Sarcastic comments aside, it is not just the "quantitative" or "stoichiometric" (if I may) side that counts. In alloys, there is what is called the Phase Diagr

Sarcastic comments aside, it is not just the "quantitative" or "stoichiometric" (if I may) side that counts. In alloys, there is what is called the Phase Diagram. Depending on how you mix stuff (proportions), the temperature you mix them at, the pressure you mix them at, and the rate at which these change during the operation, you will have completely different characteristics. There's also what is called the Time-Temperature-Transformation diagram. It's not enough to set parameters, how they change matters, too. The difference between hard steel bayonnette and a flexible shaving blade comes to mind to illustrate the influence of the rate of change of temperature, for example. And here I only talked about a binary phase diagram. In the case of the article, it's a tin-silver-copper (as far as we know). The result is a solid. In a phase diagram, if you have it easy, it is finding a point in a continuum if you want to reverse engineer the alloy 100%. [0]http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Textbook_Maps/Physical_Chemistry_Textbook_Maps/DeVoe's_%22Thermodynamics_and_Chemistry%22/13%3A_The_Phase_Rule_and_Phase_Diagrams/13.2_Phase_Diagrams%3A_Binary_Systems http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Textbook_Maps/Physical_Chemistry... [1]http://www.sv.vt.edu/classes/MSE2094_NoteBook/96ClassProj/examples/icnew2.gif http://www.sv.vt.edu/classes/MSE2094_NoteBook/96ClassProj/ex...