The chemical formula for transparent aluminum plays a key role in the plot of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. In the movie, the formula is traded for Plexiglas sheets thick enough to create water tanks suitable for transporting two humpback whales through time, from the 20th century to the 23rd century, inside a Klingon Bird of Prey. Since the crew was temporarily stranded in the past without money appropriate to the period, they had to barter with the owner of the Plexicorp company (a fictional manufacturer of Plexiglas). Scotty trades the chemical formula for transparent aluminum for enough of the material to build the tanks.
Star Trek technical manuals allege transparent aluminum to be used in various internal fittings in starships, where the sets include what appears to be glass. However, such fittings have been observed to shatter in the manner of toughened glass.
Aluminium is found primarily as the ore bauxite and is remarkable for its resistance to corrosion (due to the phenomenon of passivation) and its light weight.
Aluminium mirror finish has the highest reflectance of any metal in the 200-400 nm (UV), and the 3000-10000 nm (far IR) regions, while in the 400-700 nm visible range it is slightly outdone by silver, and in the 700-3000 (near IR) by silver, gold and copper.
Aluminium was selected as the material to be used for the apex of the Washington Monument, at a time when one ounce cost twice the daily wages of a common worker in the project; aluminium was a semiprecious metal at that time.
Transparent alumina is alumina (aluminum oxide, Al) that is transparent.
This sintered alumina is very hard, nearly transparent, and has a very high melting point (2303 kelvins), yet like other sintered materials it can be produced at temperatures much lower than its melting point.
In 2004, Anatoly Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy alumina (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce strong glass with good optical properties.
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