Editing Mithril (section)

=== Metallurgy ===

The chemist Suze Kundu describes mithril as a [[metal]], a pure [[chemical element]] with "a range of amazing chemical and physical properties" not matched by any real metal, and many applications. Of those that approach it, [[titanium]] is light (has a low density) and strong, but it is not [[Ductility|malleable]] (able to be beaten into shape) like mithril. In Kundu's view the nearest material would be a [[stainless steel]] alloy of [[iron]] with enough nano-scale [[carbon]] to make it hard.<ref name="Kundu 2019">{{cite journal |last=Kundu |first=Suze |title=Elements of Heroism |journal=Chemistry International |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH |volume=41 |issue=4 |date=1 October 2019 |doi=10.1515/ci-2019-0411 |pages=34–37}}</ref>

The metallurgist James Owen suggests that Mithril could be "an fcc <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[face-centred cubic]]<nowiki>]</nowiki> metal like [[aluminium]] or [[nickel]], or possibly a bcc <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[body-centred cubic]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>" metal like titanium".<ref name="Owen 1994"/> Owen comments that it could form "strong, stiff, tough alloys" with those elements, suitable for "light sword blades and armour", or used as the pure element, when "it would be soft and malleable" like copper or gold.<ref name="Owen 1994">{{cite journal |last=Owen |first=James |title=Metallurgy in the Third Age |journal=Other Hands |date=January 1994 |issue=4 |pages=19–21 |url=https://www2.otherminds.net/downloads/oh-archive/other-hands-issue-04.pdf}}</ref> The [[geologist]] [[William Sarjeant]], however, notes that mithril crystallises out "at so high a temperature that it is only found in veins at great depths", and proposes that it may be a [[native metal|native]] alloy of [[platinum]] with another metal, which might be [[palladium]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Sarjeant |first=William Antony Swithin |date=1996 |title=The Geology of Middle-earth |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2167&context=mythlore |journal=Mythlore |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=334–339 |access-date=11 July 2024}}</ref>