Pagerunner Posted January 27, 2017 Report Share Posted January 27, 2017 They just maybe synthesized a metallic form of hydrogen. It takes obscene amounts of pressure to create, but it might be stable once created (like graphite vs diamonds), and can have a ton of applications, like the fabled room-temp superconductor or a rocket fuel 4x as powerful as what we've got now. The pressures to create it are well above anything on Earth... but scientists theorize that the conditions it needs may exist in the larger gas giants of our solar system. So, depending on the size of the Scadrian gas giants, they might have it. I don't think it would be very good as a burnable metal (much more violently reactive than an alkali metal, and I don't think anyone expects to see Harmonium burnt by an Allomancer anytime soon). But it could greatly enhance the Scadrian technological development, if they have an easy way to 'mine' metallic Hydrogen from their gas giants using Lurchers and Nicrobursts, rather than having to develop the technology to effectively produce it in laboratories. Anyways, it's cool news that made me think of Mistborn. It's not every day we learn about a true new metal. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+robardin Posted January 27, 2017 Report Share Posted January 27, 2017 Ha ha, so I wasn't the only one who saw this headline and thought, "boy, burning metallic hydrogen would be a terrible idea IRL, but Allomatically? Hrm." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jofwu Posted January 27, 2017 Report Share Posted January 27, 2017 Might not be true unfortunately: http://www.nature.com/news/physicists-doubt-bold-report-of-metallic-hydrogen-1.21379 In any case, I'm guessing it would probably be easier for Scadrians to make it than it would be to mine it from the middle of a gas giant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoolofwhool Posted January 27, 2017 Report Share Posted January 27, 2017 What happensize when you burn hydrogen though? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagerunner Posted January 27, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2017 3 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said: What happensize when you burn hydrogen though? Is this an Allomancy question, or a chemistry question? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoolofwhool Posted January 27, 2017 Report Share Posted January 27, 2017 (edited) Allomancy was the original intention. Probably nothing I imagine. I am interested in the chemical result as well though. It would revert to a gas once the pressure is gone right? Edited January 27, 2017 by Spoolofwhool Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagerunner Posted January 27, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2017 8 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said: Allomancy was the original intention. Probably nothing I imagine. I am interested in the chemical result as well though. It would revert to a gas once the pressure is gone right? They think it might be stable. The analogy I read in my article was diamonds - it takes a lot of energy to make the transition from graphite to diamond, but once you've done so, the diamond won't fall apart. If it's not stable, I have a hard time imagining it's gonna be of any use in room-temperature superconductors or rocket fuel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jofwu Posted January 27, 2017 Report Share Posted January 27, 2017 17 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said: Allomancy was the original intention. Probably nothing I imagine. I am interested in the chemical result as well though. It would revert to a gas once the pressure is gone right? I feel sure the Allomantic table is complete (minus god metals and their alloys). So I don't think burning does anything. In chemistry terms, "burn" generally means oxidation. Introduce hydrogen to oxygen and it turns into water and releases quite a bit of energy. It's the fuel source that many rockets use. Of course, rockets burn liquid hydrogen (hydrogen gas cooled down into liquid). By the sound of it, this metal seemingly wouldn't interact easily with oxygen. Not sure what you'd have to do to change that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king of nowhere Posted January 28, 2017 Report Share Posted January 28, 2017 (edited) that paper was wildly speculative, though. "according to some prediction", it may be metastable. According to others, it may be a superconductor at room temperature. Yet others claimed that after they eat it, they lost body fat and built muscles. Seems to me a lot of fluff that people uused to try to make the paper more interesting (aka more read, aka it boosts their career better). On the other hand, the paper used the term "holy grail of [paeticular branch of science]", which is an awfully abused term. You can't read an article of divulgative science without a claim that X is the holy grail of its field. So I am deeply mistrustful of any article using that term. Well, I won't believe that some material is a room temperature superconductor based just on some calculations, especially since - at least the last time I asked a phd in physics about it, which is no later than two years ago - superconduction is not yet fully understood, and especially high temperature superconduction (here for high temperature we mean liquid nitrogen rather than liquid helium), which appears to be a different thing from supercold superconduction. Well, either way. If it actually is metastable, it still burns with oxygen to make water, just like a piece of coal would burn. No idea how easy or difficult it would be to ignite, though it can't be too hard if it must be used as rocket fuel. And since metallic hydrogen is at a higher energy than molecular hydrogen, it would release more energy when burning, just like a falling rock would release more energy if it falls from a hugher point. No idea how much more, but that at least should be prediictable with some degree of accuracy. with diamond it's only a few % more than graphite, if they expect a specific impulse of 1700 seconds it would need to be a lot of energy. And finally, as difficult as it can be to make metallic hydrogen in a lab, it's certainly much easier than mining a gas giant. especially because at the depth at which metalllic hydrogen is predicted to form there is no mining equipment that would not be crushed by the pressure, nor melted by the temperature. And I doubt even the lord ruler could pull enough to affect it from orbit, with hundreds of kilometers of clouds in between Edited January 28, 2017 by king of nowhere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cometaryorbit Posted January 29, 2017 Report Share Posted January 29, 2017 On 1/27/2017 at 2:58 PM, Spoolofwhool said: What happensize when you burn hydrogen though? Nothing for a Misting, kills a Mistborn, I'd think - just like any allomantically nonviable metal (silver, lead, platinum etc.) Or it might not burn at all... depends on what allomancy defines as a metal. (What about metalloids? Can a Coinshot Push on polonium, which is sometimes considered a metal and sometimes a metalloid?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts