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[breadman]

It also occurred to me, that if adamantine has atoms that size and a density of that ratio, would that make it porous enough to be watertight?  Or airtight?

Given that it's about as dense as cork, but sinks in water, it seems to not be watertight.  That would indicate a lack of airtightness, too.  On the plus side, addy clothes should breathe well.

[Oliolli]

All this talk about quantum mechanics and other technoblabber made me think about some sort of Urist McSchrödinger's Cat -test, where you place a female cat into a slade box. Would I really need a reason?

And don't get me started on the hacks he's come up with based on the "ready an action" rule...

Peasant railguns.


And lastly...

I love you guys. Just wanted you to know that.

[Girlinhat]

plus a sufficiently large line of horses

Best supposition for a theory I've heard yet.

[hjd_uk]

Adamantium doesnt exist, it is the exact opposite of matter, Adamantine strands are voids in the universe left over after the Great Creation. Admantine cannot be destroyed because it isnt there to be destroyed, it is merely the presense of 'nothing', which is why such skill is needed to extract, contain and use it. It glows blue due to the void accellerating photons to faster than the speed of light as they pass through it and causing blueshifting and Cherenkov radiation upron re-entering the universe. It can actually be held because very heavy elements such as platinum gathered around the voids while molten due to the negative pressure (but do not leave the universe because they have mass and there is nowhere to go).

Slade, of course, is the opposite, slade is the flesh of the gods and indestructibe because it is the very (and literal) foundations of the ( flat ) universe - only the meta-physical demonic forces have learnt how to warp and meld the fabric of the universe, to change the unchangeable.

[Sting_Auer]

A different theory based on Hjd's, Adamantine could be a portal to a fourth dimension or an alternate universe, and anything that touches it with any force is moved to the void that the blade is a portal to.


Adamantine doesn't cut, it just moves things.

[Blizzlord]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I can see that our arguments have lead to the disscusion of the forces in a nucleus (among other things). This is something not even the greatest minds of our generation understand fully understand. This inevitabely means someone will start preaching over something beyond their ability to comprehend.

The laws of quantum physics are unbelivablely complex. Teleportation! Duplication! Quantum entanglement! For Armoks sake I'm still in elementary school!

"If you think you understand quantum theory, you don't understand quantum theory."-- Richard Feynman.

However, my personal take on the matter is that you should never divorce yourself from mystery, because when you do, you stop looking. When you stop looking, you fail to see, and by failing to see, you learn nothing.

You are never too old or too young to see, and so you are never too old or too young to learn. Simply because something has dizzying complexity, and it hurts your brain to comprehend it, does not mean you should recoil and look away. On the contrary, it means you should pout your very soul into to reach an understanding, no matter how faulted.

The sooner you look with your eyes and mind open, the more powerful your intellect will become.

I started learning algebra, human anatomy, and geology from my mom when I was in gradeschool, because I was curious, and she was taking them in college.  Saying "that's too much for me, I'm just a kid!" Is self-sabotage.  You most certainly can, if you want to, and have the opportunity.  As the addage goes, you never know until you try, so you should try everything you can, to see if you like it. If you do, and it fills you with wonder and desire, dig in and pursue it with all the strength you can muster.  Doesn't matter what the subject is. Only then can you really be the best that you can be.


The internet is fantastic.  It has all the world's knowledge right at your fingers. It is so much more than friends on facebook, movies on youtube, and porn on bittorrent. You just have to have an interest, and pursue it.

I simply did not want people to spam false arguments. I love science and math, especially on the extreme levels. When smart and reasonable people discuss this, the result ends up as threads as epic as this one.

[hjd_uk]

Best thing to realise about Quantum Mechanics.... "Its all just a bit fuzzy"

[ASCIt]

A different theory based on Hjd's, Adamantine could be a portal to a fourth dimension or an alternate universe, and anything that touches it with any force is moved to the void that the blade is a portal to.


Adamantine doesn't cut, it just moves things.

Actually, is it possible that adamantine is simply the 3-dimensional projection of a 4-dimensional object, existing as a "shadow" cast on our 3-dimensional world? In that situation, I'd imagine that the mass would realistically be incalculable, but that to us it would seem impossibly light, yet impossibly strong. Although, in that case, the fact that dwarves could harvest it would be much less believable, or far more impressive.

[Gizogin]

I find this entire discussion utterly hilarious, because we're now trying to apply highly advanced, theoretical physics to a game where one can pump water over a waterwheel to power said pump, and end up with ten times the power one started with.

So, more stuff about adamantine:

An obsidian blade is the sharpest in existence, with a cutting edge of one molecule. The American Medical Association has reported that that is five hundred times sharper than the best steel scalpel. Obsidian scalpels are being used in surgery today. The thin edge cuts tissue cells which are torn by the best of scalpels made of steel.

I'm going to treat this as meaning that the best steel blade has an edge 500 molecules thick.

From the raws:
Steel's MAX_EDGE is 10000
Obsidian's is 20000
Adamantine's is 100000

I don't know how DF calculates MAX_EDGE, but I'm going to treat it as a relative measure, so that a MAX_EDGE of 10 is 500 times as thick as a MAX_EDGE of 5.
Based on all this, I propose that adamantine can be honed to an edge thickness of less than one quadrillionth of a meter (I'm not very good with logarithms, so someone else can work it out more precisely).  This is well below the radius of a single proton.

[Blizzlord]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I find this entire discussion utterly hilarious, because we're now trying to apply highly advanced, theoretical physics to a game where one can pump water over a waterwheel to power said pump, and end up with ten times the power one started with.

So, more stuff about adamantine:

An obsidian blade is the sharpest in existence, with a cutting edge of one molecule. The American Medical Association has reported that that is five hundred times sharper than the best steel scalpel. Obsidian scalpels are being used in surgery today. The thin edge cuts tissue cells which are torn by the best of scalpels made of steel.

I'm going to treat this as meaning that the best steel blade has an edge 500 molecules thick.

From the raws:
Steel's MAX_EDGE is 10000
Obsidian's is 20000
Adamantine's is 100000

I don't know how DF calculates MAX_EDGE, but I'm going to treat it as a relative measure, so that a MAX_EDGE of 10 is 500 times as thick as a MAX_EDGE of 5.
Based on all this, I propose that adamantine can be honed to an edge thickness of less than one quadrillionth of a meter (I'm not very good with logarithms, so someone else can work it out more precisely).  This is well below the radius of a single proton.

So it exerts an energy field around itself which sharpens it to subatomic levels? I do not even know...

[forsaken1111]

MAGIC

[Blizzlord]

MAGIC

No, it is the holy power of Armok! Which means it is powered by the blood of the fallen...

[Gizogin]

MAGIC

No, it is the holy power of Armok! Which means it is powered by the blood of the fallen...

The more blood an adamantine blade spills, the stronger it gets!
Which begs the question of what would happen if you killed a vampire with one...
Is it like goblin-made swords from the Potterverse, where it only takes in that which makes it stronger?  I mean, if we've already decided on magic...

[Blizzlord]

MAGIC

No, it is the holy power of Armok! Which means it is powered by the blood of the fallen...

The more blood an adamantine blade spills, the stronger it gets!
Which begs the question of what would happen if you killed a vampire with one...
Is it like goblin-made swords from the Potterverse, where it only takes in that which makes it stronger?  I mean, if we've already decided on magic...

The vampire would be purified from vampirism post mortem, due to the thirst imposed by Armok wishing to eliminate the competition.

[SmileyMan]

Awesome thread.  My two-penneth worth...

If it turns out that antimatter does not interact gravitationally with normal matter (currently the subject of some testing at CERN) then could slade and adamantine be two different strange stable configurations of a mixture of matter and antimatter?

Of course 'stable configuration of matter and antimatter' has its own problems...