What makes you think transparent aluminum wouldn't shatter? It's far more likely to be a ceramic material than a metallic one, and ceramics shatter very nicely.
Wow - ST goofs
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What makes you think transparent aluminum wouldn't shatter? It's far more likely to be a ceramic material than a metallic one, and ceramics shatter very nicely.
Firstly, it's not necessarly my thought. The Wormhole asked what the person who put together video was attempting to get across, I gave my best guess. It's that person's thought, not mine. I was offering that it was likely the video's creator's opinion based on the available evidence presented within the scenes.
Secondly, it doesn't seem like a great idea to build a part of a starship's hull out of something more likely to shatter than say transparent metal window. Which is what transparent aluminum has been indended to represent since it's introduction. Course, why have windows at all when you can simply project viewscreens wherever you like.
Thirdly, I'm not sure why that we can pretend to have any knowledge what technical leaps and bounds that could take place in the field of engineering between now and the mid-to-late 23rd century or even the late 24th. Why does transparent aluminum HAVE to be ceramic in nature? I don't know that we can assume that the Periodic Table of the 24th century would be recognizable to someone with a Phd in chemisty from the 21st century.
I'm not trying to be confrontational. I'm sorry, I just picked your quote to jump into the thread.
I don't think it was sufficiently well established that the name "transparent aluminum" was supposed to refer literally to aluminum that was transparent. Given real-world materials science advances and my own experience in materials science, I'd expect the windows to be a transparent ceramic rather than a metal. Jewels and gemstones, for instance, are transparent and have metals in their crystal structure, but that doesn't mean they're metals or that they'd behave as such.
Since, canonically, the window shattered, and a ceramic can shatter like glass given the right conditions, it certainly fits better to think of "transparent aluminum" as a ceramic than a metal. It fits with what is observed better than the fan-assumption that it must be a metal because the element aluminum is in the name of the material.
I don't think it was sufficiently well established that the name "transparent aluminum" was supposed to refer literally to aluminum that was transparent. Given real-world materials science advances and my own experience in materials science, I'd expect the windows to be a transparent ceramic rather than a metal. Jewels and gemstones, for instance, are transparent and have metals in their crystal structure, but that doesn't mean they're metals or that they'd behave as such.
Since, canonically, the window shattered, and a ceramic can shatter like glass given the right conditions, it certainly fits better to think of "transparent aluminum" as a ceramic than a metal. It fits with what is observed better than the fan-assumption that it must be a metal because the element aluminum is in the name of the material.
I'm kind of reminded of Stargate Atlantis - that Altantis itself was really quite fragile (it's windows were glass etc), but with it's shield up, it was invincible. Perhaps it is glass or similar on the Enterprise-D and some of Trek's invisible magic structural integrity fields keep it diamond hard while they're in operation.
I think it's wrong to assume that just because transparent aluminum exists, that all Trek spaceship windows are made of it.
EDIT: Ah, nevermind. I missed CoveTom's TNG quote.
The only other vaguely similar incident I can think of in Trek was the windshield cracking when the Enterprise was being sucked into the black hole at the end of the last movie. The "glass" cracked at the same rate the walls and ceiling of the bridge did.
I think it's wrong to assume that just because transparent aluminum exists, that all Trek spaceship windows are made of it.
EDIT: Ah, nevermind. I missed CoveTom's TNG quote.
The only other vaguely similar incident I can think of in Trek was the windshield cracking when the Enterprise was being sucked into the black hole at the end of the last movie. The "glass" cracked at the same rate the walls and ceiling of the bridge did.
They didn't shatter when the Klingon scout vessel crashed into the San Francisco bay. That had a pretty significant shock, rupturing a number of bulkheads. But the transparent aluminum held in place. Maybe it was the shape and thickness that helped? Either way, you'd figure that the dome over the bridge would be nice and thick, shatter proof. They showed it shattered in Generations for a dramatic effect, but it just looked silly. The light of the sun would have still shown through, and seeing blue sky through it instead of stars was dramatic enough.
I don't mean to confrontational either. I might be a bit overly-sensitive to remotely challenging posts as of late.
I don't know enough about how crystaline structures shatter vs. how metalic ones do. I'm just taking Scotty at face-value in STIV and assuming they still use the tech in the 24th century.
I thought that transparent aluminum was not used in the Bounty's whale tank, but that rather it was Plexiglass used in the whale tank.
The formula for transparent aluminum was traded for the plexiglass. Our intrepid heroes had no money to purchase that much plexiglass, and certainly weren't going to wait for transparent aluminum to be developed (which would've taken years, as established in dialogue).
^ But if it were radically different from aluminum, then why bother to call it "transparent aluminum"? We humans tend to make such word substitutions when something shares very similar properties to the name being used. The implication is that the material behaves like aluminum but is clear rather than opaque. Thus, strong like metal (aluminum) yet clear like plexiglass.
McCOY: Well, a moment alone, please. ...Do you realise of course, if we give him the formula, we're altering the future.
SCOTT: Why? How do we know he didn't invent the thing!
McCOY: Yeah!
Scotty indicated that he was just giving him the alloy matrix and that it would take many years for the guy to get it from model to reality. What I was kind of hoping is that Scotty would confide in McCoy that there is a dependency to another compound that he wouldn't be able to fathom, so they'd eventually reach a dead-end and thus "minimize" the temporal violation. Or, after Scotty looks at a few things presented on the office wall, he figures out that this is the guy who invents transparent aluminum and that they're still stuck on a few things... and Scotty clears up the blockages, shifting the invention earlier by only a decade.
However, if the guy does manage to create transparent aluminum and he WASN'T intended to be the first inventor, then the original inventor doesn't get to create it and... who knows what havoc that creates to the timeline, not to mention that such a remarkably tactical material developed earlier than it should be could affect the timeline in a number of ways, especially militarily. I'd consider that a goof.
McCOY: Well, a moment alone, please. ...Do you realise of course, if we give him the formula, we're altering the future.
SCOTT: Why? How do we know he didn't invent the thing!
McCOY: Yeah!
Scotty indicated that he was just giving him the alloy matrix and that it would take many years for the guy to get it from model to reality. What I was kind of hoping is that Scotty would confide in McCoy that there is a dependency to another compound that he wouldn't be able to fathom, so they'd eventually reach a dead-end and thus "minimize" the temporal violation. Or, after Scotty looks at a few things presented on the office wall, he figures out that this is the guy who invents transparent aluminum and that they're still stuck on a few things... and Scotty clears up the blockages, shifting the invention earlier by only a decade.
However, if the guy does manage to create transparent aluminum and he WASN'T intended to be the first inventor, then the original inventor doesn't get to create it and... who knows what havoc that creates to the timeline, not to mention that such a remarkably tactical material developed earlier than it should be could affect the timeline in a number of ways, especially militarily. I'd consider that a goof.
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They say that in dialog, but that really doesn't make any sense. Scotty wasn't giving him the formula just for the heck of it. He needed a sizeable piece of it for the Bird of Prey. And, in fact, he does get that piece he needs. So he must have given Plexicorp the information they needed not to just begin working on it, but to actually be able to manufacture a finished product.
Nope, Enterprise contradicts First Contact.Nope, you're still wrong. The guy who the wrote the line in "First Contact" said so.I prefer mine
Arrr, thank you! So that Klingon First Contact Disaster thing is not just in the Trek Chronology book, it's actually on screen canon.
Take that you filthy scum that disagreed with me on this years ago! You know who you are.
Plus the actual First Contact was a human shooting a Klingon, not humans look at a Klingon in a hospital bed. That's pretty "disastrous." That plus Archer's other faux pas did lead to rising hostility between the Klingons and the humans/Federation. And it did take place "Centuries ago", just as Picard claimed.
No, the formula for transparent aluminum was traded for the plexiglass that was needed to make the whale tank. Synthesizing transparent aluminum the day after a strange "professor" who tries to talk to computers gives you the formula is beyond incredible. Scotty traded the only bit of information that would be worth more to Dr. Nichols than the plexiglass.
As for why it's named transparent aluminum, I imagine aluminum dominates the crystal structure, but the crystal structure that allows it to be transparent would have to affect the mechanical properties, too. Of course, for all we know, the name might be as accurate as saying there's lead in pencils when it's really graphite.
As for why it's named transparent aluminum, I imagine aluminum dominates the crystal structure, but the crystal structure that allows it to be transparent would have to affect the mechanical properties, too. Of course, for all we know, the name might be as accurate as saying there's lead in pencils when it's really graphite.
Troi's driving...
Bad enough to shatter metal!
Bad enough to shatter metal!
Yup, something like Star Trek's "transparent aluminum" exists already. I was already aware of it, I just didn't think it was relevant, any more than the real world physics of lasers would be relevant to a discussion of phasers, or the Alcubierre drive would be relevant to warp drive.
In "All Our Yesterdays", you see one man left out of millions in a little library somewhere on a vast planet. It's a problem of scope. I found it really bizarre that they happened to stumble upon the last man when they did not even detect him with their sensors. The odds are just way to improbable to believe. It would have made more sense if they had detected a weak life sign that brought them to investigate that particular facility.
Dennis Bailey doesn't think so. And since he did write First Contact, I think we should go with his opinion on this matter.
Centuries ago. Check
Disastrous. Check.
Led to hostility and conflict. Check.
And to invoke Brooks Law, the writer outranks you.
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