The radiation in this case serves to energize the material and distribute energy to strengthen the atomic bonds at the points of most stress. Thus, if one were to try to, say, cut it with an axe, the radiation would tend to collect at the point of the cut, thus exponentially increasing its strength at that point. The way to break it easily is to bend it into coils where all points are equally stressed, and after a few twists, it will snap. However, by then taking the broken ends, putting them next to each other and then squeezing it in vise or somesuch, it will then "repair" itself.

It's pretty cool stuff -- you can buy small samples (the width of a thread, a few inches long) from Edmunds Scientific since they'll be under the federal threshhold for radioactive material. (Though still not something I'd sleep with.)

There have been talks of using the material in large quantities for unmanned space vehicles and Satellites and what not. The biggest problem with that is the fact that a human always has to be part of the construction process. Usually the work done on such structures is far too delicate to do with a radiation suit on.

Domestic uses are few and far between just because of the radioactivity. Due to the chemical bonding process the material puts out only Gamma type radiation which needs a few inches of lead or a few feet of concrete to stop. This is opposed to alpha and beta type which can be stopped by the layer of dead skin on your body, and clothing as thick as a t-shirt (respectively). The Half life of the material however is approximately 140,000 years so the decay is minimal.

Taed is correct about being able to buy the stuff through Edmunds Scientific. However, most sources explicitly say to never handle the material with your bare hands. And due to its very threadlike nature they also recommend keeping it in a vial so it doesn't float around and become inhaled. Inhalation has been shown to be 5000% more deadly than inhaling asbestos.

Moral of the story: if you really want to get your hands on the stuff, go for it. Just be very careful!

Mr Jak rabbitslm, if you would read all of what i wrote you would see that i wasnt referencing the half life of polonium by its self. As the material is an alloy, i was referencing the half life of the material in its completed form. Please read carefully what i wrote and you will notice that i never said that the material was used in space only that it has been proposed.

I'm not the scientist who invented the alloy, and as such I am not able to explain fully the reason Polonium becomes more stable when combined with Carbon and Aluminum, however, the fact remains that the material is the strongest man-made material by weight.

Oh, I read your post. I didn't comment on the half-life of your alloy because it does not and cannot exist.

To illustrate how ridiculous this idea is, consider the contradiction in your own post: With a half-life of 140,000 years, the safe exposure time would be about 320 hours. There is dirt that is more dangerous than that. It certainly would not be "5000% more deadly than inhaling asbestos."

Further, polonium undergoes three types of decay: alpha decay, electron capture, and positron emission. The latter two are often lumped under beta decay. It does not undergo any gamma decay because the energy level in the nucleus is too low. This fact would not change even if it were possible to bond polonium to aluminum and carbon.

Also consider the effect of the heat given off by the alpha radiation of the polonium on aluminum. Simply put, the aluminum would melt, then burn.

The strongest man-made material by weight is a nanofiber weave developed by a researcher at the Fibrous Materials Research Center, who happens to be a good friend of mine. They test threads less than a micron wide with tension, compression and torsion forces of tens of thousands of pounds.

¿Jak?

The man who invented this alloy is also a good friend of mine. Does that prove anything? Does that make my claim any more valid? Does it make yours any more valid? Absolutely not. I am also good friends with Ward Churchill and I cant believe anything he says.

Just because you believe that an alloy containing Polonium cannot exist means nothing. Do you think researchers prior to the Manhattan Project believed that nuclear weapons and power were possibilities? Open your closed mind and realize that advances in Material Sciences have allowed such alloys to be created just recently. The chemical properties are so different that scientists still dont know exactly what to make of them, and they certainly dont know why they appear so inconsistent.

I'll buy you a strand of this material and you go ahead and inhale it. And we will see just how long it takes you to develop lung cancer. Sound good?

I think you may find some answers to your questions about this elsewhere in the forums too. Please make sure you look around at all the categories.

Please do post your mailing address, I'll send you a sample in a lead lined box. I have enough money to spend to take adequate protection measures.

The SCIENTISTS you work with disagree with this FACT about the strongest material? Who are these scientists? And where exactly do you work? I had a psychiatrist tell me that I was administering CPR incorrectly once, his words, "I'm a doctor! You arent doing that right!" my response, "what kind of a doctor are you?" His response, "I'm a Psychiatrist!" My response, "Get the F*&^ away from this guy!" So my point is, are these scientists chemists? Are they material scientists? Or do they engineer foot powder?

The fact that you call me closed minded simply astounds me. I have seen this material first hand, the guy who invented it is a good friend of mine, I have looked at these so called "nano-threads" and frankly I am not impressed. Furthermore you calling me closed minded because I am defending a new scientific method puts you in the same category as the people who called for Copernicus' excommunication. We hate change and as such those who change the paradigm are heretics!

How is your calling the inventor of nano-threads, "a good friend of mine" not an appeal for validity and authority. The fact that he is a good friend leads me to believe that not only are you more biased toward his research, but that you would try and promote his work over that of another scientist. I know how big of an influence fame and money can be. If I have, "absolutely no knowledge of the subject matter" on which I am discussing, then where do my facts come from? Do you think I just invent them? Ask anyone around these forums just how much invention goes on here! I assure you they will give you an answer you wont be happy to hear. You will even have to report the news to your little scientist friends, assuming they are not just figments of your imagination.

Please heed my advice and take a look around the forums. I think a lot of the questions you are bringing up have been answered already here.

This isn't about keeping score. There are no winners and losers in science, just the truth!

Thanks everyone! It is so difficult to enlighten people who are closed minded. I'm glad to have all your support!

Just to emphasize a point: the carbon in the alloy is Carbon-14, not just any carbon. And the Polonium is Po-209. I'm not drawing a dot diagram to show how Al, Po and C can be combined into an alloy. That's sophomoric.

Wow, almost a week, and still no response.

Edit: "With a half-life of 140,000 years, the safe exposure time would be about 320 hours"
What exactly does half life have to do with anything? If U 238 has a half-life of about 7.5 billion years, wouldn't the safe exposure time be ridiculously large? Sorry if this is a dumb question, my knowledge in the sciences is limited.

-CMS

Crap, I think I screwed something up.

Oh no! No one can push the "OWNED" button any more...

lol,look at all the other people in the thread who are "owned"less

Posted By: JoshuaU490

Legat, you crazy crazy fool. What have you done?WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!?!?

I done gone and messed everything up.

Good grief.

Ok, firstly, creating an alloy from a material does not make it any more stable. It can't! Radioative isotopes of a material are unstable because of conditions in the nucleus. Typically there are simply too many protons and neutrons and the nuclear force cannot hold it together forever. The finite chance of the nucleus braking up is represented by its half-life, which is the average amount of time that _half_ of the sample volume will have decayed.

Alloying represents chemical bonding between different elements. These bonds can be van der Waals, ionic, covalent, metallic, etc. The thing they all have in common is that _electrons_ mediate the interactions. Electrons are not part of the atomic nucleus, they exist in relatively large 'orbitals' outside of the nucleus. If the two atoms get close enough to each other for the nucleii to interact, the material has a chance of undergoing fusion. And yes this typically happens only in reactors and nuclear bombs. Different isotopes (isotopes of an atom have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons, for example carbon-14 has two more neutrons than carbon-12) have essentially the same chemical bonding.

Anyways radioactive materials make terrible alloy components. Who wants an alloy whose composition changes over time? Radiation would also cause massive damage to the surrounding lattice, introducing defects all over the place. Materials used in nuclear reactors near the core need to be scrapped every few years for exactly this reason. They become brittle and can fail quite spectacularily. Taed: I cannot find this material at the Edmunds Scientific website or in their catalog; kindly provide an item number? I didn't think so.

Lastly: I am a materials scientist who works on nano-beams and -cantilevers of aluminum-based materials. I just did a quick literature search for carbon, aluminum and polonium alloys; not a single paper. Not even on google scholar! Without a single mention in peer-reviewed journals, I seriously doubt this material exists.

I'm not saying cool radioactive materials might not exist; just that this particular one is completely made up, almost certainly because Polonium was in the news recently.

Cadet: Feel free to prove me wrong. Give me a paper published by your friend, even just the citation. If it is in the public domain I can easily look it up. Heck, I would settle for a patent disclosure. Any source at all where I could actually examine the material tests that lead to this claim. Was it a tensile test? Compression? Bending? Nano-indentation? See when real scientists make claims such as 'the strongest material in the world,' they back this up with _data_. What is the modulus, yield strength, or even hardness of this material? Or can you not find the numbers because this is completely made up?

Hikari, you sound a lot like you might be Jak's "Material Scientist" friend.

I have proven you wrong just read all the stuff I wrote to Jak....

Taed does have a great point, who in their right minds would make anything that groundbreaking up?

You sound like a very thorough guy, perhaps you would like to try some fact checking for us on the side?

In any case make sure to read everything in this thread before attempting to draw me into another heated argument that you are bound to lose.

it is true that carbon-60 spheres are the strongest material currently known.

However, the strongest material by weight remains the alloy of aluminum, carbon, and polonium.

Hikari,

I don't get it. You're saying that electrons make all the difference, and the structure of the compound is immaterial but that doesn't explain how diamonds and coal come from the same element?

And are you honestly trying to convince people that there are no radioactive carbon nuclei in diamonds? Cuz I cannot possibly see how that is correct.