Chronicle (Marshall, Michigan) on February 27, 1956:
However, it can be found even earlier in a 1930 German work "Dechema-Monographium Vol 39 page 12 link:
[Google Translate: ...Weight equal to zero. An American has jokingly called this material once the element "Unobtainium".]
The earliest reference to something like this (that is, a humorous name for a material that does not exist) is as far as I know "Bolognium" from Transactions of Amer Soc for Steel Treating, by Edgar Bain, in 1926.
Scientists are now working on a new metal to be used in making the noses on intercontinental ballistics missiles. The metal is so hard to come by that the scientists have devised a lugubriously-humorous name for it. They call it ‘unobtainium’.
...Gewicht gleich Null. Ein Amerikaner hat diesen Werkstoff scherzhafterweise einmal das Element "Unobtainium" genannt.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Startide Rising
More Ideas
and Technology by David Brin
Tech news articles related to Startide Rising
Tech news articles related to works by David Brin
| Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly |
| Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer |
| Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick |
| GNoME AI From DeepMind Invents Millions Of New Materials |
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
