Subject: Re: Mail Making

From: [email-masked] (Rick Cavasin)
Date: 15 Dec 1993 19:52:46 GMT

Don't get me wrong, I like Tolkein as much as the
next guy, but what's this about trying to find 'modern'
analogues for fictional metals?

Remember, Tolkein is fiction.  Great fiction, but
fiction nevertheless.

Cheers, Rick C.

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From: Doug White <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 17:02:29 -0500

> Remember, Tolkein is fiction.  Great fiction, but

My two favorite fictional metals are Krell Metal and Unobtanium.  Krell 
Metal (from the movie Forbidden Planet) is very light, and unbelievably
hard and tough.  I once knew a technician who had to drill some mounting 
holes in an electrical chassis.  He swore it was made of Krell Metal after
ruining a drill bit on it.  Unobtainium is wonderful stuff, because it
always has all of the usually incompatible properties you could ever want.
It shares many of the structural properties of Krell metal, except that
it is easy to work yet bulletproof, easy to cast yet melts at 10,000 C,
can be tempered to be harder than diamond yet never brittle, etc.  
Actually, Unobtanium might be a plastic of some sort, because it can also
be transparent.  It is, of course, incredibly inexpensive, and therefore
always out of stock. Although they seldom realize it, it is frequently the
only stuff that will meet the requirements of young designers who's
diplomas are still wet.

Although all in good fun, it is occasionally useful to jar someone back to
reality by asking them which of the above two materials they expect you to
build their design from.

Doug White
MIT Lincoln Laboratory

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From: [email-masked] (SCOTT F. MASTROIANNI)
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 16:54:51 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Louis
 Victor Zimmerman) writes:
>In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (S
COTT F. MASTROIANNI) writes:
>>If you like the properties of high-tech alloys then why not avail yourself of
>>the modern methods of forming and linking the rings.  I'm still fascinated by
>>the idea of a tig-welded titanium suit of mail.
>
>Titanium has always been my choice for the real-life equivalent
>to Tolkiens Mithril... :-)
>
Also being a Tolkien fan, I have given the matter of mithril some thought as
well (Tolkien's description of Bilbo's mithril mail is what initially caused
me to make my stainless suit of mail).  It is the hardness of mithril that
caused me to think Ti might not be the best modern analog.  Judging from the
original descriptions of "true-silver," Chromium or some alloy of Chromium and
Titanium might be closer to how mithril has been described.
Personally though, the jet-black metal, Galvorn, the creation of Eol, is more
appealing to me than mithril or any other metal present today.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>#include <std_disclaimer.h>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Louis V. Zimmerman      |  I do not speak for ACTC Technologies, NAPRA,
>Software Development    |  the Calgary Metal Detecting Club, or the
>Engineer                |  University of Calgary.
>                        |--------------------------------------------------
>ACTC Technologies Inc.  |  Please support Nanotechnology and the Human
>Calgary, Alberta        |  Genome project.  I'd like to live long enough
>                        |  to catch up on my household chores...
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
--

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From: [email-masked] (bui tho xuan)
Date: 15 Dec 1993 20:19:33 GMT

>Remember, Tolkein is fiction.  Great fiction, but

Wot?  You mean...I can't reference Tolkein in the article I'm submitting
to Acta Metallurgica?  Oh no!  Woe!

tho