Arthur James

[Sasha Gusev @SashaGusevPosts]

Some fun charts:
1. Each US generation is wealthier than the last.

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@craigweiss Who is working at the research frontier on this?

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@pernasresearch ... $F

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@MattLoszak Same thing holding back power transformer investment - manufacturers have a long memory of overbuilding capacity before 2008.

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

This paragraph by Richard Feynman hits so hard:

“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don’t think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn’t stop you from doing anything at all.”

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@NS_Neelotpal @workingsanford @DOWResponse @SecWar Nor is the origin of this line you’ve drawn up near Bangladesh

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@mualphaxi UK withdrew staff from their embassy 2 days ago

https://t.co/tOy1BdC7m1

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

“If someone could only figure out something better than the Kroll process, we would move closer to the biocompatible super structural material that we need.”

[Object Zero @Object_Zero_]

The Kroll Process…
Titanium (Ti)

Humans could use a lot more titanium if we had it, it has two great properties first it’s fully corrosion resistant and secondly it has high strength to density ratio.

It’s so corrosion resistant, it’s the preferred material for surgical implants.

It’s an extremely biocompatible material to the point where your bones can be replaced with titanium bones (surprised we don’t see more body modification like this).

On strength to density, titanium has the highest strength to density of any metallic element.

Pure titanium is as strong as steel but is only 57% the weight. The only reason we don’t have a lot more titanium is the economics.

Titanium ore costs about 20% the cost of aluminium ore, but titanium requires vastly more energy than aluminium to process.

So much so that a titanium ingot is about 5x the price of an aluminium ingot.

Titanium is also a lot harder to machine and join, so finishing titanium parts can be 100x the price of finished aluminium parts, even though the titanium ore is much cheaper than aluminium.

So even though titanium is a technically superior material to aluminium and steel, we’re not very good at it, so it remains frustratingly expensive.

The majority of our manufacturing processes were developed for steel.

Titanium is still locked behind the Kroll process which converts titanium ore into sponge, the process is 10x more energy intensive than processing aluminium ore and 50x more energy intensive than processing iron ore.

It’s batch based, energy intensive and dirty.

If someone could only figure out something better than the Kroll process, we would move closer to the biocompatible super structural material that we need.

Steel is made from iron and iron is very reactive with oxygen, it’s why our blood is iron, but we don’t want reactive structures. We don’t want bridges and railways that rust.

We really want chemically inert structures. We really want titanium structures.

There are still many cases whee steel is always best, and my favourite material is steel because that’s what we have mastered.

Steel is currently our baseline economic material, but we should be working much harder to find an economic way to move to structures dominated by titanium alloys.

We need to find a way to get past the expensive Kroll process.

Titanium buildings could last for 1,000 years without corroding or falling into disrepair.

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

What’s amazing is that it only took evolution a few hundred million years to arrive at DNA in more or less recognizable form. It took the next 4 billion years to get from there to gene editing.

[Tim Urban @waitbutwhy]

In fairness evolution has had 4 billion years to work on this and we’ve only been at it for a few thousand years

[Gregory L Little, Ed.D. @DrGregLittle2]

1930s photo of a WPA archaeologist taking an aerial photo of an excavation of an earthlodge site in South Dakota.

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@zebulgar @SamMendel00

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@Hitachi @OpenAI @sama @dieworkwear

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@Thinkwert Bicycle

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@itsjuliaknight This furniture looks incredibly uncomfortable. What kind of lounging could you do in that chair??

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@rmcentush US doesn't have good domestic HREE mines developed but are probably fine on that from allies. Refining and especially metallization is the bottleneck

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@JTLonsdale Bb8 then Qb7?

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

https://t.co/HQV7AFay8L

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

Unleashing US energy dominance

https://t.co/HOIjM5zKUF

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@mrexits pahahaha

[Arthur James @ArthurSchJames]

@loobah_l @JTLonsdale https://t.co/xBRErTPJ85