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02:06
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Q: How could indestructible materials be used in power generation?

Vakus DrakeBackground: In this scenario assume technology is initially equal to our own, but a method is discovered to render material indestructible. The affected material is treated as requiring infinite or arbitrarily high amounts of energy to break any of its bonds whether they be nuclear or chemical (...

Rob
Rob
What are the properties of the material? For instance, it's thermo-conductive and electro-conductive properties? If it transfers heat well then one could simply dig a deep hole put in a rod of the stuff using the heat from below the earth to boil water and run a steam turbine.
@Rob The properties of the material are mostly the same as they were before it was made indestructible. The main difference is just that you can't cause any bonds within the material to break. So if you applied the process to say silver it should retain its conductivity.
JBH
JBH
This question is a successful graduate of the Sandbox.
What happens if I put a super paper thin material in the chamber and then cover my machine in the material? Does it effectively armor my machine and make it indestructible?
Incidentally, your indestructible material is basically priceless for space exploration. I want every single gram of it you can make, and I will pay you all the monies for it.
Does this process work on fluids? That is, if I put a fluid in the reaction chamber and push the button, do I get a substance that is always a fluid, irrespective of temperature and pressure? If it does, can I split the fluid into multiple containers, or is it forced to stay in one continuous mass?
02:06
@Muuski The paper thin material itself would become indestructible but there would remain ways to damage the material you covered it in with enough effort: There's going to be seams in the indestructible armor, most paper thin materials will be somewhat flexible and the indestructible armor will still conduct heat, etc
@asgallant Yeah I'm probably going to have a whole other question on the infrastructure uses of this material (including space infrastructure). Using this process on fluids or gasses is possible but it will have weird varying effects. For instance it's likely to turn water into a non-crystalline ice because of all the (now unbreakable) hydrogen bonds between water molecules.
Isn't electricity the flow of electrons through a material? How can it conduct electricity if electrons cannot flow from atom to atom? Are the electrons able to be excited by photons, meaning certain photons are absorbed and then re-emitted at the same or different frequency or vibration?
@TracyCramer I've clarified my question to make it more clear that this doesn't affect electrons not engaged in a chemical bond. Additionally electrons even those within bonds can often be excited by photons to a degree (gaining thermal energy and remitting a lower energy photon) without breaking any chemical bonds so indestructible materials won't behave particularly weird unless you're dealing with ionizing radiation or the starting material was photosensitive.
Not an answer, but note that an indestructible material has far-reaching implications for a society. Space elevators are now easily possible (and readily powered by fusion reactors), so humanity will colonise the solar system in no time and have the ability to become a Kardashev Type II civilisation.
Do indestructible solids still melt/sublimate? Or can I make solid hydrogen?
Eth
Eth
What happens when you heat it so much all the electrons are stripped? Do you have a solid block of insanely charged plasma?
02:06
@Ewan Solids aren't going to melt/sublimate because the bonds between molecules are now unbreakable. With regards to solid hydrogen you'd need to first get the hydrogen into a state where the molecules were at least weakly bonded to each other. This might work with any non-superfluid liquid hydrogen (since it does have some surface tension implying some weak intermolecular bonds) but you wouldn't be talking about something with the same properties as say metallic hydrogen (so not conductive or very dense for one).
@Eth I suppose, though I'm not sure how much its properties would be different than a normal solid, since it would still have intact chemical bonds. Additionally keeping such a solid in a ionized state is going to require a lot of continous energy input.
@vakusdrake I think the super dense materials are exactly what non-bond breaking implies. I make my solid hydrogen (properties unknown) in a diamond anvil and zap it. Then bring it back to room temp. Essentially I can room temp and pressure neutronium
Tangential Question: What happens if a person climbs inside the reaction chamber?
@Frostfyre Given how much of someone's biology involves breaking chemical bonds, getting in a reaction chamber would be a staggeringly expensive form of suicide. I would guess what would kill you first would be some sort of unusual brain activity, since ions bound to neurons would be unable to unbind thus making a substantial portion of your synapses non-functional.
This must somehow violate relativity and thus allow for infinite energy, but I an not sure how
@Andrey A lot of indestructible objects in fiction could allow you to violate causality, since a perfectly rigid object could transfer motion from one end of itself to the other FTL. However this form of indestructibility doesn't make something perfectly rigid so it can't violate causality like that. I can't exactly read your mind but I suspect this is why you imagined this could violate relativity, because no other methods come to mind.

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