• @Dagnet
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        127 months ago

        That’s just spiced iron

      • @Skanky
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        47 months ago

        Laughs in tungsten

      • @bi_tux
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        67 months ago

        steel is an alloy

            • @[email protected]
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              17 months ago

              Never heard that before, what’s the reasoning? Given that they contain metallic elements, have metallic properties, have metallic bonds, and many are colloquially referred to as metals, what makes you think they aren’t metals?

              • @bi_tux
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                67 months ago
                1. I was kinda trolling

                2. They’re not Metals in the context of pure chemical elements

                • @[email protected]
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                  17 months ago

                  Ah yeah of course it’s not an element, though I don’t think the original post was about the best elemental metal

  • slurpyslop
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    7 months ago

    very clearly the best metal is mercury because it’s the only one you can drink at room temperature

      • slurpyslop
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        267 months ago

        you need your hvac serviced if your room is 85F

        UNCOMFORTABLE

      • @Blue_Morpho
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        7 months ago

        Eating Gallium is like eating M&M’s.

        Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.

    • @bi_tux
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      57 months ago

      but you can eat potassium at room temperature

    • @Mango
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      27 months ago

      Well I wanna drink a cold metal.

  • Fat Tony
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    7 months ago

    Really? No one’s on the Tungsten train over here? Highest melting point of all metals. It’s also called ‘the devourer of tin’. Now that’s metal for ya.

        • @FederatedSaint
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          277 months ago

          I still cringe at the “posted on x, formerly known as Twitter” wording everyone feels the need to use, even almost a year later.

          I think we should all just call it Twitter and ignore the name change.

          • SatansMaggotyCumFart
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            247 months ago

            We should all just ignore the platform until doesn’t matter what it’s called anymore.

          • magnetosphere
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            97 months ago

            Replace the word “cringe” with “laugh”, and you’ve got my opinion.

            I cringe at publications that have given in and call it X.

        • Liz
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          37 months ago

          We’re giving Twitter the name change respect Elon would give to any other thing or person that changed its name.

  • _NoName_
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    417 months ago

    The true tossup is actually mercury or lead.

    Both insanely useful metals with a massive variety of helpful traits.

    And the universe made them poisonous to us as a big “FUCK YOU”.

    • Liz
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      137 months ago

      It’s very annoying that gold is so expensive. Much less toxic and still has loads of great properties. It’s just, you know, expensive.

      • @repungnant_canary
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        107 months ago

        Yeah, and it’s expensive because it’s …well, expensive. It’s not any less abundant than some other metals or more difficult to extract. We just decided it’s gonna be expensive

        • VindictiveJudge
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          87 months ago

          I mean, we didn’t just arbitrarily decide that gold would be expensive, we decided it would be expensive because it’s pretty. It seemed like a good idea a few thousand years ago.

        • Liz
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          47 months ago

          So a gold mine is both literal and figurative, eh?

      • @[email protected]
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        57 months ago

        There’s also silver which is an off brand ripoff version of gold. It kind of sucks because it discolors and turns purple.

  • Hellfire103
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    407 months ago

    Amateurs! It’s gotta be silver!

    • Looks nice in jewellery
    • Antimicrobial properties
    • An essential component of camera film
    • Highly conductive (e.g. used for electrodes and thermal paste in computing)
    • Catalyst in many chemical reactions
    • Used to make mirrors
    • A critical component of solar panels
    • The only metal capable of incapacitating werewolves, and also somewhat effective against vampires
  • @Sam_Bass
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    317 months ago

    Aluminum “rusts” as well. White rust. Aluminum oxide.

    • SkaveRat
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      297 months ago

      in fact, it rusts so fast, that it’s pretty much impossible to get a “clean” aluminium surface while oxygen is around

      • @Maalus
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        27 months ago

        They had to invent an entirely new style of welding to weld it correctly because it rusts so much you can’t even melt it for welding reliably.

    • @Buddahriffic
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      147 months ago

      And if you combine that with magnesium powder, you can make a historic doping agent to coat your zeppelin with!

    • Liz
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      27 months ago

      Yeah but like, in order to get significant amounts of it you gotta be in a relatively harsh environment.

      • @Olhonestjim
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        57 months ago

        You get a lot of it at sea. Not supposed to polish it off though, because the aluminum oxide acts as a barrier to further corrosion, whereas iron oxide flakes and continually exposes fresh surface.

        • Liz
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          17 months ago

          Yeah I imagine you would. Salty water loves to eat things up.

        • Liz
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          17 months ago

          Yeah that’s true, metal to metal contacts can have some fun interactions.

      • @Sam_Bass
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        17 months ago

        Dunno how harsh a warehouse is. We used to get oxidized stuff for our presses a lot

        • Liz
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          37 months ago

          It depends on what’s in the warehouse. The only place I’ve seen significant aluminum corrosion was inside a vac frame hood with years of corrosive fumes in it. But, I’m sure there’s a middle ground. Aluminum isn’t inert, but it’s better than raw iron at resisting corrosion.

          • @Sam_Bass
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            27 months ago

            Really depends on the grade of material. Aluminum has several different grades of varying hardness, ductility, resistance. Same as steel. Corrosion is the bane of most usable metals and industries are constantly researching methods to fight it

  • @[email protected]
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    7 months ago

    You should sneak into his garage in the night and sabotage all his aluminum ingots by hitting them with a hammer until they crack. When he tries to break into your garage to get revenge, he’ll break his hammer and hurt his wrist because iron ingots are superior in strength. That’ll show him.

    • JackbyDev
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      17 months ago

      Wouldn’t they just bend? Aluminum is very flexible.

      • @[email protected]
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        7 months ago

        They’d bend a little but they would eventually crack if you bent them enough. Aluminum ingots don’t bend like aluminum foil does.

  • Nomecks
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    267 months ago

    Carbon is the best metal, ask any astrophysicist.

  • Echo Dot
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    177 months ago

    Gallium or bust.

    It’s not really useful but it looks cool and it’ll eat away at both if their metals.

    • @bi_tux
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      27 months ago

      it’s even glow in the dark!

      • Liz
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        57 months ago

        Don’t you be lying up in this thread! Uranium is very boring looking. Just another grey metal.

        • @[email protected]
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          37 months ago

          well yes but also uranium dissolved in glass is fluorescent

          and uranium salts are bright yellow

          • Liz
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            47 months ago

            You can get loads of pretty uranium colors in solution. I love me some chemistry, where the answer to the question “what color is it?” is preceded by “well it depends on the oxidation state…”

              • Liz
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                17 months ago

                The answer to the question is preceded by the phrase. Yeah, it was tricky grammar but I didn’t feel like trying to come up with a more clear phrasing.

                Anyway, as in “Well, that depends on the oxidation state. Aqueous +2 would give you…”

        • @bi_tux
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          17 months ago

          but it glows in fallout );

        • KillingTimeItself
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          17 months ago

          i mean technically, if you refine uranium into plutonium, and then isolate plutonium 238. It does glow.