Discovery of a multicomponent alloy forged by the Hiroshima atomic blast
science.orgInteresting. 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.
Explosion welding is a real thing that’s a tiny bit like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosion_welding
Sounds like an interesting idea and I think there are things like this being done but, couldn't we accomplish the same thing on a smaller scale without all the destruction? What about fusion welding once we get that more locked in? I know it's still a WIP but if we're getting to "millions of degrees", it could speed up the process if we're able to localize the fusion. Also, what about cold fusion? The problem on any of these is the cost -- it may be quicker/better but if the cost is way too high, it's not worth it. Maybe in the future it'll be cheaper/easier.
A disgustingly large and powerful pressurized microwave would likely be sufficient if "all" they need to do is spray various mixes of vaporized metals and water into plasma. I don't know that we've had too many justifications to build these otherwise
The tiny spheres of this alloy mixed into a mess of other stuff remind me of Primitive Technology's mostly successful attempts at smelting iron the hard way. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA
What, you mean, like American Machine and Foundry building nuclear reactors?
https://www.ans.org/news/article-1858/elk-river-rural-americ...
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.
Both the US and the Soviet Union actually experimented with "nuclear fracking" in oil/gas fields. The Soviet Union also used atomic bombs to put out fires in gas fields as late as 1981.
>Imagine using a small a-bomb for mining just as we use ANFO today.
Nuclear cement kiln
Nuclear pile jetter
Nuclear tunnel boring machine.
Nuclear Toothpaste
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doramad_Radioactive_Toothpaste
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.
Using the Project Orion spacecraft to get there, of course.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propu...
'natural experiment' doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I don't know enough about chemistry to tell if this alloy has potentially interesting properties, or it's just interesting because it's something we weren't previously aware of as being possible.
Oklo, Gabon appears to have run a nuclear reactor about 1.7 billion years ago, though whether you can get a natural nuclear explosion on some chunk of rock somewhere might be difficult to tell.
Related: "Strange crystals found inside wreckage from the first nuclear bomb test" may 2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48155450 87 comments
Not the most economical manufacturing process, it has to be said.
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.
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.
Using conventional explosives is a real thing that exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosion_welding
You can probably skip the town in the ingredient list.
I know you’re joking, but unironically this might be untrue. One catalyst might be something only found in cities!
Granted, you could always replace the city with the catalyst of course :P
It's more of an exploration technique.
Like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening which is also based on randomness.
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.
The real expense is in rebuilding the city every cycle
It might be a bit tough getting the permits from the EPA.
Call it the Cheeto in Charge Manufacturing Center and you'll get a fastpass
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)
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.
Sure.
70,000 dying in a flash certainly puts an end to their suffering.
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.
Sure, and I dunno, it probably does no one any good, I just find it mildly annoying when people treat the atomic bombs dropped in ww2 as some kind of completely incomparable atrocity.
Like the beatles joke, "were the atomic bombs the worst atrocity of all time? They weren't even the worst of that war!"
I mean, we don't really need to rank awful things, we can acknowledge anything beyond a certain level is awful without comparing them, but lots of awful things happen without involving nukes.
They were certainly a novel way of causing a reasonable amount of death and destruction.
Fortunately the novelty wore off fair swiftly.
Well it appears to be the cheapest method known to produce at least some metal alloys.
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.
It is a previously not-made mix of metals. But nothing in the paper explains why it is interesting. Sure we have not seen alloys with that exact combination, but nor have we seen that one with 2% more Si and 3% less Mo. It lacks a "why do we care?" section. Nor are documented any interesting properties of the same other than existing. What did i miss?
This alloy is naturally the macguffin in a Godzilla and/or Sentai film.
Hey! ,this is great! next we can have moskitonium, londinium(heh), and washingtondcinite, rare valuable collectables for some far future alien travellers
why would you wish for this?
He's not wishing, he's warning sarсastically that discussing materials that happen to be byproducts of a mass human sacrifice without any regard to what it in fact was can have future repercussions.
It's in the user name: he's metalman.
He collects metals. Made of men.
Did they disclose the amount of human souls in that alloy?