6 comments

  • tastyfreeze 2 hours ago
    Interesting. Bring on the A-bomb foundries! Had this been discovered during the exploration phase of atomic bomb use we probably would have seen A-bomb foundry proposals.

    There is a hypothesized process in this paper that sounds like a graduate thesis on its own.

    • sunshinesnacks 1 hour ago
      Explosion welding is a real thing that’s a tiny bit like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosion_welding
    • GolfPopper 2 hours ago
      What, you mean, like American Machine and Foundry building nuclear reactors?

      https://www.ans.org/news/article-1858/elk-river-rural-americ...

      • tastyfreeze 1 hour ago
        No, I mean using atomic bombs to manufacture these alloys at scale. In the 50s a-bombs were proposed for all sorts of workaday uses. Imagine using a small a-bomb for mining just as we use ANFO today.

        I am sure that somebody will take up the task of reproducing these alloys using intense heat from a non-atomic source. New alloys can be quite lucrative but developing them requires just as much experimentation as making new drugs. I'd imagine that getting to an alloy of 7 metals through progressive experimentation would take awhile. Now we know it's possible and have a possible production path. That is enough to spur some experiments down that road.

    • tokai 2 hours ago
      I bet a nuclear foundry can be bundled with atomic mining ala Project Plowshare. Guess we are lucky we didn't get the future the atomic age promised.
  • MeteorMarc 1 hour ago
    This is really worth a read. Although the origin is an airblast, ground structures and soil is evaporated too into an inhomogeneous plasma. The relative fast cooling adds to the crystal formation.
  • WorldMaker 31 minutes ago
    This alloy is naturally the macguffin in a Godzilla and/or Sentai film.
  • HPsquared 2 hours ago
    Not the most economical manufacturing process, it has to be said.
    • forinti 7 minutes ago
      It might be bit tough getting the permits from the EPA.
    • boothby 2 hours ago
      The paper explains it more as an experimental process than a manufacturing process. Each granule of hiroshimaite captures a "unique" micro-environment. One could imagine an ethical version of this involving conventional explosives in a controlled environment containing a variety of metallic samples of different compositions.
      • WorldMaker 26 minutes ago
        Using conventional explosives is a real thing that exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosion_welding
      • hparadiz 1 hour ago
        Metals refining in space or a no atmosphere place like the moon. If an alloy is discovered that has properties we want I can see some future civilization popping nukes like pellets to produce it.
    • tuetuopay 2 hours ago
      You can probably skip the town in the ingredient list.
    • perpetuallunch 32 minutes ago
      Well it appears to be the cheapest method known to produce at least some metal alloys.
    • sawjet 2 hours ago
      There were some nuclear fracking experiments where the nukes cost in the range of a few hundred thousand dollars. It's probably cheaper than you think.
    • indrora 2 hours ago
      It's a real blast, though.

      (In all seriousness, I hope we never, ever in this lifetime cause humans to suffer like we did on that day)

      • wredcoll 1 hour ago
        I mean, I'm probably just being contrarian and I too would appreciate it if people stopped suffering, but like, people are suffering worse than that right now as we type this.
        • perpetuallunch 30 minutes ago
          Sure.

          70,000 dying in a flash certainly puts an end to their suffering.

          • wbl 3 minutes ago
            They did not get vaporized in the fireball. We have survivors at the hypocenter. Intense burns and radiation poisoning killed most plus conventional blast damage mechanisms. Half the acute deaths happened after the first day.
  • catlover76 1 hour ago
    [dead]
  • metalman 2 hours ago
    Hey! ,this is great! next we can have moskitonium, londinium(heh), and washingtondcinite, rare valuable collectables for some far future alien travellers