What about renaming the Silicon Tubular Bridge" to...

[mivlad]

What about renaming the "Silicon tubular bridge" to a "Nanotubular bridge"? That's a bit more realistic.

[tmesisbob]

What is not realistic about 'Silicon Tubular Bridge' ? Its a bridge of tubular construction, which is made of silicon. It seems like a pretty reasonable name to me. The STB is in the same vein as Steel Suspension Bridge et al.

[Bjarni]

But why build a bridge of silicon?
Prices are too high since it's rare compared to metals like iron.
And who knows if the phycial abilities even fits the ones needed for bridge building?

[mivlad]

What is not realistic about 'Silicon Tubular Bridge' ?

Remember how carefully you should install a cooler onto an AMD processor not to break off a corner of its core. It's made of silicon. On the other hand, some day nanotubes will probably be used to build a space elevator that lifts things to the orbit.

[dominik81]

You're probably right, from a technical point of view. Silicon is not for construction. But it sounds cool, doesn't it? Renaming it to "Nanotubular bridge" is a nice idea, got a good pun there.

[Rexxie]

Well, I would think CPU's are not made to be robust but to have a high thermal conductivity from its transistors to the top of the chip, to give good conductivity to the heatsink again. I might be wrong though.

However, silicon nitride is used as an abrasive powder, hence pretty strong.
Silicon Carbide is used as a refractory material, and more importantly, "silicon steel" as they call it has actually been used as a component to build bridges, with it's flexible nature, amongst other things.

You're probably right though.

[wolf]

But why build a bridge of silicon?
Prices are too high since it's rare compared to metals like iron.

silicon
n : a tetravalent nonmetallic element; next to oxygen it is the
most abundant element in the earth's crust; occurs in
clay and feldspar and granite and quartz and sand; used
as a semiconductor in transistors [syn: {Si}, {atomic
number 14}]

[Bjarni]

But why build a bridge of silicon?
Prices are too high since it's rare compared to metals like iron.

silicon
n : a tetravalent nonmetallic element; next to oxygen it is the
most abundant element in the earth's crust; occurs in
clay and feldspar and granite and quartz and sand; used
as a semiconductor in transistors [syn: {Si}, {atomic
number 14}]

you are right. I got it mixed with another metal
However, you are not likely to find it in a pure ore, you will need to refine it to get rid of the oxygen like you do with aluminium.

[Stormscape]

I believe you were thinking of platinum.

[norfolksouthern37]

yea i was about to say, go pick up a hand full of dirt, you probably have half silicon there. it is more like glass to me, so i thought that might be what the transparent tube of the bridge was made of, not really the structure itself. i personally dont like the tubular bridges.

[NCarlson]

This strikes me as a why bother type of thing, he probably right though. Of course were also A LOT farther from using nanotubes in bridges than 2010 which is when they appear in game.

[CyberBoy]

How about an Ultraplastic Tubular Bridge? Not plastic as in the stuff used in all sorts of things, but as in extremely rigid. Or maybe an underground tunnel:

Code: Select all

    ----                                                          ----
     TE \                       Empty Space                     /  TE
---------\                            gap                      /---------
          \                                                   /
           \                                                 /
            -------------------------------------------------

TE= Entrance/Exit

The rest of the bridge should have an overlay that covers the train in it and nothing else, thus appearing as if the train is underground.

[SuperTycoon]

yeh that sounf cool!

[mivlad]

But in case of breakdown we will get smoke going out of water. Weird, isn't it?