I need a nearly indestructible material and something that could possibly destroy it..?

Question

I'm writing a story for English and my idea is the world in the future, where the people there found a material which is nearly impossible to break, blow up, set on fire.. As a result all the buildings and a lot of objects are made up of this substance. My two main characters in the story have found out that all this material came from a ore in Africa, and all the people there are being taken to a prison. Their goal is to travel to the prison and save all the inmates.

My question is: does anybody know of a real-life nearly indestructible material and possibly something that could destroy it (at least partially)

If you have any ideas for the story, please comment with those too.

Thanks! :)

Answer 1

Carbon nano-tubes, buckyballs or synthetic diamond.  They're all nearly pure carbon.  With a couple leaps of technology, they could be manufactured cheaply.  Imagine bricks made of pure diamond.

For destruction, I like the idea of a fungus/bacteria/virus that eats the carbon and replaces portions of the material with hydrogen.  A byproduct you could end up with is tar or oil (flammable).

My suggestions are loosely based on Ringworld by Niven.  In that story, superconductors are prevalent until destroyed by a fungus.  The whole society regressed without their technology.

Answer 2

Material - Iron or steel

Destroyed with: Thermite

Answer 3

I thought of Titanium, too.  I just added a post because I wanted to say I like your story. :)

Answer 4

Titanium is both light and strong. The strongest metal I believe.

Titanium can be alloyed with iron, aluminium, vanadium, molybdenum, among other elements, to produce strong lightweight alloys.

It is very expensive due to the cost of extracting it from it's ores (high temperatures are required).

It's not that hard to destroy if we're talking futuristic.

It has a melting point of 1650 degrees celsius.

Something a bit more interesting is that it burns at 800 degrees celsius with nitrogen gas to form titanium nitride which is very brittle.

South Africa is one of the places that it is mined, not North Africa though.

*EDIT*

I have to disagree with a lot of the other answerers if you want your story to be realisitic.

Iron and steel aren't perticularly strong in relation to other things.

Kevlar cannot be made into a form to create building etc out of it.

Diamonds are very expensive and difficult to make artificially. And they can be destroyed by things other than other diamonds, high temperatures will break up a diamond for example.

Francium is very reactive yes, but there is much more effective things that can be used to blast through walls. Also, there is only around 30g of Francium in existance at any one time on Earth.

You said that your material is mined as an ore? It therefore must be a metal.

Answer 5

Well diamond is the most durable compound on Earth. Only other diamonds can damage it.

Answer 6

Kevlar and a nuclear bomb.

Answer 7

Perhaps google something or look on wikipedia. I would look at hard elements and composites. You might want to look at Titanium, Kevlar, Ceramics. Maybe you could adapt a current material or use similar principles as how is is reinforced/fused/welded/forged. You mention an ore deposit - I'd make up an element that when treated with heat or forged or make up a process using nuclear energy to forge it or something so it becomes incredibly hard.

To destroy it, I'd look at powerful acids, or some kind of laser or electrical current that vibrates the molecules and shatters the hard material.

Answer 8

well i agree that titanium is a strong metal so go with that.

2 destroy it, i would recomend the use of francium. It is the most volatile reactant of the alkali metals. Just add water lol.

When water is added.....boom