A new Epoch.(Kevin Hughes) “Okay, let me get this straight…what in the world does Bronze have to do with it?”

I sighed. It is so hard to talk with people who are not either Physicists or Material Engineers…heck even a Metallurgist would understand. I tried again.

“Look, Charlie, do you remember a few years back when they found the oldest known shipwreck?”

“Oh, yeah, that one they discovered off of Turkey…what did they call it?”

“Uluburun.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Charlie, do you remember what cargo it was carrying on it?”

“Yeah, they found a bunch of glass, jewelry and like Copper Ingots or something.”

“Charlie, they found ten tons of copper and a ton of tin. Think about that for a second.”

Charlie’s face scrunched up like it always did when he tried to recall some obscure fact. It was like watching a kid bite into an Oreo and finding out it was filled with something sour, and not cream. When his face straightened out…I knew he understood.

“Bronze! They were going to make Bronze!”

“Exactly. Roughly nine parts of copper to one part of tin to make Bronze. It was such an advance that they named the entire age after it. And what do they call that combination of metals?”

“An alloy?”

“Bingo!”

“So what does this have to do with your work? I thought you were doing some sort of mysterious Atomic Chemistry.”

I wiped my brow with one hand. Charlie was my best friend…and the shrewdest business mind I have ever come across. But getting him to understand even basic Science was like teaching a duck to bark. He just didn’t have the right tools.

“Charlie, they named an entire Epoch after that alloy when it was invented. Do you happen to know any other epochs named after an alloy?’

Charlie got that look of biting into a Hershey’s kiss only to find it was fill with lemon juice. When his face straightened out…I knew he was catching on. Finally.

“The Iron Age!”

“Exactly. Very good. But we don’t use Iron much do we?”

“No. It was to brittle or something…so we made steel.”

“Right. And what is Steel?”

Charlie’s faced screwed up again.

“Uh…another alloy?”

“Got it in one! (Charlie’s face lit up with the praise.) All we did was add a little carbon to the Iron, and a bit of oxygen, and we got steel. Stronger, lighter, more flexible than Iron…and no where near as brittle.”

“Thanks for the tour down the History of Alloys….but why did you drag me over here in the middle of the night to show me?”

Now it was my turn to do a little theatrics of my own.

“Watch this!”

I pulled a curtain away revealing a part of my lab used for testing the heat resistance of metallic alloys. Most alloys can’t really take heat above 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. I turned the heat up on my alloy to over three thousand degrees. It went Yellow, then Yellow/White…and then White. Charlie whistled. He knew that when Steel was bright yellow, it was two thousand degrees…or more. White hot…and well, it was off the chart. Charlie spoke in awe:

“Shouldn’t that thing be melting or something?”

I smiled. He was in for a bigger surprise.

I turned the furnace off and reached in with my bare hand to pick up the sample bar. Charlie Screamed:

“My God, stop! STOP! Your hand will melt.”

Charlie was already reaching for the fire extinguisher AND the first aide kit. A very difficult thing to do, since one was on my work station, the other in a sealed box on the wall opposite my station. I had to give him props for trying to move fast to save me. But I did chuckle.

“Relax, Charlie. It’s okay. Here catch!”

I threw the bar right at him. He reflexively caught it and ….screamed. His mind and eyes said it should be “White Hot” and it was off to the burn ward for him. Then the shock set in. It as cold. As cold as ice. He froze. No pun intended. I laughed as his face screwed up once again to show that sour look before his face relaxed into understanding.

“It…its…its…cold. That’s not right.”

I had to agree.

“I know. Somehow, my mixture of ten different soft metals, with different concentrations (this was my ten thousand four hundred and sixth…such concoction) absorbs heat and drains it.”

He held the shiny bar in his hand, flipping it over and over.

“It’s not that heavy.”

“No. It isn’t. Now bang it against that steel post, would you?”

Charlie’s a big man. He was an Offensive Tackle at Nebraska until he blew his knee out his Senior Year. He still lifted weights, he just couldn’t chase anybody anymore. So when Charlie swung that bar towards the Steel Post…I wasn’t sure what would happen. He might just bend the post. I already knew the bar wasn’t got to bend.

The Clang had more a chime sound to it than a piece of metal with three hundred pounds of muscle behind it should have made. You would expect a “clang” sound, not a sweet high note of a chime. But chime…it did.

“How strong is this stuff?”

“I really don’t know Charlie. It is beyond the limit of my testing equipment.”

This time Charlie stared. He knew I could test compression, impact, and tensile strength- beyond the limits of any known metal. His eyes began to show real understanding.

He whistled.

“And what other properties does this discovery of yours have?”

I smiled from ear to ear.

“Kneel down and put it on the floor and give it a good push.”

Charlie did just that. The shiny bar slid across the floor at better than a hundred miles an hour, until it buried itself in the cinder block wall.

“Wa…wha…WTF, was that?”

“That, Charlie, is a property nobody foresaw. Basically frictionless transport at room temperature.”

Charlie’s eyes were now as big and round as a Squids. He saw more potential than I did…and believe me, I saw a lot.

“That’s impossible, you told me that you need super cooled atoms to achieve that kind of frictionless contact…and some sort of magnetism too.”

“I know that is what I said…but well, things change.”

“My God…you could travel at the speed of sound on rails made out of this stuff without any need to create hyper links, or magnetic lift rails. Hell you could go faster than that, because it dissipates heat! Wait…don’t tell me…it can’t be.”

Sometimes you just have to admire Charlie…he does listen and if there is a profit to be made he can sniff it out like some kind of financial blood hound.

“You aren’t going to tell me this thing produces electricity out of the waste heat…are you?”

The Smile on my face was all the answer he needed. He hugged me in that big bear hug of his.

“You know Sally, if you weren’t already married, I would marry you right now!”

I laughed. Charlie and I were just buddies. Had been since First Grade. I had no more romantic interest in him, than I did in that lump of metal stuck in the cinder block.He kissed me once (we were both a little tipsy at my Sister’s Wedding). It was short, but long enough to make us both realize that road was a dead end. We were stuck being each other’s best friends, but never lovers. In fact, I was his “Best Man” at his Wedding (well, the first two anyway). I told you he is a great Business Man…but a lousy husband. A great friend tho. Even his two Ex’s are still his friends.

“What do you call this stuff?”

“Speedium.”

Charlie laughed.

Then he sobered up.

“Sally, you have just named a new Epoch.”

He was right. It changed everything. I am now very very rich. And next Wednesday I shall be his “Best Man” again. I think this time he got it right. Since this is the first wife he has had that is older than him. I like her. I made the rings out of Speedium. Why?

Because those rings somehow stay in contact... no matter how far apart the people are. If something happens to a matched ring, the other person feels it too. Just another unexpected property.

It was truly a new Epoch.

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