Was wondering if Lithium was what caused Delta Radiation and that was why Starfleet switched over to Dilithium? Yes this question discounts the use of Dilithium in Enterprise. Essentially, was Dilithium a more stable version of Lithium?
Nah, Starfleet engineers were just pissed because medical staff kept raiding the engines to treat crew psychoses.
It might be more stable as a power source, but not necessarily safer. Didn't trilithium have toxic properties?
Always figured that 'lithium and dilithium was the exact same thing, just that 'lithium was a slang expression.
Lithium is a substance known to our science and has defined properties. I started a thread about its use and definition in TOS some while ago. For "Where No Man Has Gone Before" I think Sam Peeples had lithium (as in "nuclear fusion") in mind, but the continued use in "Mudd's Women" was a production error they realized and thus fixed it by referring to "dilithium" instead. Bob
I wrote a warp drive evolution article years ago, and speculated that the Lithium used on the Constitution Class was a nano-tubule lattice work engineered on an incredibly small scale to form the same electromagnetic "tunnels" in the crystal for matter/antimatter to permiate. Cheaper, easier to produce, Lithium being highly abundant and maybe better in being engineered from scratch rather than the randomness of a natural crystal. But that over time, as we see in TOS, they burnt out a lot faster or cracked a lot more easily. Essentially an experiment into a manufactered replacement for Dilithium that never really worked out.