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Does anyone here get Discover Magazine? Last month, there was an article about "Glassy Metals". Basically, metal was cooled so quickly that it didn't have the opportunity to set up it's normal molecular structure; instead, all the atoms were just jumbled up. Essentially, it remains in a liquid state but it is solid to the touch (like glass). The guys working on this are promising 3-4 times the strength out of comparably sized pieces of glassy vs. normal metal. The only drawback: the glassy metal, just like glass, is very brittle after certain stress points. The solution: mix glassy with non-glassy metal (don't ask me how they do this). There are some amazing things that will come from this if they get it working. One of the examples I thought was really neat was the dropping of a ball of this material onto a smooth, concrete surface. Without any other input, the ball was still bouncing after 2 minutes from the energy of the initial drop.
--CaptK(ATL) Ha ha, charade you are. |
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