4 ms·

About the Abrams movie: Too bad the same factor of safety wasn't applied to the buildings, where that should have been even cheaper. Your point is good though.

About the Abrams movie: Too bad the same factor of safety wasn't applied to the buildings, where that should have been even cheaper. Your point is good though. Just like we're now starting to put wi-fi chips into absolutely anything just in case, why wouldn't an advanced civilization simply use their super strength nanoparticles for everything? Why go out of your way to use worse materials?

ben_w 5y ago
In fairness, a building-sized battleship was crashed into the buildings in Into Darkness. What would happen if someone catapulted the (CVN-80) USS Enterprise through a bunch of skyscrapers?
WalterBright 5y ago
We use super-strength thousand year plastic for one time uses. It's a big problem.
- manquer 5y ago
  It is only a problem for single planet species. Advanced multi planet or multi system civilizations may worry less about that than we do. Also if the bio diversity dropped, and people are used to living in closed ecosystems to limit damages from such harmful chemicals, over long enough period everyone will forget what was there before , further making bad things will not impact their quality of life anyway.
  - candiodari 5y ago
    It's also very unlikely that nature won't adapt to plastics. They have great amounts of chemical energy, and they're everywhere. Already you can see great decreases in plastic lifetimes, and they're decreasing faster and faster. The lifetime advantage plastics provide won't last. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideonella_sakaiensis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideonella_sakaiensis Without microbes breaking it down (which can be achieved in a number of ways, and generally it is at least slowed down) wood can last a millenium.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> why wouldn't an advanced civilization simply use their super strength nanoparticles for everything? Why go out of your way to use worse materials? For the same reason we've spent decades making our cars structurally weaker?

ben_w 5y ago

In fairness, a building-sized battleship was crashed into the buildings in Into Darkness. What would happen if someone catapulted the (CVN-80) USS Enterprise through a bunch of skyscrapers?

WalterBright 5y ago

We use super-strength thousand year plastic for one time uses. It's a big problem.

manquer 5y ago
It is only a problem for single planet species. Advanced multi planet or multi system civilizations may worry less about that than we do. Also if the bio diversity dropped, and people are used to living in closed ecosystems to limit damages from such harmful chemicals, over long enough period everyone will forget what was there before , further making bad things will not impact their quality of life anyway.
- candiodari 5y ago
  It's also very unlikely that nature won't adapt to plastics. They have great amounts of chemical energy, and they're everywhere. Already you can see great decreases in plastic lifetimes, and they're decreasing faster and faster. The lifetime advantage plastics provide won't last. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideonella_sakaiensis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideonella_sakaiensis Without microbes breaking it down (which can be achieved in a number of ways, and generally it is at least slowed down) wood can last a millenium.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> why wouldn't an advanced civilization simply use their super strength nanoparticles for everything? Why go out of your way to use worse materials? For the same reason we've spent decades making our cars structurally weaker?