Timeline for If time-travellers always arrive naked how and what would they trade?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
4 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 16, 2015 at 18:21 | comment | added | MD-Tech | My point was meant to be more about solving problems in causality than strictly about any one substance! If I'd swapped Corundum for Beethoven's symphonies would you be saying the same? | |
| Oct 16, 2015 at 18:11 | comment | added | Mason Wheeler | If someone in modern times did invent a way to mass-produce high-purity corundum on the scale Scotty wanted to have available, he would indeed end up wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. | |
| Oct 16, 2015 at 18:10 | comment | added | Mason Wheeler | The "transparent aluminum" bit is actually very interesting. Corundum (aluminum oxide) is a transparent material of amazing hardness, close to that of diamond, with incredible potential applications as both an industrial and a structural material, if only we had a good way to produce it in industrial quantities. But since it's difficult to come up with in large quantities, it mainly remains known by its more common name, sapphire, (or alternatively ruby, when the corundum contains red impurities rather than blue/green ones,) and used for less practical purposes. | |
| Oct 16, 2015 at 15:19 | history | answered | MD-Tech | CC BY-SA 3.0 |