Unobtainium
Unobtainium is a term used to describe any hypothetical material having impossible properties for any actual material. Such materials often appear in accounts of Science-fiction. For example, the material used in the construction of a ring world requires a force of tension of the same order as that of an atomic nucleus. As no material of this type is possible (according to current knowledge), one can say that a ring world is a structure built with Unobtainium. Unobtainium can be used in various contexts (“this idea is stupid, you would need wire of Unobtainium to draw this planet! ”) or an assumption (“if somebody built a shell of Unobtainium around a Black hole, that would it arrive at what would be in contact? ”).
The word “unobtainium” is a Néologisme, apparently developed in the medium of the fans of science fiction, and surely in reaction to the elements with the invented names, as in Star Trek; perhaps also by analogy with the heaviest elements of the periodic table.
An alternative source for the word “unobtainium” comes from the aerospace industry, which frequently encounters problems of design due to the capacities of current materials. The engineers working at the research center Skunk works of Lockheed Corporation speak about SR-71 Blackbird as being made of “unobtainium” because of the decision use a new material, the Titane, ever used before in its construction. At the time, the “Unobtainium” was of rigor because no known metal could resist the constraints and temperatures undergone at a speed of Mach 3.
In the film Fusion , the vehicle being used to go in the depths of the Earth is built in Unobtainium.
See too
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