Making metal transparent

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Al2O3 is transparent in crystalline form (corundum; with dopants, forms ruby or sapphire), though in powder form it's white. Same for cubic zirconia.

Good point, but I don't think all but the most reachy of munchkins will try to argue that corundum, ruby, or sapphire should be affect-able with control metal nor count as a 'metal' in the most traditional sense.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Okay, so literally by definition impossible for an elemental metal to be transparent. Not that superscience could just create a new metal without royally screwing over even high school science with the periodic table.
But interesting to learn anyway. Thanks.

As an amusing anecdote, in my undergraduate electronic properties of materials course, we spent an entire day talking about the electronic structure of metals including the bandgap that Anthony references above. We got to the end of the derivation of all the key equations, and the professor turns to the class and says to us “and that’s why Star Trek transparent aluminum is impossible.”

That was the end of the lecture.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

So is an oxide metal no longer a metal by the standards?

Mettalic bonds are a lattice of cations which freely share electrons, this is why metals have almost every metallic property, including conductivity and shine. Metallic oxides have the electrons bound up in the ionic bonds between the metal cation and the oxide anion, and can't have any of those properties.

I wouldn't let Control (Metal) effect metallic ions in non-metallic compounds. At least not without some kind of power stunt that actually gives them Control (Matter). Magento might have been able to affect metallo-organics a few times, but he generally can't rip the potassium out of cells all the time.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

At least not without some kind of power stunt that actually gives them Control (Matter).

Well, being unable to affect materials that don't contain metal, depending on the percentage required, might still be a substantial limitation, though a big hassle to actually deal with in play and extremely unintuitive (you can affect salt but not glass...).