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[Kumquat]

With musical instruments there would be a number of things to consider, primary of them being which part of the instrument is actually vibrating and producing the sound. Strings and bells, well, those would not work at all. Brasses and flutes where air is the primary vibrating thing would work, somewhat.

For super-high-frequency vibrations, amplitude would be negligible, since IIRC energy of a vibration = amplitude x frequency. So the amplitudes would diminish to submolecular scale. However the characteristic vibrations of an instrument play a large role in generating the final sound and harmonics, so instrument that does not vibrate at all would not generate any additional harmonics and thus sound totally flat. Take any real-world instrument and tap it with a pencil, and it produces audible sound. Adamantine object would not.

It might be good material for building frames though, being acoustically dead and not adding any unexpected harmonics.

[sirvente]

I'm not big on these science-majiggers but this means that Adamantine should cause explosions any time it's given cause to make sound right?

[Max™]

For candy clothes to work they've gotta be little rings like micro-chainmail or something, as Putnam said, it's utterly stiff. It's even stiffer than Xeelee Construction Material, which is another absurdly sharp/ridiculously tough/unusually light material but with a bit better handwaving and physical property considerations.

If it is just a high rounding error and it is merely pushing into the speed of sound ~= speed of light area then you've still got other problems to think about.

The maximum edge is 100,000 as I recall, obsidian has a max edge of 20,000 which we can go ahead and call a monomolecular edge, these are real things, and they are brittle as you would expect.

With a properly calibrated microtome you can slice molecule thick sheets off of a sample using glass blades.

Now we want something 5 times as sharp and literally unbreakable?

Going back to the Xeelee Construction Material, it was "a proton-width thick" (the handwaving was that it is what you get if you were able to violate the Pauli Exclusion Principle so quarks could share ground states, releasing a shit-ton of binding energy, and no longer spread in probabilistic clouds) and "stronger than life itself", Sufficiently Advanced Technology and all that jazz.

A sharp piece of candy might be able to cut a piece of XCM, in one of the first stories where the stuff was detailed it was used to surf the blast wave from a nova explosion. The times pieces of it get damaged are when you start throwing around buzzwords like "gravity wave laser" or "monopole cannon" or "ultrarelativistic neutron star impact"... and candy might be tougher.

It is so far beyond the common monofilament fiber tropes as to make them look like a soggy noodle by comparison.

[Amperzand]

This begins to move beyond the realm of "Even funny". :V

On the other hand, if DF wasn't medieval-stasised, this would allow some very interesting technologies.

[vjmdhzgr]

Well adamantine is 5 times as sharp as obsidian, but obsidian is only 2 times as sharp as silver, which is as sharp as steel. That [MAX_EDGE] token is probably the most unrealistic part of the metals in the game. We could just say that the dwarves dont have the technology to use the sharpness of obsidian to its full potential, but the way they do it is still very sharp.

[Bumber]

I'm not big on these science-majiggers but this means that Adamantine should cause explosions any time it's given cause to make sound right?

And you'd need an explosion (or maybe a powerful laser) to give it cause to make sound.

[Putnam]

Well adamantine is 5 times as sharp as obsidian, but obsidian is only 2 times as sharp as silver, which is as sharp as steel. That [MAX_EDGE] token is probably the most unrealistic part of the metals in the game. We could just say that the dwarves dont have the technology to use the sharpness of obsidian to its full potential, but the way they do it is still very sharp.

MAX_EDGE is not the only determiner of sharpness AFAIK. You can look at an item's sharpness using DFHack's gm-editor while highlighting a sword or what-have-you.

[foxsoul]

Well adamantine is 5 times as sharp as obsidian, but obsidian is only 2 times as sharp as silver, which is as sharp as steel. That [MAX_EDGE] token is probably the most unrealistic part of the metals in the game. We could just say that the dwarves dont have the technology to use the sharpness of obsidian to its full potential, but the way they do it is still very sharp.

MAX_EDGE is not the only determiner of sharpness AFAIK. You can look at an item's sharpness using DFHack's gm-editor while highlighting a sword or what-have-you.

I would agree that MAX_EDGE does not relate to its sharpness. While I have not used DFHacks, looking into the wiki it does say "Actual weapon sharpness depends on its quality:". Since most ancient tools were only the size of a dagger or just shards of obsidian placed into a club, so I doubt that they would have the means to sharpen obsidian swords since it probably wouldn't be a sword entirely made of obsidian.

[Amperzand]

Actually, the level of craftsmanship that went into high-quality stone tools is genuinely amazing. Generic-quality ones would probably be fairly crappy, but good-to-high quality stuff is at a level we have considerable difficulty replicating.

[jaked122]

So what I'm hearing is that adamantium is perfect for causality violation, and that you can hear an adamantium trumpet before you play it?

[Bumber]

So what I'm hearing is that adamantium is perfect for causality violation, and that you can hear an adamantium trumpet before you play it?

Does the sound surpass light speed, or just approach it?

[Putnam]

Assuming the bulk modulus of adamantine is, indeed, 5,000,000 KPa/0 strain... no.

[TheBiggerFish]

PTW.

[Amperzand]

The real thing to do with the stuff is make a hypersonic propeller aircraft. As long as everything's made out of adamantine that can be made of adamantine, there's almost no limit on your propeller speed.

[Magnus]

Can we get back on topic here please? What would an adamantium trumpet sound like? And how could you weaponize it?