This is completely ubsurd, but pretend that science is out to lunch for me, kay? I don't know enough about chemistry, physics, and other such fancy science to know this myself. Let's say a hypothetical material (solid) was formed ENTIRELY out of neutrons, and didn't decay from lack of bond to a proton. Would this hypothetical substance be conductive to electricity and heat?

No to electricity, as there's no electrons flowing.

No idea about heat, seeing as we're ignoring how the neutrons are bonded. If we assume they're bonded due to massive gravity or something, i.e. a neutron star, then they probably would be either great conductors from being super dense, or not conduct heat from being too dense to vibrate. Not sure how that works.

They are more of held forcefully in place, but only to a certain degree. So I guess heat wouldn't be a factor, untill a threshhold was crossed. At that point, it would probably vaporize, since whatever is holding them together was overcome. I swear I missused grammar in that last sentance, but I don't know where.

As Trouser said, obviously no electricity due to a lack of electrons. As for heat,



if this 'material' would be similar to the makeup of a neutron star, it would be a great a++ conductor of heat. If it's just a bunch of neutrons smacked together (ones which aren't fudgetastically ultra-superdense) it would probably depend on the type of neutron :u

The thing to remember is that ♥♥♥♥ in a neutron star is (maybe) so dense that it breaks down the fabric of sub-sub-atomic particles.

When you're ripping apart quarks (and making strange matter) your ♥♥♥♥ be ♥♥♥♥, yo.

So a conglomeration of neutrons on a density like that would be approximately 1.21 ridonkulous-hertz on the scale of what the hell. Heat conduction is a moot point when you're next to a gravity well only exceeded by black holes.

That said some kind of magical construction of neutrons (jacking up weak nuclear force?) would be little more use than as a curiosity, since it would have virtually no effect on matter.

Yeah, that's basically the plothole I'll be pulling out to make this at all workable.


Now THAT is the good part in this case. Unconductive of electricity or heat, virtually inert, held together in the same shape by magyk. Combine all of those properties together, and what do you have? Crazygood armor plating.

Flexibility and shock absorption would also be important. Also, how strong the magical bonds are.

Magical armor plating would be much better as a construct of ferrofluid, methinks. Or piezoelectric materials (see: batman wings in the last two films)

You're the firearms expert around here, but wouldn't that leak after sustaining fire and/or some close encounters with razor wire? After the ferrofluid liquefies again, that is.

Personally, I think body armor could be made of either frozen smoke(a super-lightweight material, that can take an impact from an object with 4000 times its mass, and is completely heatproof, unless you've got an hour), or possibly, in the future, a non-newtonic liquid, or whatever.(the kind of liquid that solidifies temporarily when hit with an impact)

Ignoring the fact that they wouldn't be held together by anything, I know that free neutrons decay (half life of ~15 mins) so no, after a while no neutrons would remain (but you would end up with a lot of protons and electrons emitted -and neutrinos-, which I suppose could theoretically come together with some of the undecayed neutrons and form a bunch of elements)

Heat is basically a measure of how much the atoms are moving (translation rotation and vibration), and is transferred by interactions between molecules, so I suppose it would be a good heat conductor as it has very few external forces acting on it that could excite the neutrons. but I'm just speculating from my knowledge.

"it would probably depend on the type of neutron :u" don't be silly there's only one type of neutron 1 up quark, 2 down quarks... but there's also the antineutron which is composed of 1 anti-up quark and 2 anti-down quarks but that's technically not the same as a neutron.

A non-Newtonian fluid-filled type of body armor would suffer from the same issue as one filled with ferrofluids. Well, unless we can invent perfectly tear-proof fabrics. At least ferrofluids could be held on a magnetic (and elastic) surface, though that would raise the issue of random pieces of metal piling up on you.

get your science out of this thread.

Okay, I'm not a physics expert, but I heard this theory on protons/neutrons/electrons that may apply.

this is the theory that I heard. There is no such thing as strong force, or weak force, and both are explained by gravity. All protons and neutrons have the gravity of what our current estimate of the mass of the entire known universe is, coming from such a small point that we can't yet perceive it. protons and neutrons are in fact sub-subatomic black holes. the 'edge' of what we see, is actually its event horizon. because all protons and neutrons are pulling at everything from all directions, it actually balances out. so much for string theory.

The reason I bring this up, is that it would explain a 'fictional mass' of nothing but protons, or nothing but neutrons. it would conduct heat just as well as any other mass, of equal atomic mass. it would also be, at least as far as the atomic scale is concerned, just as stable. How multiple atoms would form molecular bonds without neutrons or electrons I have no idea, its like I said I don't have any kind of doctorates in anything.

If you want MY opinion on the ultimate super-magic armor, it would be a material made of photons that are somehow held in place. probably by a magnetic bottle or some other super-science. it would have to be a wall of photons, so dense and crowded that there is no more space available for another photon. the result is anything that touches it would likely absorb so much energy that it would turn to plasma. which means you wouldn't want to wear this armor. maybe make it a bubble around something.

you posted a non-serious hypothetical science question. This is my non-serious hypothetical made up answer.

http://www.army-technology.com/contract ... ction/tss/

Bullet comes in through your exterior layer, probably light kevlar ish or plastic. There's a bullet detection system; either a muzzle flash scanner or an audio device (there's a DARPA thing that detects where bullets are coming from in milliseconds) and then hardens that side of your armor accordingly, for a few milliseconds.

Bullet impacts, you still get the kinetic impact but not the oh god there's a bullet going through me impact.

Nonnewtonian liquids is basically the same principle except automatic, rather than triggered by some kind of device.