h a l f b a k e r yThe word "How?" springs to mind at this point.
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There is a stone that when broken correctly produces a blade one molecule thick, making it extremly sharp. (I Believe it to be Obsidian) If there were a blade like this made out of diamond, it would effectively cut through most normal cutting substances, but if the blade could be only one atom thick,
and as strong as diamond, then it could theoratically cut through anything at a atomic level.
Monomolecular Wire
http://en.wikipedia.../Monomolecular_wire
"Various Imperial and alien technologies in the Warhammer 40,000 universe use monomolecular blades or wire offensively." [Jinbish, Jan 29 2010]
Absurdly Sharp Blade
http://tvtropes.org.../AbsurdlySharpBlade
"...have edges only a single molecule wide, letting them slice through otherwise impenetrable materials." [Jinbish, Jan 29 2010]
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Annotation:
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It would also dull extremely quickly, possibly from the
effects of entropy itself. [] |
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You have been smoking the ganj, theoretically. |
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I'm not going to tag it, but I would suggest this for a widely known to exist/bad science. Monomolecular edges are extremely common in science fiction. |
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The problem with a mon-atomic edge in diamond (or any carbon compound, is that at one atom thick, diamond does not (cannot) have a full orbital. It will bond with just about anything, and oxygen is one of it's favorites. |
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In general monatomic edges are going to dull as soon as they make contact with anything, including air. Monomolecular are better, but will still dull the moment they cut anything. |
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Yes, widely know to exist in science fiction.
I thought the sharpest edge was slate, but
often wondered if graphene could be
sharper. Stephenson went with correctly
broken glass in "Snow Crash" and Wikipedia
backs him up, but also mentions diamond blades are even sharper, but as others have mentioned here, also dull quickly. Personally what I used
to dream about was an object made from a single atom with a 1 dimensional nucleus made up of strong bonded helium nuclei, which besides being insanely heavy (short lengths could weigh as much as planets), would also cut through ANYTHING except Cosmic Strings and maybe even them as I would think the bonding would be stronger and more stable with the added Neutrons. |
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I also had a short SciFi story idea about creating a double bonded string of carbon atoms. Further researched showed that others have tried, but the carbon atoms ended up with triple and then single bonds, so never reached the strengths of nanotubes. |
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so....hmm... regarding sharpness, what if the edge exuded electrons which did the cutting (okay, separating), leaving the atoms to just sit there. |
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I have a knife with a blade thinner than a single atom. In
fact, you can't even see the blade it's so thin. It can slice
through anything (even diamond - I have tried). |
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It leaves such a clean cut that the interatomic bonds are
severed
and left dangling but are not disturbed, so that the cut
object re-bonds and heals
itself after the blade has passed through it. |
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How crude. Mine doesn't even sever the interatomic bonds as it goes through. |
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Lasers are better at cutting through anything. |
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//if the blade could be only one atom thick// |
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If it's just one atom thick, it's not diamond. It's graphite. |
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diamond is an Isometric-Hexoctahedral (wiki!) and thus any face presented by a true diamond is at maximum as wide as the face of a c6 hexagon. Hardly wide but certainly more than "one atoms width". If super-sharp blades were useful we should see more of them in nature and yet we do not. |
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//A knife that can cut through anything// |
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//any face presented by a true diamond is at maximum as wide as the face of a c6 hexagon// |
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This makes me wonder how sharp a Fullerene blade would be. |
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From Wiki;
The van der Waals diameter of a C60 molecule is about 1 nanometer (nm). The nucleus to nucleus diameter of a C60 molecule is about 0.71 nm. |
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Microscopically serrated. |
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if you could get it to assemble with only a single facet face then it would have a natural serration. The depth of the serrations would be less than the width of the blade however. |
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//If super-sharp blades were useful we should see more of
them in nature// |
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Do we see lots of wheels in nature? (Only one example I can
think of.) |
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Are they really that useful? |
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