Easy-to-Make Material Scratches Diamond

holy_calamity writes "A material tough enough to scratch diamond that can be made without resorting to massive pressure has been developed at UCLA. A regular furnace and a zap of current is enough to meld boron with the metal rhenium." Sound familiar? This is the other new material tougher than diamond, but no word yet on how they rate against each other.

Adamantium

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about time!

Now how is the skeletal bonding programing doing?

rhenium diboride?

[Spazntwich]

That's a funny way to spell dolemite.

Nice.

[EveryNickIsTaken]

In the unlikely event that my sworn enemy is wearing a suit of diamond armor, I can now SLOWLY scratch him to death.

Sweet.

IMPOSSIBLE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Diamond is one of the hardest (if not THE hardest) metals known to man!

Due to extensive research done by the Fourchon University of Science, diamond has been confirmed as the the hardest metal known the man. The research is as follows.

Pocket-protected scientists built a wall of iron and crashed a diamond car into it at 400 miles per hour, and the car was unharmed.

They then built a wall out of diamond and crashed a car made of iron moving at 400 miles an out into the wall, and the wall came out fine.

They then crashed a diamond car made of 400 miles per hour into a wall, and there were no survivors.

They crashed 400 miles per hour into a diamond traveling at iron car. Western New York was powerless for hours.

They rammed a wall of metal into a 400 mile per hour made of diamond, and the resulting explosion shifted the earth's orbit 400 million miles away from the sun, saving the earth from a meteor the size of a small Washington suburb that was hurtling towards midwestern Prussia at 400 billion miles per hour.

They shot a diamond made of iron at a car moving at 400 walls per hour, and as a result caused two wayward airplanes to lose track of their bearings, and make a fatal crash with two buildings in downtown New York.

They spun 400 miles at diamond into iron per wall. The results were inconclusive.

Finally, they placed 400 diamonds per hour in front of a car made of wall traveling at miles, and the result proved without a doubt that diamonds were the hardest metal of all time, if not just the hardest metal known the man.

Wedding ring replacement

[failedlogic]

In my last marriage, my ex-'s ring didn't last very long. Six-months to be exact - so diamonds aren't forever. If this new substance can ensure the santity of marriage, I'm all for it!

If this sounds familiar...

[HangingChad]

A regular furnace and a zap of current is enough to meld boron with the metal rhenium....Sound familiar?

If this sounds familiar you need to get out more. Seriously.

When keying someone's car isn't enough

[Eudial]

When keying someone's car isn't enough to say I hate you, make a key out of this material and key their jewelery.

Move over DeBeers

[tumutbound]

rhenium diboride is a girls best friend

Re:rhenium diboride?

[Anonymous Coward]

...cuz dolemite [wikipedia.org] is the hardest thing in history YO!

Re:Obligatory...

[bigtrike]

On soviet slashdot, overlords make joke about you!

Re:Nice.

[Opportunist]

That's no problem. Given the flexibility of diamond, even SLOWLY scratching him to death beats any kind of movement he could make.

clobbering

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. You wanna make something of it, whelp? Because I have a pair of computer speakers and a receipt from the gas station that will make handy weapons.

Re:Nice.

[EveryNickIsTaken]

It'd obviously have to be diamond mesh, smartass.

Hardness, stiffness, and toughness

[Dr. Stavros]

Again, we mustn't conflate hardness, stiffness, and toughness!

I've been studying diamond for a while now, and have a fairly prominent webpage about diamond's material properties [sque.co.uk], and on three separate occasions I have been contacted in the following way:

A budding fantasy author is writing a book in which the protagonist has a sword made out of diamond, "because diamond is the hardest material of all!", and they wanted to run the idea past me first.

So I point out that, despite being very hard (i.e. resistant to indentation), diamond is in fact very brittle (i.e. not very tough), and indeed the very first time that our hero hits something with his diamond sword, it will shatter.

In one case, the author said that I had basically ruined his life by wrecking the whole concept of the book that he had been writing for the last few years. In subsequent emails, he was begging me to come up with a solution (e.g. diamond sword, coated with steel, etc.?)...

Re:Stiffer, not harder

[ElGringo]

cue "Nobody doesn't like molten Boron" jingle

Re:If this sounds familiar...

[Breakfast Pants]

Thanks, Nerd Version of Jeff Foxworthy.

Re:If this sounds familiar...

[Kazymyr]

I've considered it, but at a meeting of my multiple personalities the vote was 7-to-4 against it.

Re:Hardness, stiffness, and toughness

[Quixadhal]

He's a writer... he should come up with something.

The sword was crafted by an Uber Death Mage, who used the blood of the last virgin to scream "first post!" on slashdot to cast a technobabble spell, which caused the entire blade to form as a single facet of diamond. Thus having no stress points, the blade would be nearly perfect, as long as the victim didn't use a Google shield to find previous postings and block it.

That took me a whole 15 seconds.... surely he's had a bit more time to ponder?

Re:Stiffer, not harder

[Megane]

So that's what happened to the boron in the elephant dung.

Re:Nice.

[Paradise Pete]

It'd obviously have to be diamond mesh, smartass.

Yeah, and it'd cost at least two months' salary.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

what?

[nanosquid]

Chuck Norris's toe nail clippings?

Re:Hardness, stiffness, and toughness

[Nazlfrag]

Or he could just clobber his foes with the sack of diamonds..

Re:Does this mean..

[ShadeOfBlue]

No, but now it goes to eleven. It's one harder.

Re:Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

You did realize his user id is one thirtieth of yours, right? If anything, he should be welcoming you, n00b.

Re:Move over DeBeers

[inviolet]

rhenium diboride is a girls best friend

You laugh, but as a female geek I would be Seriously Impressed by a marriage proposal which featured a ring made from something exotic like that. Assuming that I was sufficiently insane to consent to marriage, I would forever after wear that ring and smirk at the Normals with their plain old diamonds.

Re:Obligatory...

[Phisbut]

Military ammo usually lacks quality (b) because it's better to disable an enemy soldier than to kill him, both for the psychological effect at the enemy, who has to watch him suffer; and because his buddies will be busy rescuing him instead of fighting. Oh, and because the Geneva convention says so, they seem to think it's somehow more "humane" to cripple soldiers than to kill them.

God, I wish this dumb myth would die.

We tried to kill the myth, sergeant, but apparently our bullets could only cripple it.

Mohs would be proud.

[Tavor]

On his scale, this one goes up to 11.

Obvious answer...

[Striver]

tell him to make the sword out of rhenium diboride

Re:Wedding ring replacement

[arth1]

In my last marriage, my ex-'s ring didn't last very long. Six-months to be exact - so diamonds aren't forever. If this new substance can ensure the santity of marriage, I'm all for it!

Nah, scratch that!

Re:what?

[jinxidoru]

Chuck Norris's toe nail clippings?

What the?! How did I suddenly get teleported into Barrens chat?

not quite a drop in replacement yet, though...

[arclyte]

Man (down on one knee): Honey, will you marry me? Woman: What the hell is that? Man: It's rhenium diboride, more durable than diamond. I wanted to show you just how much I love you, even more than diamond. Woman: Cheap bastard. Come back when you have a diamond.

Re:Obligatory...

[Khyber]

Actually, pure-lead rounds won't strip the riflings, that type of heat will melt the lead and make it clog the riflings up. I made that mistake with my dad's AR-15 (I filed the metal jacketing off and used a dremel to cross-point the lead core for a hollow-point effect..) Two shots and one misfire later, the gun's barrel was fucked, clogged with lead.

Re:IMPOSSIBLE!

[ABasketOfPups]

I only wish I could afford the drugs you're obviously taking.

New toy

[asCii88]

Now I can finally scratch all moms jewelry for a few bucks! Yay!

Re:rhenium diboride?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's that righteous black mineral that don't cop out when there's heat all about.

Re:Wedding ring replacement

[RealGrouchy]

In my last marriage, my ex-'s ring didn't last very long. Six-months to be exact - so diamonds aren't forever. If this new substance can ensure the santity of marriage, I'm all for it!

Use a bigger test sample. Larger diamonds are more resilient in matrimonial tests, as are a greater quantity of diamonds, though to a lesser extent.

- RG>

Re:IMPOSSIBLE!

[FiloEleven]

Thanks for fixing that glaring error. Now the rest of the post makes perfect sense.

Re:rhenium diboride?

[SurturZ]

If it can scratch diamond, then it must be chucknorrisite.