Unubtainium?????????

Been around long before FChat or even the medium in which FChat exists...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium

Merry Christmas,
Rick

 

The term "unobtanium" isn't new... been around since at least the 60's when guys working on the SR71 blackbird used the term, referring then to titanium, which the Russians had made difficult to obtain.

 

The term has been around as long as I remember, and I'm as old as dirt. Here's what Wikipedia says:

"Engineers have long (since at least the 1950s[2]) used the term unobtainium when referring to unusual or costly materials, or when theoretically considering a material perfect for their needs in all respects save that it doesn't exist. By the 1990s, the term was widely used, including in formal engineering papers such as Towards unobtainium [new composite materials for space applications]. [3]

The word unobtainium may well have been coined within the aerospace industry to refer to materials capable of withstanding the extreme temperatures expected in reentry. Aerospace engineers are frequently tempted to design aircraft which require parts with strength or resilience beyond that of currently available materials."

My first personal experience was in trying to find a carburetor hard gas line for a '59 Mercedes 220s that had twin Solex carbs borrowed from a 300SL. Someone had the lines beautifully custom made to perfectly match the Merc original with acorn fittings, braided cotton cover, etc. Exactly like the original except with different bends, lengths, etc. The parts guy told me it was "Made of Unobtainium" and I had to have an aerospace engineering company fix the one I had carelessly twisted. The term was also used for things that "mere mortals" couldn't afford - especially things that the military, with deep pockets" could have made. Some of the SOCAL aeronautical engineers had exotic parts on their hotrods that only NASA could have funded.

 

Doesn't Verell have that word patent??

 

I like:

Intra-fibrous friction fastener = nail

 

Unobtainium =Noun=person, place,or thing(object).
Unobtainum = verb or adverb=used to show action define a state of being, an action or modify a verb.Just could not help myself. Happy Holidays..Jacques.

 

No, just registered as part of my business name.

IIRC I first encountered the word in a 1930s or early 1940s science fiction story, maybe one of EE Doc Smith's or Edmond Hamilton's novels. By the 1950s it was popping up pretty regularly in SF stories.