Doc Smith Lives!

[seawasp]

In going over the current Department of Defense SBIR solicitation, I came across the following:

"A09-027 TITLE: Nanostructured High Performance Energetic Materials "

For the uninitiated, "energetic materials" is current techspeak for "explosives".

And under this topic, the specific energetic nanostructured materials they are interested in?

"stable polymeric nitrogen".

In "Spacehounds of IPC", Doc Smith wrote about an ultimate explosive, "crystallized pentavalent nitrogen", nitrogen bound to itself in a single diamondlike form that was inherently explosive at a tremendous level; today's estimates of the power of this "stable polymeric nitrogen" is that it would be FIVE TIMES more powerful than any conventional explosive in existence today, more than half a century after Doc first wrote of it.

Once more, Doc's there first.

Comments

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

We're getting there already:

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18948081

is diazidotetrazine, C2N10. 'A satisfactory detonation performance, with detonation velocity D of 8.45 km·s-1 and detonation pressure P of 31.3 GPa, both of which are higher than those of TNT and HMX counterparts'

[seawasp]

Well, there's plenty of stuff that's higher than TNT. They're talking about 5 times higher than even the best of the current breed of boom.

This is pure nitrogen (with, as Autopope says in his comment, a fullerene wrapper) that's been put into a configuration that compresses a lot of energy into itself.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

The holy grail of explosives is something like N₆₀ -- a buckyball, only made out of nitrogen rather than carbon.

Ludicrously unstable, needless to say.

AIUI, the current research centres on taking fullerene tubules and stuffing polymeric nitrogen chains down them, using the delocalized electron clouds lining the tubules to stabilize the polynitrogen: snip the end off the tube so the nitrogen spills out and it will disintegrate rather rapidly.

Exactly.

[seawasp]

That's the precise concept they describe in the solicitation.

I weep that I work only for a super-sensor-gadget company, as I can never propose on the "research things that Blow Up" topics. I would call the Mythbusters to be consultants, of course.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Ludicrously unstable, needless to say.

Don't you mean "sheerly and inconceivably" unstable? :)

[sub-musashi.livejournal.com]

Only explanation: you invent a time machine and go back to tell Doc Smith, thus creating a stable time loop.

[kengr]

No, the chemistry involved was there for anybody to see. The chemical engineering to *do* it has always been the stumbling block.

Doc just had the vision to see that just because it wasn't possible *then* it might not always be impossible.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

No, the chemistry involved was there for anybody to see. The chemical engineering to *do* it has always been the stumbling block.

Doc just had the vision to see that just because it wasn't possible *then* it might not always be impossible.

As he saw many things. He was the first sf writer to grasp the magnitude of energies involved in an interstellar civilization, and some of what that would imply. He missed some others, but give him credit -- he was the first.

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

*chortle* Just wonderful.

[hallerlake.livejournal.com]

Now when they manage to build duodec, then we're really in for it. ;-)

[seawasp]

You mean, "then things actually get fun"? I mean, imagine the Mythbusters with duodec!

[hallerlake.livejournal.com]

"Today on Mythbusters, we're going to see if you really can extinguish a vortex with explosives..."

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

"Today on Mythbusters, we're going to see if you really can extinguish a vortex with explosives..."

Oddly enough, a few days ago I was speculating with my fiancee on what things the Mythbusters might not do if they somehow got the authorization to play with subkiloton-range nuclear explosives on some desert somewhere ... :)

[kengr]

"Today we are going to recreate the way the Brittania took down the wall shields of a Boskonian cruiser with chemical and kinetic energy...."

"We are going to need about a ton of doudec, a Q type helix, and..."

"Remember, we're professionals. Don't try this at home!"

BTW, over on the Crystal Hall site, the Whateley Academy fan-fic writers have come up with "Mythbreakers" which is pretty much Mythbusters in a universe with supers...

[rugor.livejournal.com]

That the First Historian was first is merely a matter of academic interest as the information would already be contained in the visualization of any mind of merely moderate power.

He, not William Shatner, invented everything.

[seawasp]

Well, naturally. Shatner merely assures that you'll get the best prices on it.

[julesjones]

Squee!

I now feel a strange urge to go and see if any of my Doc Smith books are currently Not In Storage.

[seawasp]

The only thing strange about that is the idea that any of them WOULD be in storage.

[julesjones]

When I moved to the US in 2000, it was allegedly for a couple of years, and it was easier and cheaper to put most of the stuff in family attics rather than haul it across the ocean only to haul it back again a bit later.

I acquired more books in the US. Some of them duplicates, after it became clear that I wasn't seeing the originals any time soon.

When we moved back to the UK in 2007, we moved into a nice but small flat for somewhere to live for six months while we looked for a house. A flat with half the floor area of the one in California, and no garage. A large chunk of the accumulated bookage went into storage, along with various other stuff.

20 months later, there is some hope that the hurry-up-and-wait on the house we made an offer on some weeks ago will finally draw to a close next month, and the "it's in storage" saga will enter its final stages...

[rugor.livejournal.com]

I feel for you - but now I must go grab my copy of Spacehounds of IPC which is not in storage.

[shana.livejournal.com]

Project Gutenberg has Spacehounds of IPC. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20857

[julesjones]

Ah, thank you, I should have thought of that... Duly downloaded via feedbooks.com, along with the other Doc Smith titles they have.

[kengr]

Thankfully, Campbell goofed on his super-chemistry trick (the catalyst that'd convert an oxy-nitrogen atmosphere to N2O5). If it was actually possible, it'd have been nasty.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Hmm ... yes, I can see how this would be about as much fun as a barrel of Vonnegut's Ice-Nine ...

[kengr]

Well, both together would be "safer" than either apart...

Y'see:

N2O5 + 2 H2O -> 2 HNO3

The stuff was being used as a weapon in a fight between a couple of warring planets in one of Campbell's novels (Possibly "The Mightiest Machine")

[cateagle.livejournal.com]

Chalk another one up for Doc!! I had to chuckle in 1982 when I was read into the B-2 program, 'cause so much of what was being done was right inline with the "indetectable speedster" of Gray Lensman. Considering that Doc was a chemical engineer, his ability to anticipate this kind of thing is a tad less surprising. What's interesting is to read Heinlein's appreciation of Doc, epsecially where he takes Heinlein through the steps to convince him that the plot of "Spacehounds" was plausible and that Doc could do that bit of bootstrap technological development. Considering that Heinlein had engineering training, too, that's impressive (then again, I'm an engineer, too, and might be susceptible to that line of reasoning ;)).

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

"Doc" Smith also grasped the strategic implications of stealth craft. As he did of many technologies, to the point where many real engineers were inspired by his visions.