Collapsium

Collapsium is a super-material used in Dimension Delta Zeta 17-46. It has application in nearly every industry, and forms the basis of both Federal and Imperial high-energy systems such as weapons, drives, and shields. In primal dimension, the only known traces of Collapsium are present on Lunar Farside, due to The Montana Incident.

Collapsium

Collapsium is a unique material formed from partially collapsed isotopically pure matter, such as Lead-206 or Lead-208. It forms a super dense metallic matrix where each atom shares all its electron orbitals with its neighbors.

Properties

Collapsium has a density up to 1000 times greater and **tensile strength and stiffness up to 10,000 times** that of normal matter of the same element. It possesses very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Collapsium formed with higher atomic number elements has proportionately more extreme properties.

All forms of Collapsium uniformly reflect 100% of visible light, appearing snow-white to mirror-finished depending on surface smoothness. Smooth Collapsium is also nearly frictionless with respect to normal matter.

Collapsium is almost impossible to destroy by chemical or thermal means. It is utterly non-reactive with normal matter. It has a very high specific heat and only dissociates into an ionized vapor at temperatures exceeding 50,000K, rather than melting in the conventional sense.

Variants

Collapsium cannot be formed from elements with an atomic number lower than Boron. Attempts to alloy different elements into collapsium have also failed, requiring very high purity elemental inputs for production. Different variants exhibit unique properties:

• Boron Collapsium: 100x density and strength. Transparent to Beta Rays, X-Rays, and Gamma rays. Reflects neutrons and alpha particles.
• Magnesium Collapsium: 200x density, 1000x strength, and 10,000x stiffness.
• Iron Collapsium: 500x density, 10,000x strength and stiffness. A perfect electromagnetic reflector. Has 100x thermal and electrical conductivity. Provides 99% particle radiation reflection.
• Gold Collapsium: 1000x density, 5000x strength and stiffness. A superconductor at up to 10,000 degrees Kelvin.
• Lead Collapsium: 1000x Density, 10,000x strength and stiffness. Reflects all kinds of radiation. It is the least difficult collapsium to machine and work.

Discovery

Collapsium was first created accidentally on March 12, 1954, during Operation Upshot-Knothole at the Nevada Desert Nuclear Test Site. This nuclear test, specifically the "delta shot," aimed to enhance weapon yield using certain elements. Instead, it resulted in a tiny, incredibly heavy sphere of Lead-206. Dr. Thomas Evers, a young physicist, discovered the sphere, which was 1,000 times denser than normal lead and reflected over 99% of all forms of radiation. Recognizing its revolutionary potential, Evers named the new substance "Collapsium".

Production

Industrial scale production of Collapsium is difficult and relegated to remote high-powered nuclear production sites in desolate locations. It is almost impossible to machine or modify Collapsium after it is produced. It is almost always plated onto sub-components and assemblies via deposition in extremely energetic nuclear conditions. Tools for shaping or grinding collapsium generally employ high-current heavy-nuclei particle beams.

Both the NAFR and the British Empire keep the Collapsium production technology highly secretive. Other nations have not been able to replicate Collapsium production.

Applications

Collapsium's unique properties lend themselves to various advanced technological and military applications:

• Directed energy weapons
• Direct nuclear-electric conversion for power
• Containment linings for Ultrazine fuel tanks, fuel lines, turbopumps, and thrust chambers.
• High capacity nuclear electric batteries
• Edges and facing on bladed weapons and industrial cutting tools
• Extremely thin foil used as anti-penetration layers in body armor for high-value assets like meta-humans
• Thin layers plated onto supporting structures of other metals to greatly toughen them and provide very high radiation reflectivity for special purpose military installations and vehicles
• Gold-Collapsium, only a few atoms thick deposited on exceptionally thin tungsten wire, is used for **high temperature superconducting power transmission lines**. Both the NAFR and British Empires use this extensively in high-efficiency or high-current power transmission and electro-magnet applications by the 2010s.

Limitations

Collapsium is too heavy and too expensive for mundane applications. Collapsium-tipped ammunition is theoretically possible but vastly non-economical. Gold-Collapsium power lines are difficult to cut cleanly and cannot easily be used for complex circuitry.

Theoretically, Collapsium can spontaneously dissociate, and release sub-nuclear levels of energy in the form of explosively energetic isotopic fission products, though this had never been observed in practice.