Timeline for answer to Given an "indestructible" material used for armor - what are ways to explain that material not being used as a weapon as well? by AndyD273
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| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 26, 2019 at 4:08 | comment | added | user1258361 | Extremely high strength to weight ratio can be frightening in combat because it allows large amounts of kinetic energy (K = mv^2) to be tossed around with minimum recoil momentum (p = mv). This article (theverge.com/2016/5/12/11664668/…) shows a great example of how dangerous high-velocity projectiles are, even if it's just a paint chip. | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 17:08 | comment | added | nigel222 | In the real world it would depend on chemistry of cutter wire and armour. Chances are that enough armour would win. There are few absolutes in reality. Tungsten carbide is much harder than brick, but bricks do blunt TC drill bits after a while. | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 16:52 | comment | added | AndyD273 | @nigel222 The road one might work, though you can do that with braided steel cable to some extent. It would work better against tanks, unless the anchors gave out. This whole thing is a great example of how inventive we are in making weapons. "I can kill you 7 ways with a drinking straw. 11 if you give me the wrapper too." Either way, it's easy to say that an unobtanium monomol line would have a hard time cutting a unobtanium armor plate. Maybe it could be done, but the force required would be big. | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 16:43 | comment | added | nigel222 | ... If you could tie unobtanium fiber between two sea skimming missiles and fly one past a target to port and other to starboard? Or just booby trap a road and wait for oncoming traffic to slice itself into pieces? Or dice an enemy with something like a large tennis racket? Messy, that last one. | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 16:41 | comment | added | AndyD273 | @nigel222 I might not cut through itself. So you tie a really big knot at the ends, and anchor that. alternately, when you are drawing the wire, stop before you get to the end, so that it's thicker than the rest of the wire. I wonder though, if you had impossibly strong cheese wire (0.6mm thick), how much force would it take to cut armored steel battleship hull? Probably more than it takes to cut cheese. :) | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 16:34 | comment | added | nigel222 | @AndyD273 very thin impossibly strong cheese wire would slice anything. Real world physics says you cannot have real materials with tensile strength much greater than carbon nanotubes. And what anchor material would magic fiber not cut through? | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 16:13 | comment | added | AndyD273 | @AviD Gotcha. Yeah, but the question is specifically about taking this material and turning it into a weapon. I'm not really sure how you'd take a solid material and turn it into an energy weapon? (where the material itself is doing the damage) | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 16:11 | comment | added | AviD | @AndyD273 right, exactly. My point is that your answer seems to presuppose kinetic-energy based weapons, otherwise the mass is irrelevant. | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 16:09 | comment | added | AndyD273 | @nigel222 Could work, unless a single molecule thickness is to thick? I'm not really sure how it could work as a weapon, unless you had a strand between two vehicles, cutting down everything between them. Otherwise it would just make for a really good tow rope. | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 16:03 | comment | added | AndyD273 | @AviD So there are different kinds of energy. Bullets, swords, hammers, etc use kinetic energy to do damage. For instance, powder explodes, and most of that explosive energy is put into a small chunk of lead as kinetic energy. When that bullet hits it's target, the energy is transmitted to the target, doing damage. Lasers, lightsabers, microwaves, etc are direct energy, meaning that the energy is applied directly, cooking or burning the target. Lightsabers and flame throwers work on the same principle, but one is more focused and energetic. They just work differently. | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 15:52 | comment | added | Resonating | @Deduplicator Engine limitations.Lead-cored adamantine weapons have been added by modders but intrinsically the engine doesn't handle weapons made of multiple materials. (It's done by making a 'lead-cored adamantine' material that has the strength of adamantine but the weight of lead). It doesn't matter much except for hammers, because adamantine is so sharp it treats most armor(except adamantine) as essentially nonexistent. The cutting surface is 'narrower' than a single molecule because DF doesn't have quantum physics. | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 13:43 | comment | added | AviD | Lightsabers would prove this wrong - the weapon relies on its energy field, not it's mass. | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 11:33 | comment | added | nigel222 | An "unbreakable" line (SF monomol) would slice through mere steel, tanks, battleships, etc. Very potent in offense if you can work out how to immobilise its ends! | |
| Jan 9, 2016 at 20:40 | comment | added | AndyD273 | @CodesInChaos Very valid point... Best I could come up with is that since the material can withstand a normal slug at those energy levels, then a jacketed round could still lack the kinetic energy to punch through, which is pretty much the same thing you said. | |
| Jan 9, 2016 at 20:19 | comment | added | CodesInChaos | Why not fill a thin shell of indestructible material with a heavy substance (e.g. lead)? (Of course the momentum/kinetic energy of the weapon will still limit the damage) | |
| Jan 9, 2016 at 3:21 | comment | added | Deduplicator | @Resonating: And the dwarfes haven't tried to use it as a shell for some heavy but pulpy material? Or is there nothing fitting? | |
| Jan 8, 2016 at 22:57 | comment | added | Resonating | Dwarf fortress adamantine is like this. It makes terrible hammers but unfortunately makes exceptional swords. | |
| Jan 8, 2016 at 20:34 | history | answered | AndyD273 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |