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Metaglass From "Dune"

Updated: Jun 27, 2023


This is just some art of glass I found.


In "Terminology Of the Imperium" at the back of Dune, a substance known as "metaglass" is mentioned:

METAGLASS: glass grown as a high-temperature gas infusion in sheets of jasmium quartz. Noted for extreme tensile strength (about 450,000 kilos per square centimeter at two centimeters' thickness) and capacity as a selective radiation filter.


For reference, 450000 kg/m^2 is equivalent to about 44000 MPa (44 GPa), or about fifty-five times the tensile strength of steel. Dang.


UPDATE: Actually, this is within the range for carbon nanotubes. That's so cool!


That's really strong. Metaglass's free-hanging length (distance it can hold itself together over under Earth's gravity), assuming it's twice as dense as normal glass, is about 750 kilometers, compared to less than a kilometer for iron.


If we assume the ratio between tensile and compressive strengths is the same for metaglass as it is for normal glass, then metaglass's compressive strength is crazy high.


I don't remember for sure, but I think, based on Dune Wiki, that metaglass was used for windows in Arrakeen under Paul Muad'Dib. This would make bulletproof, radiation-filtering windows.

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