What is UNOBTANIUM? What does UNOBTANIUM mean? UNOBTANIUM meaning, definition & explanation

Experience FAST and SECURE Internet browsing with The Audiopedia owned Android browser. INSTALL NOW - http://bit.ly/2Sm5bi0 What is UNOBTANIUM? What does UNOBTANIUM mean? UNOBTANIUM meaning - UNOBTANIUM pronunciation - UNOBTANIUM definition - UNOBTANIUM explanation - How to pronounce UNOBTANIUM? Source: Wikipedia.org article, adapted under http://bit.ly/yjiNZw license. In fiction, engineering, and thought experiments, unobtainium is any fictional, extremely rare, costly, or impossible material, or (less commonly) device needed to fulfill a given design for a given application. The properties of any particular unobtainium depend on the intended use. For example, a pulley made of unobtainium might be massless and frictionless; however, if used in a nuclear rocket, unobtainium might be light, strong at high temperatures, and resistant to radiation damage. The concept of unobtainium is often applied flippantly or humorously. For instance, unobtainium is described as being stronger than steel, and lighter than helium. The word unobtainium derives humorously from unobtainable with the suffix -ium, the conventional designation for a chemical element. It pre-dates the similar-sounding IUPAC systematic element names, such as ununennium. An alternative spelling, unobtanium is sometimes used (for example, for the crypto-currency Unobtanium), based on the spelling of metals such as titanium. Since the late 1950s, aerospace engineers have used the term "unobtainium" when referring to unusual or costly materials, or when theoretically considering a material perfect for their needs in all respects, except that it does not exist. By the 1990s, the term was in wide use, even in formal engineering papers such as "Towards unobtainium ." The word unobtainium may well have been coined in the aerospace industry to refer to materials capable of withstanding the extreme temperatures expected in re-entry. Aerospace engineers are frequently tempted to design aircraft which require parts with strength or resilience beyond that of currently available materials. Later, unobtainium became an engineering term for practical materials that really exist, but are difficult to get. For example, during the development of the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, Lockheed engineers at the "Skunk Works" under Clarence "Kelly" Johnson used unobtainium as a dysphemism for titanium. Titanium allowed a higher strength-to-weight ratio at the high temperatures the Blackbird would reach, but the Soviet Union controlled its supply and was trying to deprive the US armed forces of this resource. In the 1970s, driver and engineer Mark Donohue claimed unobtainium was used in the construction of Penske race cars. By 2010, the term had diffused beyond engineering, and now can appear in the headlines of mainstream newspapers, especially to describe the commercially useful rare earth elements (particularly terbium, erbium, dysprosium, yttrium, and neodymium). These are essential to the performance of consumer electronics and green technology, but the projected demand for them so outstrips their current supply that they are called "unobtainiums" within the ore industry and by commentators on the US Congressional hearings into the "supply security" of rare-earths. "Unobtainium" has come to be used as a synonym for "unobtainable" among people who are neither science fiction fans nor engineers to denote an object that actually exists, but which is very hard to obtain either because of high price (sometimes referred to as "unaffordium") or limited availability. It usually refers to a very high-end and desirable product; for instance, in the mountain biking community, "These titanium hubs are unobtainium, man!" Old-car enthusiasts use "unobtainium" to describe parts that are vanishingly rare or no longer available. In maintaining old equipment, unobtainium refers to replacement parts that are no longer made, such as parts for reel-to-reel audio-tape recorders or rare vacuum tubes that cost more than the equipment they are fitted to (especially true of certain vacuum tubes, such as the 1L6, used almost exclusively in American battery-powered shortwave radios or the WD-11 used in certain early 1920s radios). Similarly, parts for classic & vintage Ferraris are made by a company actually named Unobtainium Supply Co. ...