Weblog on the Internet and public policy, journalism, virtual community, and more from David Brake, a Canadian academic, consultant and journalist

Archive forJanuary 27th, 2002 | back to home

27 January 2002
Filed under:Uncategorized at11:15 am

If you aren’t already tired of reading about Lord of the Rings, I just found a bit of spoof science about how the ring of power might be constructed. Here is a sample:

the Ring looks and feels like gold, but isn’t. The heat of an ordinary fire can’t melt it, although it does cause some glowing letters to appear. To destroy the Ring, you have to throw it into the boiling magma of Mount Doom, which from its description is probably at least 2,000 degrees Celsius. This leads me to believe that the ring is in fact made of silicon (melting point 1,410C), whose surface properties—as discussed in “The Heart of the (Programmable) Matter”—can be dramatically altered through the use of tiny electronic components called quantum dots. In this case, the quantum dots each contain 79 electrons, and behave optically and electrically as though they were atoms of gold. Some of the dots also emit light when excited thermally, which is perfectly consistent with their design and function.

I also refer you if you haven’t already seen it in my archives to an inspired rendition of The Lord of the Rings as a Bogart flick. And if you want to discuss LOTR further and read my own views of it, visit my message board.