this post was submitted on 04 May 2025

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131

Sea snail teeth top Kevlar, titanium as world’s strongest material (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I'm real tired of "strongest material" being thrown around. As a welder turned machinist, "strong" doesn't mean much of anything to me. Aluminum is plenty "strong" but it's softer than some woods. Tungsten carbide is harder than a coffin nail but you can chip it by looking at it funny sometimes. Kevlar is plenty tough, but it isn't hard or particularly flexible. There isn't any super material that will ever do all the things "the best" and throwing around meaningless titles for clickbait feels childish at best and exploitative at worst.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys 34 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You're forgetting that "strength" has a formalized engineering definition, which is the amout of force (not energy or impact) a material can resist before deforming or breaking.

The other 2 properties you're alluding to are hardness (force needed per unit of deformation) and toughness (energy absorbed before deforming or breaking. All of these are important factors when choosing materials for a particular use case.

The article is comparing the material to kevlar and spider silk, which suggests that they're referring to tensile strength, which is a proper use case. It isn't the paper's fault that your are incorrectly conflating "strongest" with "best". What's best for any particular use case is going to be dependent on design requirements.

[+] [email protected] -19 points 3 days ago (2 children)

And you're forgetting that the chumps making these engineering definitions are chump engineers who think they're making parts in a theoretical plane of existence where only their numbers matter.

In reality, everything should be made out of copper nickel superalloys because man that shit is cool af. Frfr if you ever get a chance to mess with aluminum copper nickel you should do it because that shit is borderline mystical.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Lookout everyone, big brain here has it all figured out. Don't need any more engineers with their fancy words.

[+] [email protected] -9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

An engineer made the oceangate sub. Worked out pretty well for him. Right up until it didn't.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

nah fuckwit ignored actual engineers, insurers and regulating bodies. worked out as could be expected.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Fuckwit was an actual engineer, but go ahead and tell me again how all the bad engineers are "fake" wannabes and all the "real" actual engineers are perfect little angels that never did anything wrong.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Lol hey man its not too late to go to college for engineering. Just imagine the problems you could solve with your superior machinist brain!

[–] mnemonicmonkeys 4 points 2 days ago

One engineer being a dipshit doesn't invalidate the entire discipline. Especially when said engineer went to an ivy league school where a degree says more about you parent's bank account than your actual ability

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

pfft get a grip. he ignored so much valid advice. the sub couldn't pass cert.

you really stanning for someone who killed their own customers?

yeah that's some great engineering what a toolbag

[–] mnemonicmonkeys -1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Says the random fuckwit on the internet who clearly doesn't understand what they're talking about.

I call you out on your ignorance, so now you get all pissy? Grow the fuck up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Autism has always been terrible at reading emotions of others.

I'm Bing chillin. I don't give a solitary fuck if you decided to rename tensile strength as "stringle bringle factor". Im just tired of people using "strong" as a catch all descriptor when it actually doesn't mean much of anything in context.

How about you go and contemplate the definitions of a chill pill for a while broseph

[–] mnemonicmonkeys 1 points 1 day ago

Im just tired of people using "strong" as a catch all descriptor when it actually doesn't mean much of anything in context.

Apparently you haven't realized that I'm the one who pointed out that "strength" has a very specific meaning in engineering and that the article was using that definition correctly.

How about you go and contemplate the definitions of a chill pill for a while broseph

Says the guy whinging about all engineers being stupid based on one dumbnut ignoring everyones' advice and making a shitty sub. And you're the guy going on a rant based solely on your ignorance of engineering terms. The only one here that needs a chill pill is you

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Obviously you've never heard of flex tape

[–] wolframhydroxide 9 points 3 days ago

Duct tape and wd-40: the fifth and sixth classical elements.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Space elevator when?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 days ago

The mineral in question (goethite - yup, named after the poet Goethe) is iron III oxide and hydroxide. It's 5~5.5 hardness in the Mohs scale, so it's softer than glass. The snail teeth is probably combining the goethite strains with proteins to make it so hard. I wonder if we couldn't sub the proteins with kevlar or another para-aramid to create something similar.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 days ago

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Queue extinction of snails

[–] deranger 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Cue

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

nuh-uh! see they're in line to be extincted

[–] _druid 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Sounds like a good opportunity for anyone who has ever wanted to be a snail farmer.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Napstablook spreading the word about his family business.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

What does this tell us of the teeth that your average escargot enjoyer has?