Is Anyone Still Researching Along the Lines of Pykrete?

[Tuckerfan]

Pykrete, of course, being a mixture of water and sawdust frozen until it becomes rock hard. Given that pykrete can stop a bullet and is extremely cheap to produce, I’m wondering if folks aren’t working at seeing if they can’t combine other common substances with water to achieve an unusual compound.

[Sunspace]

We could get a jump on designing construction materials for the Titan climate!

[Tapioca_Dextrin]

The last few times this has been brought up coughed up a few not overly helpful answers.

[bonzer]

It’s incidental to the question, but, particularly since nobody has pointed it out in any of the previous threads, Geoffrey’s son was Magnus Pyke - Britain’s quintessential TV boffin in the 1970s and 80s.

[Antonius_Block]

@bonzer

Geoffrey’s son was Magnus Pyke

Do you have a cite for that, bonzer? I’m not trying to be snarky, I’m genuinely curious.

In this thread from June 2003 (in which Squirebob wanted ideas for a fictional “Big Bloody Battleship”, and BraheSilver suggested that it be made out of pykrete), I wrote:

It turns out (from the last-linked site) that Geoffrey Pyke was Magnus Pyke’s cousin. The latter was a British TV “Mad Scientist”, best known in the US for appearing in the 1983 video of Thomas Dolby’s song “She Blinded Me With Science”. I wonder if there are any surviving relatives who have the Pyke “Mad Scientist” gene?

Apart from the Internet, I don’t currently have access to any Pyke family biographical information. The only link I could find at the time was this one, which referred to Geoffrey and Magnus as cousins.

After a fresh Google search, I’ve found this WW2 model messageboard, in which a poster claims that Geoffrey and Magnus were brothers, with no supporting cite.

Now, Wikipedia has Magnus Pyke dying in 1992 at age 83, which means that he was born in either 1908 or 1909. This short biography of Geoffrey Pyke (of Pykrete fame) has him born in 1894.

Although it would not have been impossible for a budding teenage eccentric engineer/inventor to father a child at age 13, 14, or 15 in Edwardian England, it does seem like a stretch. If you have a cite for a father/son relationship, I’d be very happy to be shown to be at fault!

[This 1996 obituary of Edward J. Pyke mentions “his cousins Geoffrey & Magnus Pyke”, but that does not really provide any more detail regarding their relationship.]

[jjimm]

Damnit, I have a book (Butter Side Up), written by Magnus Pyke, with a chapter about Pykrete that would answer this question definitively. Unfortunately it’s in storage.

[bonzer]

@Antonius Block

Do you have a cite for that, bonzer? I’m not trying to be snarky, I’m genuinely curious.

No, other than memory, which as you’ve demonstrated can easily be faulty.