Making metal transparent

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

If aluminum can be transparent, then control metal can make something transparent.

Calling Aluminum Oxynitrite "transparent aluminum" was a marketing stunt. It isn't transparent elemental metallic aluminum anymore than gorilla glass is "transparent potassium". It's a compound of aluminum and two non-metals.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

If aluminum can be transparent, then control metal can make something transparent.

Aluminum cannot be transparent.

Aluminum based ceramics can be transparent, but they are notably radically different from aluminum;
Super high melting point
Fragile
Can't be reshaped or reformed

Control (ceramic) would be required to work with it, not control metal.

Further even IF aluminum can be transparent does not mean all metal can. That would be like arguing that because cesium reacts violently with water that control metal let's you turn lead into a bomb.

[GodBeastX]

Well, if it's a super science TL then does that change if metal can be transparent?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

Well, if it's a super science TL then does that change if metal can be transparent?

If it's transparent, it's not metal. Superscience might come up with a material with many of the properties of metal that was also transparent, but it will be a ceramic or a plastic, not a metal.

[GodBeastX]

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

[Flyndaran]

Is it a literal defining characteristic of metal to be opaque? Basic definitions I can find just say they're usually shiny.

Superscience can of course alter all sorts of things but making a triangle with four sides, for example, can't be one and have human players not go cross-eyed in confusion.

[GodBeastX]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Is it a literal defining characteristic of metal to be opaque? Basic definitions I can find just say they're usually shiny.

Superscience can of course alter all sorts of things but making a triangle with four sides, for example, can't be one and have human players not go cross-eyed in confusion.

Yeah, that's what I'm curious about. I'm not trying to bait with questions. We have transparent oxide metals, I just don't know if those would count.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

Yeah, that's what I'm curious about. I'm not trying to bait with questions. We have transparent oxide metals, I just don't know if those would count.

I don't think we have any directly transparent metal oxides, generally the oxide is then mixed with other things to turn it into a crystal of some variety, and that crystal is transparent.

Metals generally meet the following requirements:
Lustrous (shiny)
Hard
High density (are heavy for their size)
High tensile strength (resist being stretched)
High melting and boiling points
Good conductors of heat and electricity
High tolerance for deformation and the ability to be reformed when broken (ductility)


I think it would ultimately come down to a GM call if some sort of super-science meta-material that meets those properties and is also transparent is actually a metal. It will almost certainly NOT be a metal as per metaloids on the periodic table- but we consider steel a metal and it contains a lot of carbon.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebit...talsrev1.shtml

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Is it a literal defining characteristic of metal to be opaque? Basic definitions I can find just say they're usually shiny.

Defining property is a bunch of electrons that are not associated with specific atoms. This means it has no bandwidth gaps that light can get through.

Originally Posted by starslayer

I don't think we have any directly transparent metal oxides

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

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Defining property is a bunch of electrons that are not associated with specific atoms. This means it has no bandwidth gaps that light can get through.

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

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.