So one day in the near future in one of those unexpected developments someone accidently creates what comes to be thought of as a ‘miracle material’, its properties:
It feels and looks like a plasticy type material but isn’t
Cheap to produce
Easily moulded into the desired form
Can be injected with dye to create different colours but in its natural form is almost perfectly clear
Can be made as flexible or as solid as is required
Its basically indestructible to any forces that can be humanly applied in most scenarios, ie a tank-shell fired at a sheet will fail to penetrate (if its a solid sheet of the material the round will bounce off, if it is more flexible and rubbery it will flex and bend but not tear before bouncing back to its original shape)
Extremely resistant to high and low temperatures, it does not shatter even at extremely low temperatures and can resist a blow-torch quite easily
It can however be destroyed by a fairly simple industrial process and recycled
So how would society change and what uses could it be put to? I imagine for example that it could be used for the front windscreen in cars, though the side windows would remain glass so they could be broken in an emergency.
Please no ‘that’s not possible’ replies, of course it isn’t, but its just fun to imagine what would happen if it was.
Depending on the exact properties - strength, fatigue, resistance to flutter/resonance, etc., this might revolutionize the airline industry and produce extremely fuel-efficient airliners. Fighter jets, too. Ships, whatnot.
If it’s non-toxic, you could have entire houses and apartment complexes built out of it - both exteriors and interiors.
It would be a matter of market pricing and cost. If cheap enough, it will put most materials industries these days out of business.
Could it be made into clothing? Somebody wrote a novel on this topic. Wait, it was a movie. The Man in the White Suit, starring Alec Guinness. The Man in the White Suit - Wikipedia It didn’t end well.
What are the insulating capabilities of this miracle material? Is it electrically conductive? How about heat transfer?
Before anybody starts thinking about armor, remember that the material doesn’t negate inertia. A tank round won’t penetrate your vest, but it will smear you across several hundred meters of countryside anyway.
The same thing that happened when economical steel and plastic production began. Those materials were just as advanced over traditional materials as the one you propose. It won’t be the end of materials science, someone will find a way to make it for less, find new uses for it, and someone will invent another material with the same or even better properties.
I put a link to the movie’s Wikipedia page in my post.
Sorry that my post wasn’t clear. I said, “It was a book. Wait, it was a movie.” I should’ve clarified that as, “It was a book. No, my mistake, it was a movie.” It doesn’t seem to have been a book first.
It sounds like we’d finally have a practical material to build a space elevator out of. And its extreme durability would aid space travel in general, since being so strong means that it could be used in very thin layers and struts for an ultralight spacecraft frame.
It replaces metal alloys, glass and plastic and other building materials. If it’s cheaper people have more disposable income to spend on other things. If your unobtainium has almost infinite strength and wear resistance then it will be used for new objects not buildable with current materials tech like various megastructures. Wind farms will become more economically viable.