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Beverly Sills

Beverly Sills (May 25, 1929 – July 2, 2007) was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s.

Although she sang a repertoire from Handel and Mozart to Puccini, Massenet and Verdi, she was especially renowned for her performances in coloratura soprano roles in live opera and recordings. Sills was largely associated with the operas of Donizetti, of which she performed and recorded many roles. Her signature roles include the title role in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, the title role in Massenet's Manon, Marie in Donizetti's La fille du régiment, the three heroines in Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Violetta in Verdi's La traviata, and most notably Elisabetta in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux.

The New York Times noted, In her prime her technique was exemplary. She could dispatch coloratura roulades and embellishments, capped by radiant high Ds and E-flats, with seemingly effortless agility. She sang with scrupulous musicianship, rhythmic incisiveness and a vivid sense of text. NPR said her voice was "Capable of spinning a seemingly endless legato line, or bursting with crystalline perfection into waves of dazzling fioriture and thrilling high notes."

After retiring from singing in 1980, she became the general manager of the New York City Opera. In 1994, she became the chairwoman of Lincoln Center and then, in 2002, of the Metropolitan Opera, stepping down in 2005. Sills lent her celebrity to further her charity work for the prevention and treatment of birth defects.

Biography
Sills was born Belle Miriam Silverman in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York City, to Shirley Bahn (née Sonia Markovna), a musician, and Morris Silverman, an insurance broker. Her parents were Jewish immigrants from Odesa, Ukraine, (then part of Russia) and Bucharest, Romania. She was raised in Brooklyn, where she was known, among friends, as "Bubbles" Silverman. As a child, she spoke Yiddish, Russian, Romanian, French, and English. She attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, as well as Manhattan's Professional Children's School.

At the age of three, Sills won a "Miss Beautiful Baby" contest, in which she sang "The Wedding of Jack and Jill". Beginning at age four, she performed professionally on the Saturday morning radio program, "Rainbow House", as "Bubbles" Silverman. Sills began taking singing lessons with Estelle Liebling at the age of seven and a year later sang in the short film Uncle Sol Solves It (filmed August 1937, released June 1938 by Educational Pictures), by which time she had adopted her stage name, Beverly Sills. Liebling encouraged her to audition for CBS Radio's Major Bowes' Amateur Hour, and on October 26, 1939, at the age of 10, Sills was the winner of that week's program. Bowes then asked her to appear on his Capitol Family Hour, a weekly variety show. Her first appearance was on November 19, 1939, the 17th anniversary of the show, and she appeared frequently on the program thereafter.

In 1945, Sills made her professional stage debut with a Gilbert and Sullivan touring company produced by Jacob J. Shubert, playing twelve cities in the US and Canada, in seven different Gilbert and Sullivan operas. In her 1987 autobiography, she credits that tour with helping to develop the comic timing she soon became famous for: "I played the title role in Patience... a very funny, flaky girl. ... I played her as a dumb Dora all the way through.... I found that I had a gift for slapstick humor, and it was fun to exercise it onstage." Sills sang in operettas for several more years.

On July 9, 1946, Sills appeared as a contestant on the radio show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. She sang under the pseudonym of "Vicki Lynn", as she was under contract to Shubert. Shubert did not want Godfrey to be able to say he had discovered "Beverly Sills" if she won the contest (although she did not ultimately win). Sills sang "Romany Life" from Victor Herbert's The Fortune Teller.

Sills made her operatic stage debut as Frasquita in Bizet's Carmen with the Philadelphia Civic Grand Opera Company on February 14, 1951 (erroneously listed in most references as 1947). She toured North America with the Charles Wagner Opera Company, in the fall of 1951, singing Violetta in La traviata and, in the fall of 1952, singing Micaëla in Carmen. On September 15, 1953, she made her debut with the San Francisco Opera as Helen of Troy in Boito's Mefistofele and also sang Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni the same season. In a step outside of the repertoire she is commonly associated with, Sills gave four performances of the title role of Aida in July 1954 in Salt Lake City. On October 29, 1955, she first appeared with the New York City Opera as Rosalinde in Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, which received critical praise. As early as 1956 she performed before an audience of over 13,000 at the Lewisohn Stadium with the noted operatic conductor Alfredo Antonini in an aria from Bellini's I puritani. Her reputation expanded with her performance of the title role in the New York premiere of Douglas Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe in 1958.

On November 17, 1956, Sills married journalist Peter Greenough, of the Cleveland, Ohio, newspaper The Plain Dealer and moved to Cleveland. She had two children with Greenough, Meredith ("Muffy") in 1959 and Peter, Jr. ("Bucky") in 1961. Muffy (died July 3, 2016) was profoundly deaf and had multiple sclerosis; Peter, Jr. is severely mentally disabled. Sills restricted her performing schedule to care for her children.

In 1960, Sills and her family moved to Milton, Massachusetts, near Boston. In 1962, Sills sang the title role in Massenet's Manon with the Opera Company of Boston, the first of many roles for opera director Sarah Caldwell. Manon continued to be one of Sills' signature roles throughout most of her career. In January 1964, she sang her first Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute for Caldwell. Although Sills drew critical praise for her coloratura technique and for her performance, she was not fond of the latter role; she observed that she often passed the time between the two arias and the finale addressing holiday cards.

Peak singing years
In 1966, the New York City Opera revived Handel's then virtually unknown opera seria Giulio Cesare (with Norman Treigle as Caesar), and Sills' performance as Cleopatra made her an international opera star. Sills also made her "unofficial" Met debut at a Lewisohn Stadium summer concert performance as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, though nothing further came of this other than offers from Rudolf Bing for roles such as Flotow's Martha. In subsequent seasons at the NYCO, Sills had great successes in the roles of the Queen of Shemakha in Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel, the title role in Manon, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, and the three female leads Suor Angelica, Giorgetta, and Lauretta in Puccini's trilogy Il trittico.

In 1969, Sills sang Zerbinetta in the American premiere (in a concert version) of the 1912 version of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos with the Boston Symphony. Her performance of the role, especially Zerbinetta's aria, "Großmächtige Prinzessin", which she sang in the original higher key, won her acclaim. Home video-taped copies circulated among collectors for years afterwards, often commanding large sums on Internet auction sites (the performance was released commercially in 2006, garnering high praise). The second major event of the year was her debut as Pamira in Rossini's The Siege of Corinth at La Scala, a success that put her on the cover of Newsweek.

Sills's now high-profile career landed her on the cover of Time in 1971, where she was described as "America's Queen of Opera". The title was appropriate because Sills had purposely limited her overseas engagements because of her family. Her major overseas appearances include London's Covent Garden, Milan's La Scala, La Fenice in Venice, the Vienna State Opera, the Théâtre de Beaulieu in Lausanne, Switzerland, and concerts in Paris. In South America, she sang in the opera houses of Buenos Aires and Santiago, a concert in Lima, Peru, and appeared in several productions in Mexico City, including Lucia di Lammermoor with Luciano Pavarotti. On November 9, 1971, her performance in the New York City Opera's production of The Golden Cockerel was telecast live to cable TV subscribers.

During this period, she made her first television appearance as a talk-show personality in May 1968 on Virginia Graham's Girl Talk, a weekday series syndicated by ABC Films. An opera fan who was Talent Coordinator for the series persuaded the producer to put her on the air and she was a huge hit. Throughout the rest of her career she shone as a talk show guest, sometimes also functioning as a guest host. Sills underwent successful surgery for ovarian cancer in late October 1974 (sometimes misreported as breast cancer). Her recovery was so rapid and complete that she opened in The Daughter of the Regiment at the San Francisco Opera a month later.

Following Sir Rudolf Bing's departure as director, Sills finally made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on April 7, 1975 in The Siege of Corinth, receiving an eighteen-minute ovation at her curtain call. Other operas she sang at the Met include La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor, Thaïs, and Don Pasquale (directed by John Dexter). In an interview after his retirement, Bing stated that his refusal to use Sills – as well as his preference for engaging, almost exclusively, Italian stars such as Renata Tebaldi due to his notion that American audiences expected to see Italian stars – was the single biggest mistake of his career. Sills attempted to downplay her animosity towards Bing while she was still singing, and even in her two autobiographies. But in a 1997 interview, Sills spoke her mind plainly, "Oh, Mr. Bing is an ass. [W]hile everybody said what a great administrator he was and a great this, Mr. Bing was just an improbable, impossible General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera.... The arrogance of that man."

Sills was a recitalist, especially in the final decade of her career. She sang in mid-size cities and on college concert series, bringing her art to many who might never see her on stage in a fully staged opera. She also sang concerts with a number of symphony orchestras. Sills continued to perform for New York City Opera, her home opera house, essaying new roles right up to her retirement, including the leading roles in Rossini's Il Turco in Italia, Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow and Gian Carlo Menotti's La Loca, an opera commissioned in honor of her 50th birthday. La Loca was the first work written expressly as a vehicle for Sills and was her last new role, as she retired the following year. Her farewell performance was at San Diego Opera in 1980, where she shared the stage with Joan Sutherland in a production of Die Fledermaus.

Although Sills' voice type was characterized as a "lyric coloratura", she took a number of heavier spinto and dramatic coloratura roles more associated with heavier voices as she grew older, including Bellini's Norma, Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia (with Susanne Marsee as Orsini) and the latter composer's "Three Queens", Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux (opposite Plácido Domingo in the title part). She was admired in those roles for transcending the lightness of her voice with dramatic interpretation, although it may have come at a cost: Sills later commented that Roberto Devereux shortened her career by at least four years.

Sills popularized opera through her talk show appearances, including Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, David Frost, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, and Dinah Shore. Sills hosted her own talk show, Lifestyles with Beverly Sills, which ran on Sunday mornings on NBC for two years in the late 1970s; it won an Emmy Award. In 1979 she appeared on The Muppet Show, where she famously went into a "high-note contest" with Miss Piggy. Down-to-earth and approachable, Sills helped dispel the traditional image of the temperamental opera diva.

Later years and death
In 1978, Sills announced she would retire on October 27, 1980, in a farewell gala at the New York City Opera (NYCO). In the spring of 1979, she began acting as co-director of NYCO, and became its sole general director as of the fall season of that year, a post she held until 1989, although she remained on the NYCO board until 1991. During her time as general director, Sills helped turn what was then a financially struggling opera company into a viable enterprise. She also devoted herself to various arts causes and such charities as March of Dimes and was sought after for speaking engagements on college campuses and for fund raisers.

From 1994 to 2002, Sills was chairwoman of Lincoln Center. In October 2002, she agreed to serve as chairwoman of the Metropolitan Opera, for which she had been a board member since 1991. She resigned as Met chairwoman in January 2005, citing family as the main reason (she had to place her husband, whom she had cared for over eight years, in a nursing home). She stayed long enough to supervise the appointment of Peter Gelb, formerly head of Sony Classical Records, as the Met's general manager, to succeed Joseph Volpe in August 2006.

Peter Greenough, Sills's husband, died on September 6, 2006, at the age of 89, shortly before what would have been their 50th wedding anniversary on November 17, 2006.

She co-hosted The View for Best Friends Week on November 9, 2006, as Barbara Walters' best friend. She said she did not sing anymore, even in the shower, to preserve the memory of her voice.

She appeared on screen in movie theaters during HD transmissions live from the Met, interviewed during intermissions by the host Margaret Juntwait on January 6, 2007 (I puritani simulcast), as a backstage interviewer on February 24, 2007 (Eugene Onegin simulcast), and then, briefly, on April 28, 2007 (Il trittico simulcast).

On June 28, 2007, the Associated Press and CNN reported that Sills was hospitalized as "gravely ill", from lung cancer. With her daughter at her bedside, Beverly Sills succumbed to cancer on July 2, 2007, at the age of 78. She is buried in Sharon Gardens, the Jewish division of Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. She was survived by her two children and three step-children from Peter Greenough's first marriage. Her daughter Meredith ("Muffy") Greenough died on July 3, 2016, in New York City.

Voice
Sills's voice has been variously described as "rich, supple", "silvery", "precise, a little light", "multicolored", "robust and enveloping", with "a cutting edge that can slice through the largest orchestra and chorus", soaring easily above high C. Her technique and musicianship have been much praised. Conductor Thomas Schippers said in a 1971 interview with Time that she had "the fastest voice alive". The New York Times writes that "she could dispatch coloratura roulade (music) and embellishments, capped with radiant high Ds and E-flats, with seemingly effortless agility. She sang with scrupulous musicianship, rhythmic incisiveness and a vivid sense of text." Soprano Leontyne Price was "flabbergasted at how many millions of things she can do with a written scale." Her vocal range, in performance, extended from F3 to F6, and she said she could sometimes hit a G6 in warm up.

Operatic repertoire
These are the roles that Sills performed on stage or for television or radio.

Honors and awards
Sills received many honors and awards from the 1970s through her final years. Here is a list of her major awards, divided by category:

Sills was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
 * Grammy Award:
 * 1969 – Scenes and Arias from French Opera (nomination)
 * 1970 – Mozart and Strauss Arias (nomination)
 * 1976 – Best Classical Vocal Soloist Performance for Herbert: Music of Victor Herbert (winner)
 * Emmy Award nominations:
 * 1975 – Profile in Music: Beverly Sills, Festival '75 (winner)
 * 1977 – Sills and Burnett at the Met
 * 1978 – Lifestyles with Beverly Sills (winner)
 * 1980 – Beverly Sills in Concert
 * 1981 – Great Performances: Beverly! (her farewell performance)
 * Honorary doctorates in music:
 * 1972 – Temple University
 * 1973 – New York University and New England Conservatory of Music
 * 1974 – Harvard University
 * 1975 – California Institute of the Arts
 * Other music-related awards:
 * 1970 – Musical America – Musician of the Year
 * 1971 – Inducted as a National Patroness of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity on May 1
 * 1972 – Edison Award – Manon recording
 * 1973 – Handel Medallion from New York City for artistic achievement
 * 1979 – Recording Industry of America Cultural Award
 * 1980 – Golden Baton, American Symphony Orchestra League
 * 1985 – Kennedy Center Honors
 * 1990 – National Medal of Arts from National Endowment for the Arts
 * 1996 – The 2nd Annual Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities
 * 2005 – Beverly Sills Artist Award established by the Metropolitan Opera ($50,000 annual award)
 * 2007 – Inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame
 * Charitable and humanitarian awards:
 * 1979 – Pearl S. Buck Women's Award
 * 1980 – Presidential Medal of Freedom
 * 1981 – Barnard College Medal of Distinction
 * 1984 – Charles S. Hughes Gold Medal Award – National Conference of Christians and Jews
 * 1985 – Gold Medal from National Institute of Social Sciences
 * 1989 – Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
 * 1998 – National Women's Hall of Fame

Recordings and broadcasts
During her operatic career, Sills recorded eighteen full-length operas:
 * The Ballad of Baby Doe (Bible, Cassel; Buckley, 1959)
 * Giulio Cesare (Wolff, Forrester, Treigle; Rudel, 1967)
 * Roberto Devereux (Wolff, Ilosfalvy, Glossop; Mackerras, 1969)
 * Lucia di Lammermoor (Bergonzi, Cappuccilli, Díaz; Schippers, 1970)
 * Manon (Gedda, Souzay, Bacquier; Rudel, 1970)
 * La traviata (Gedda, Panerai; Ceccato, 1971)
 * Maria Stuarda (Farrell, Burrows, L.Quilico; Ceccato, 1971)
 * The Tales of Hoffmann (Marsee, Burrows, Treigle; Rudel, 1972)
 * Anna Bolena (Verrett, Burrows, Plishka; Rudel, 1972)
 * I puritani (Gedda, L.Quilico, Plishka; Rudel, 1973)
 * Norma (Verrett, di Giuseppe, Plishka; Levine, 1973)
 * The Siege of Corinth (Verrett, Theyard, Díaz; Schippers, 1974)
 * Il barbiere di Siviglia (Barbieri, Gedda, Milnes, Raimondi; Levine, 1974–75)
 * I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Baker, Gedda, Herincx, Lloyd; G.Patanè, 1975)
 * Thaïs (Gedda, Milnes; Maazel, 1976)
 * Louise (Gedda, van Dam; Rudel, 1977)
 * Don Pasquale (Kraus, Titus, Gramm; Caldwell, 1978)
 * Rigoletto (M.Dunn, Kraus, Milnes, Ramey; Rudel, 1978)

Sills also recorded nine solo recital albums of arias and songs, and was soprano soloist on a 1967 recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 2.

She starred in eight opera productions televised on PBS and several more on other public TV systems. She participated in such TV specials as A Look-in at the Met with Danny Kaye in 1975, Sills and Burnett at the Met, with Carol Burnett in 1976, and Profile in Music, which won an Emmy Award for its showing in the US in 1975, although it had been recorded in England in 1971.

Some of those televised performances have been commercially distributed on videotape and DVD:
 * Ariadne auf Naxos (Watson, Nagy; Leinsdorf, 1969) [Concert Version]
 * La fille du régiment (Costa-Greenspon, McDonald, Malas; Wendelken-Wilson, Mansouri, 1974)
 * Roberto Devereux (Marsee, Alexander, Fredricks; Rudel, Capobianco, 1975)
 * La traviata (H.Price, Fredricks; Rudel, Capobianco, 1976)
 * Il barbiere di Siviglia (H.Price, Titus, Gramm, Ramey; Caldwell, Caldwell, 1976)
 * Manon (H.Price, Fredricks, Ramey; Rudel, Capobianco, 1977)

Others not available commercially include:
 * The Magic Flute (Pracht, Shirley, Reardon; NN, NN, 1966)
 * Le coq d'or (Costa-Greenspon, di Giuseppe, Treigle; Rudel, Capobianco, 1971)
 * Die lustige Witwe (Titus; Alcántara, Capobianco, 1977)
 * Il turco in Italia (Marsee, H.Price, Titus, Gramm; Rudel, Capobianco, 1978)
 * Don Pasquale (Kraus, Hagegård, Bacquier; Rescigno, Dexter, 1979)

After her retirement from singing in 1980 up through 2006, Sills was the host for many of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center telecasts.

Further reading/listening/viewing

 * Sills, Beverly (1976). Bubbles: A Self-Portrait. New York: Bobbs-Merrill. ISBN 0-446-81520-9. A revised edition was issued in 1981 as Bubbles: An Encore.
 * Sills, Beverly (with Lawrence Linderman) (1987). Beverly: An Autobiography. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-05173-3.
 * Sills, Beverly (1987). Beverly Sills: On My Own. ISBN 0-553-45743-8. An audio book designated as a companion to Beverly: An Autobiography, with Sills speaking in interview about her life, interspersed with narration and live musical excerpts. There is no direct text from the printed autobiography.
 * Paolucci, Bridget (1990). Beverly Sills. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 1-55546-677-X. A biography for young adults.
 * Sargeant, Withrop (1973). Divas. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. ISBN 0-698-10489-7.
 * Beverly Sills: Made in America (2006). Deutsche Grammophon B0007999-09. A 90-minute documentary on Sills's singing career with many rare video performance and interview clips.
 * Guy, Nancy (2015). "The Magic of Beverly Sills". Urbana, Chicago: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-03973-7.
 * Waleson, Heidi (2018). Mad Scenes and Exit Arias. New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-1-62779-497-8. A history of New York City Opera, Sills' home company, covering her singing career and directorship there.

title: Beverly Sills


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Jude (film)

Jude is a 1996 British period drama film directed by Michael Winterbottom, and written by Hossein Amini, based on Thomas Hardy's 1895 novel Jude the Obscure. The original music score was composed by Adrian Johnston.

The film was shot in late 1995 in Edinburgh and locations in County Durham including Durham Cathedral, Durham City, Ushaw College, Blanchland village and Beamish museum.

In a 2011 interview for theartsdesk, lead actor Christopher Eccleston commented on the film: "Of all the films I've done, Jude is the one that I'd stand by, the one I'd like people to come back to. The rest is much of a muchness."

Plot
In the Victorian period, Jude Fawley is a bright young lower-class man who dreams of a university education. Circumstances conspire against him, and he is forced into a job as a stonemason and an unhappy marriage to a country girl, Arabella. He remains true to his dream and, months later, after his wife's sudden departure, he heads for the city. He thinks education is available for any man who is willing to work hard. However, he is rejected by the university based primarily on his lower-class status. During this period, he encounters his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is beautiful and intelligent, and shares his disdain for convention. Whilst Jude is enraptured by Sue, and vice versa, she marries Jude's former school teacher, Phillotson, after Jude tells her he is married to Arabella.

The marriage of Sue and Phillotson is not a success, as she refuses to give herself sexually or romantically to her husband. She leaves Phillotson to join Jude in what turns out to be a rough life, moving from place to place as Jude picks up occasional work as a stonemason. Jude learns that Arabella bore a son, whom she named Jude ("Juey") soon after she left Jude. The boy comes to live with his father Jude, and Sue. Sue gives birth to two children. Agnostic and independent, she refuses to legalise their arrangement by marriage.

Sue and Jude are forbidden a permanent rental lodging because their living arrangement without marriage is considered scandalous. Sue tells Juey that the family cannot stay long at their present lodging because there are too many of them. The next day Sue and Jude return to their lodging to find that Juey has killed his half-siblings and committed suicide, hanging himself. His suicide note says the reason: "Becos we were to menny."

Each of the couple falls into a deep depression after the deaths of their children. Turning to the religion she previously rejected, Sue comes to believe that God has judged and punished the couple for not having married. She decides to return to Phillotson, although she finds him sexually repugnant, as he is her true husband in the eyes of God.

A year after the death of their children, Jude and Sue happen to meet when separately visiting the tombstones of their children. They both look worse for wear. Jude demands that Sue tell him whether she still loves him, to which she replies, "You've always known". After a passionate kiss, she walks away from Jude to return to Phillotson.

As Sue walks away, Jude shouts to her, "We are man and wife, if ever two people were on this earth!"

Filming locations
The production filmed in a variety of countries including France, New Zealand and the UK. The Kent and East Sussex Railway was used as a film location for the scenes where Jude (Christopher Eccleston) and Sue (Kate Winslet) are on a train which was intercut with scenery from the North of England.

Reception
It holds an 81% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 42 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The consensus summarizes: "Superb acting from a beautifully matched Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet make Jude well worth watching even as it struggles with its source material." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 68 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Jude (film)


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Fluvial sediment processes

In geography and geology, fluvial sediment processes or fluvial sediment transport are associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by sediments. It can result in the formation of ripples and dunes, in fractal-shaped patterns of erosion, in complex patterns of natural river systems, and in the development of floodplains and the occurrence of flash floods. Sediment moved by water can be larger than sediment moved by air because water has both a higher density and viscosity. In typical rivers the largest carried sediment is of sand and gravel size, but larger floods can carry cobbles and even boulders. When the stream or rivers are associated with glaciers, ice sheets, or ice caps, the term glaciofluvial or fluvioglacial is used, as in periglacial flows and glacial lake outburst floods. Fluvial sediment processes include the motion of sediment and erosion or deposition on the river bed.

Principles

The movement of water across the stream bed exerts a shear stress directly onto the bed. If the cohesive strength of the substrate is lower than the shear exerted, or the bed is composed of loose sediment which can be mobilized by such stresses, then the bed will be lowered purely by clearwater flow. In addition, if the river carries significant quantities of sediment, this material can act as tools to enhance wear of the bed (abrasion). At the same time the fragments themselves are ground down, becoming smaller and more rounded (attrition).

Sediment in rivers is transported as either bedload (the coarser fragments which move close to the bed) or suspended load (finer fragments carried in the water). There is also a component carried as dissolved material.

For each grain size there is a specific flow velocity at which the grains start to move, called entrainment velocity. However the grains will continue to be transported even if the velocity falls below the entrainment velocity due to the reduced (or removed) friction between the grains and the river bed. Eventually the velocity will fall low enough for the grains to be deposited. This is shown by the Hjulström curve.

A river is continually picking up and dropping solid particles of rock and soil from its bed throughout its length. Where the river flow is fast, more particles are picked up than dropped. Where the river flow is slow, more particles are dropped than picked up. Areas where more particles are dropped are called alluvial or flood plains, and the dropped particles are called alluvium.

Even small streams make alluvial deposits, but it is in floodplains and deltas of large rivers that large, geologically-significant alluvial deposits are found.

The amount of matter carried by a large river is enormous. It has been estimated that the Mississippi River annually carries 406 million tons of sediment to the sea, the Yellow River 796 million tons, and the Po River in Italy 67 million tons. The names of many rivers derive from the color that the transported matter gives the water. For example, the Yellow River (Huang He) in China is named after the hue of the sediment it carries, and the White Nile is named for the clay it carries.

Types
The main kinds of fluvial processes are:

 * (solution)
 * (solution)

Depositional environments
The major fluvial (river and stream) depositional environments include:
 * Deltas (arguably an intermediate environment between fluvial and marine)
 * Point bars
 * Alluvial fans
 * Braided rivers
 * Oxbow lakes
 * Levees
 * Waterfalls

Particle motion
Rivers and streams carry sediment in their flows. This sediment can be in a variety of locations within the flow, depending on the balance between the upwards velocity on the particle (drag and lift forces), and the settling velocity of the particle. These relationships are shown in the following table for the Rouse number, which is a ratio of sediment settling velocity (fall velocity) to upwards velocity.

$$\textbf{Rouse}=\frac{\text{Settling velocity}}{\text{Upwards velocity from lift and drag}}=\frac{w_s}{\kappa u_*}$$

where
 * $$w_s$$ is the settling velocity
 * $$\kappa$$ is the von Kármán constant
 * $$u_*$$ is the shear velocity

If the upwards velocity is approximately equal to the settling velocity, sediment will be transported downstream entirely as suspended load. If the upwards velocity is much less than the settling velocity, but still high enough for the sediment to move (see Initiation of motion), it will move along the bed as bed load by rolling, sliding, and saltating (jumping up into the flow, being transported a short distance then settling again). If the upwards velocity is higher than the settling velocity, the sediment will be transported high in the flow as wash load.

As there are generally a range of different particle sizes in the flow, it is common for material of different sizes to move through all areas of the flow for given stream conditions.

Fluvial bedforms

Sediment motion can create self-organized structures such as ripples, dunes, or antidunes on the river or stream bed. These bedforms are often preserved in sedimentary rocks and can be used to estimate the direction and magnitude of the flow that deposited the sediment.

Surface runoff
Overland flow can erode soil particles and transport them downslope. The erosion associated with overland flow may occur through different methods depending on meteorological and flow conditions.
 * If the initial impact of rain droplets dislodges soil, the phenomenon is called rainsplash erosion.
 * If overland flow is directly responsible for sediment entrainment but does not form gullies, it is called "sheet erosion".
 * If the flow and the substrate permit channelization, gullies may form; this is termed "gully erosion".

title: Fluvial sediment processes


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1984 Governor General's Awards

Each winner of the 1984 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit was selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.

title: 1984 Governor General's Awards


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Talk:Maroon (disambiguation)

Comment

 * A Maroon (from the word marronage or cimarronaje) was a runaway slave, the the name given by the Spanish conquerers to its occupied colonies in Africa

This makes not much sense -- Error 02:15, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Split this article
Anyone in favor of splitting this article?? 66.245.127.229 19:44, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm going to boldly turn it into a disambuation page. Fishal 03:44, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Marooning (disambiguation) listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Marooning (disambiguation). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 14:52, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Maroon (disambiguation)


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Owen Wister

Owen Wister (July 14, 1860 – July 21, 1938) was an American writer and historian, considered the "father" of western fiction. He is best remembered for writing The Virginian and a biography of Ulysses S. Grant.

Early life
Owen Wister was born on July 14, 1860, in Germantown, a neighborhood in the northwestern part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Owen Jones Wister, was a wealthy physician raised at Grumblethorpe in Germantown. He was a distant cousin of Sally Wister through his descent from John Wister (born Johannes Wüster) (1708–1789), brother of Caspar Wistar. His mother, Sarah Butler Wister, was the daughter of Fanny Kemble, a British actress, and Pierce Mease Butler. Pierce Mease Butler, heir to a fabulous fortune, was a notorious profligate, gambler, and slaveowner. In 1906 Wister wrote a novel, Lady Baltimore, glorifying plantation life. His friend and Harvard classmate, Theodore Roosevelt, wrote to him criticizing the Southern bias of the novel.

Education
Wister briefly attended schools in Switzerland and Britain, and later studied at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was a member of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon (Alpha chapter). Wister was also a member of the Porcellian Club, through which he became lifelong friends with future 26th President Theodore Roosevelt. As a senior Wister wrote the Hasty Pudding's then most successful show, Dido and Aeneas, whose proceeds aided in the construction of their theater. Wister graduated from Harvard in 1882.

At first he aspired to a career in music and spent two years studying at a Paris conservatory. Thereafter, he worked briefly in a bank in New York before studying law; he graduated from Harvard Law School in 1888. Following this, he practiced with a Philadelphia firm but was never truly interested in that career. He was interested in politics, however, and was a staunch supporter of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt.

Harvard's Board of Overseers had Theodore Roosevelt as a member in 1916 and Owen Wister as a member in 1918.

In the 1930s, Wister opposed President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal.

Writing career
Wister began his literary work in 1882, publishing The New Swiss Family Robinson, a parody of the 1812 novel The Swiss Family Robinson. It was so well received that Mark Twain wrote a letter to Wister praising it.

Wister had spent several summers in the American West, making his first trip to the Territory of Wyoming in 1885, planning to shoot big game, fish trout, meet the Indians, and spend nights in the wild. Like his friend Teddy Roosevelt, Wister was fascinated with the culture, lore and terrain of the region. He was "...struck with wonder and delight, had the eye to see and the talent to portray the life unfolding in America. After six journeys [into the dying 'wild west'] for pleasure, he gave up the profession of law...", and became the writer he is better known as. On an 1893 visit to Yellowstone National Park, Wister met the western artist Frederic Remington, who remained a lifelong friend.

When he started writing, Wister naturally inclined towards fiction set on the western frontier. His most famous work remains the 1902 novel The Virginian, a complex mixture of persons, places and events dramatized from experience, word of mouth, and his own imagination –ultimately creating the archetypal cowboy, who is a natural aristocrat, set against a highly mythologized version of the Johnson County War, and taking the side of the large landowners. This is widely regarded as being the first cowboy novel, though many modern scholars argue that this distinction belongs to Emma Ghent Curtis's The Administratrix, published over ten years earlier. The Virginian was reprinted fourteen times in eight months. It stands as one of the top 50 best-selling works of fiction and is considered by Hollywood experts to be the basis for the modern fictional cowboy portrayed in literature, film, and television.

In 1904 Wister collaborated with Kirke La Shelle on a successful stage adaptation of The Virginian that featured Dustin Farnum in the title role. Farnum reprised the role ten years later in Cecil B. DeMille's film adaptation of the play.

Wister was a member of several literary societies, a member of The Franklin Inn Club, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University. He was also an elected member of the American Philosophical Society.

Personal life
In 1898, Wister married Mary Channing, his second cousin. The couple had six children. Mary died during childbirth in 1913. Their daughter, Mary Channing Wister, married artist Andrew Dasburg in 1933.

Death
In 1938, Wister died at his home in Saunderstown, Rhode Island. He is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.

Legacy
In 1976, Wister was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Since 1978, University of Wyoming Student Publications has published the literary and arts magazine Owen Wister Review. The magazine was published bi-annually until 1996 and became an annual publication in the spring of 1997.

Just within the western boundary of the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, there is an 11,490-foot mountain named Mount Wister, named for Owen Wister.

Near a house that Wister built near La Mesa, California, but never occupied due to his wife's death, is a street called Wister Drive. In the same neighborhood are Virginian Lane and Molly Woods Avenue (named for a character in The Virginian). All of those streets were named by Wister himself.

The most popular legend of the Lady Baltimore cake is that Alicia Rhett Mayberry, a Southern belle, baked and served the cake to Wister in Charleston, South Carolina. Wister was said to have been so enamored with the cake that he used it as the namesake of his novel, Lady Baltimore.

Novels

 * The New Swiss Family Robinson (1882)
 * The Dragon of Wantley: His Tale (1892)
 * Lin McLean (1897) (1918 filmed as A Woman's Fool by John Ford)
 * The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains (1902)
 * Philosophy 4: A Story of Harvard University (1903)
 * A Journey in Search of Christmas (1904)
 * Padre Ignacio: or, the Song of Temptation (1911)
 * Romney: And Other New Works about Philadelphia (written 1912–1915; published incomplete 2001)
 * Romney: And Other New Works about Philadelphia (written 1912–1915; published incomplete 2001)

Non-fiction

 * In Memory of Thomas Wharton (introduction, pp.ix-xxii) to Bobbo and Other Fancies (1897) by Wharton, Thomas Isaac (1859-1896)
 * Ulysses S. Grant (1901)
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, in the "American Men of Letters Series" (1902)
 * The Bison, Musk-Ox, Sheep, and Goat Family, with G. B. Grinnell and Caspar Whitney in the "American Sportsman's Library" (1903)
 * Benjamin Franklin, in the "English Men of Letters Series" (1904)
 * The Seven Ages of Washington: A Biography (1907)
 * The Pentecost of Calamity (1915)
 * The Aftermath of Battle: With the Red Cross in France (1916) (preface to Edward D. Toland's autobiography)
 * A Straight Deal: or the Ancient Grudge (1920)
 * Neighbors Henceforth (1922)
 * A Monograph of the Work of Mellor Meigs & Howe (1923) (contributor)
 * Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship, 1880–1919 (1930)
 * The Philadelphia Club, 1834–1934 (1934)
 * The Illustrations of Frederic Remington (1970) (commentary)

Story collections

 * Red Men and White (1895) (aka Salvation Gap and Other Western Classics)
 * The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories (1900)
 * Members of the Family (1911) (Illus. H. T. Dunn)
 * Safe in the Arms of Croesus (1927)
 * When West Was West (1928)
 * The West of Owen Wister: Selected Short Stories (1972)

Short stories

 * "The New Swiss Family Robinson: A Tale for Children of All Ages", a parody of The Swiss Family Robinson (1882); new edition, 1922
 * "Hank's Woman" (1892) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
 * "How Lin McLean Went East" (1892) (incorporated into Lin McLean)
 * "Em'ly" (1893) (incorporated into The Virginian)
 * "The Winning of the Biscuit-Shooter" (1893) (incorporated into Lin McLean)
 * "Balaam and Pedro" (1894) (incorporated into The Virginian)
 * "The Promised Land (Wister short story)" (1894) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
 * "A Kinsman of Red Cloud" (1894) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
 * "Little Big Horn Medicine" (1894) (in Red Men and White)
 * "Specimen Jones" (1894) (in Red Men and White)
 * "The Serenade at Siskiyou" (1894) (in Red Men and White)
 * "The General's Bluff" (1894) (in Red Men and White)
 * "Salvation Gap" (1894) (in Red Men and White)
 * "Lin McLean's Honey-Moon" (1895) (incorporated into Lin McLean)
 * "The Second Missouri Compromise" (1895) (in Red Men and White)
 * "La Tinaja Bonita" (1895) (in Red Men and White)
 * "A Pilgrim on the Gila" (1895) (in Red Men and White)
 * "Where Fancy Was Bred" (1896) (incorporated into The Virginian)
 * "Separ's Vigilante" (1897) (incorporated into Lin McLean)
 * "Grandmother Stark" (1897) (incorporated into The Virginian)
 * "Sharon's Choice" (1897) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
 * "Destiny at Drybone" (1897) (incorporated into Lin McLean)
 * "Twenty Minutes for Refreshments" (1900) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
 * "Padre Ignazio" (1900) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
 * "The Game and the Nation" (1900) (incorporated into The Virginian)
 * "Mother" (1901,1907) (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
 * "Superstition Trail" (1901) (incorporated into The Virginian)
 * "In a State of Sin" (1902) (incorporated into The Virginian)
 * "The Vicious Circle" (1902) (in The Saturday Evening Post, December 13, 1902; later revised as Spit-Cat Creek)
 * "With Malice Aforethought" (1902) (incorporated into The Virginian)
 * "Stanwick's Business" (1904) (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
 * "The Jimmyjohn Boss" (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
 * "Napoleon Shave-Tail" (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
 * "Happy Teeth" (in Members of the Family)
 * "Spit-Cat Creek" (in Members of the Family)
 * "In the Back" (in Members of the Family)
 * "How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee" (1907) (Illus. Frederic Rodrigo Gruger) (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
 * Timberline (Wister short story)|"Timberline" (1908) (in Members of the Family)
 * The Gift Horse (Wister short story)|"The Gift Horse" (1908) (in Members of the Family)
 * "Extra Dry" (1909) (in Members of the Family)
 * "Where It Was" (1911) (in Members of the Family)
 * "The Drake Who Had Means of His Own" (1911) (in Members of the Family)
 * "Safe in the Arms of Croesus" (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
 * "With the Coin of Her Life" (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
 * "The Honeymoonshiners" (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
 * "Bad Medicine (Wister short story)|Bad Medicine" (in When West Was West)
 * "Captain Quid" (in When West Was West)
 * "Once Round the Clock" (in When West Was West)
 * "The Right Honorable, The Strawberries" (1928) (in When West Was West)
 * "Little Old Scaffold" (1928) (in When West Was West)
 * "Absalom of Moulting Pelican" (1928) (in When West Was West)
 * "Lone Fountain" (in When West Was West)
 * "Skip to My Loo" (in When West Was West)
 * "At the Sign of the Last Chance" (1928) (in When West Was West)

Essays

 * "Where Charity Begins" (1895)
 * "The Evolution of the Cow-Puncher" (1895)
 * "Concerning "Bad Men" The True "Bad Man" of the Frontier, and the Reasons for His Existence" (1901)
 * "Theodore Roosevelt, Harvard '80" (1901)
 * "The Open Air Education" (1902)
 * "After Four Years" (1905)
 * "High Speed English and American Railroad Flyers" (1906)
 * "The Keystone Crime: Pennsylvania's Graft-Cankered Capitol" (1907)
 * "According to a Passenger" (1919)
 * "How One Bomb Was Made" (1921)
 * "Roosevelt and the 1912 Disaster: A Friend Remembers - and Interprets" (1930)
 * "Roosevelt and the War: A Chapter of Memories" (1930)
 * "John Jay Chapman (Wister essay)|John Jay Chapman" (1934)
 * "In Homage to Mark Twain" (1935)
 * "Old Yellowstone Days" (1936)

Poetry

 * "The Pale Cast of Thought" (1890)
 * "From Beyond the Sea" (1890)
 * "Autumn on Wind River" (1897)
 * "In Memoriam" (1902)
 * Done In The Open (1902) (Illus. by Frederic Remington)
 * "Serenade" (1910)
 * Indispensable Information for Infants: Or Easy Entrance to Education (1921)

Operas

 * Dido and Aeneas (1892)
 * Kenilworth (unpublished)
 * Listen to Binks (unpublished)
 * Montezuma (unpublished)
 * Villon (unpublished)
 * Watch Your Thirst: A Dry Opera in Three Acts (1923)

Plays

 * The Dragon of Wantley (unpublished)
 * The Honeymoonshiners (published in the story collection Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
 * Lin McLean (unpublished)
 * Slaves of the Ring (unpublished)
 * That Brings Luck (unpublished)
 * The Virginian (unpublished)

Works inspired by The Virginian
Many movie industry historians will agree that most, if not all, westerns can be claimed to contain influences from The Virginian. It is nearly universally accepted that the "Hollywood cowboy" was, and still is, based on this book.

 * The Virginian (1914 film) directed by Cecil B. DeMille, with Dustin Farnum
 * The Virginian (1923 film) with Kenneth Harlan and Florence Vidor
 * The Virginian (1929 film) with Gary Cooper and Walter Huston
 * The Virginian (1946 film) with Joel McCrea and Brian Donlevy
 * The Virginian (1962–1971 TV series) with James Drury and Doug McClure
 * The Virginian 2000 telefilm with Bill Pullman, Diane Lane, John Savage, Colm Feore, and Dennis Weaver
 * The Virginian 2014 telefilm with Trace Adkins, Brendan Penny, Ron Perlman, and Victoria Pratt

title: Owen Wister


text:
Talk:Unobtainium

-ium, metals only?
I'd suggest to remove the "suffix for a number of metal elements" and replace it with "suffix for a number of elements", since the -ium suffix appears also in non-metals like helium, selenium, ununoctium. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.96.203.197 (talk) 15:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. I could find no reference to the suffix -ium differentiating metals; and there are plenty of metallic elements that DON'T end in -ium: copper, iron, zinc, cobalt, nickle, etc. √ Removed metals (per WP:BOLD). ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 04:13, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Date of Origin
We start off with "Engineers have long used (at least since 1980[1])" but then go into some discussion about the SR-71 which is 1960's. It appears that the second invalidates the first. I think this needs to be resolved but I don't have the quals to do so. k thx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.234.18.138 (talk) 17:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I tried to clarify the two different uses - does not exist, and exists but you can't get it. They have two different histories. LouScheffer 18:27, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

The "Engineer in Charge: ..." and "Development of Winged Reentry Vehicles" refs only prove 23 May 1983 beyond a reasonable doubt, if doubting an earlier date, regardless of the context being about 1957. Authors sometimes add words to stories about events that took place before those words were coined. Samuel Erau (talk) 16:03, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

 * The text explicitly states that they (the Langely group) called it 'unobtainium', it's not a word he is using to describe events long ago. Of course a written reference from that era would be better, but he's quite explicit about them using the term in the 1950s.  LouScheffer (talk) 01:02, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Added an explicit reference from 1958. This reference "Interim Glossary, Aero-Space Terms", published by the Air University of the US Air Force gave an explicit definition:
 * "unobtainium, n. A substance having the exact high test properties required for a piece of hardware or other item of use, but not obtainable either because it theoretically cannot exist or because technology is insufficiently advanced to produce it. Humorous or ironical." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.148.18.151 (talk) 01:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Black hole shell
So what would happen to the material piling up on a hypothetical unobtainium shell around a black hole's event horizon?

 * This is just a guess, mind you. I suspect you'd end up with a layer above the unobtainium structured like a neutron star. -- Cyrius|✎ 08:30, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Hm... wouldn't the increased mass of the hole-plus-shell result in the event horizon expanding slightly? If the event horizon reaches the unobtainium shell, it will swallow it no matter how insanely strong the stuff is. That's a guess too, BTW. :) Bryan 17:55, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * Of course it wouldn't swallow it! You don't seem to grasp the nature of Unobtainium. Maybe the material expands slightly when subjected to intense gravitational forces. :D 124.182.99.105 14:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

 * No, no, NO! Though the nature of the gravitational interaction with unobtaium remains unclear, theoretical results (un-) obtained by Dr. I. Needmore and D'Humor found that the probable quantum gravitational interaction would likely lead to a rapid expansion of the event horizon, balanced by a corresponding decrease of the Higgs mass, thereby destabilizing the nature of matter in an ever-expanding vicinity of the disruption (they refer to this as "God's fuzzball". In short, we all go bye-bye and the universe ends. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimw338 (talk • contribs) 21:25, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

A spherical shell of matter has no gravitational effect on its interior; so assuming that the shell is spherically uniform, it wouldn't result in the event horizon expanding until such a time as the hypothetical event horizon of the combined mass of hole-plus-material would exceed the radius of the shell, at which time the actual event horizon would abruptly expand to swallow the whole thing and there would just be a bigger black hole.

(Or slightly before that, actually: as Kip Thorne figured out, if you think of a black hole's event horizon as a "membrane", it responds in an "anticausal" manner to events in the future, since an event horizon is not a material thing but a kind of statement about what can happen in the future. So the event horizon would remain stationary until just before the critical moment, then bloat outward just in time to meet the critical bit of matter to tip the scale.) --24.147.149.53 01:28, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * That's pretty much what I said, though much more thoroughly grounded, so sounds good to me. :) Bryan 06:50, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Company name
"In spite of efforts by the Soviets a large quantity of titanium somehow found its way to the USA after an apparently innocent European company bought a considerable quantity. The company was in fact a front set up for this very purpose." Anyone know the name of the company refered above?

 * I don't know about the details, but this story has been extensively cited in Wikipedia articles and in other major websites. It would be very interesting to find the "original source" or at least something very authoritative on the subject. I think there is no reason at this point to doubt the story, but it still has shades of grey. -- Hugo Dufort 01:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Unobtainium's construct
What kind of metals is unobtainium supposedly made of? What's its melting point?
 * Supposedly it's not made of metals. It's melting point is the one which ends this sentence. Rbarreira 14:42, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

--- could it reach the earths core if something like the movie portrayed??? please answer oh yea and isnt it like two types of metal at supercolled temps??

 * Alas, there is no such thing as unobtainium. It's a fictional material with properties that no real material is expected to be able to have. Bryan 05:03, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

 * No; it is the result of all matter in the universe being compressed into a single black hole which decays into a cloudy mass of unobtainium. This unobtainium is immune to black holes--it'll bounce right off the event horizon--and therefore the whole universe will fill itself with unobtainium which slowly decays into "real" matter. Since being touched by matter forces unobtainium into a material state, the only way to control it is via black coins: the neutron-star-esque two-dimensional version of a black hole. If it's tweaked in just the right ways, a black coin becomes a "black wall" between matter and unobtainium: anything that crosses this wall will be converted into the other state. (The unobtainium side is almost ecessarily the outside.) The really interesting stuff is the collision between two black walls: the two walls' black coins will fall into each other, which will make the two matter sides merge. In the process, however, some of the matter will leak out. A "safewall", consisting of a black wall inside another, will be required to keep this matter explosion from destroying the universe. Some scientists believe that a safewall may automatically form in one of these explosions. --Ihope127 00:36, 17 August 2005 (UTC) (By the way... the word is "cold"; not "colled".)

 * Now, now. Save the made-up nonsense for Uncyclopedia, Wikipedia's supposed to be about the real nonsense. :) Bryan 17:10, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Huh?? "[This article or section contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please check for inaccuracies and modify as needed, citing sources.]"

I don't know who inserted this at the beginning of this article, and it is rather foolish and quare, as are many of the comments about "unobtainium" below. They miss the whole point: as its name says, "unobtainium" does not exist. It is a "substance" that comes straight from science fiction and the humorous quips of aerospace and electrical engineers and physicists. It is a quare idea to speculate about the exact properties of "unobtanium", just like it would be quare to speculate about the properties of "upsiedaisium" or "thiotimoline".

The whole point of this article is that it is all about "inaccuracies". Got it? User:Dale101usa
 * ...what the hell is wrong with you? The article mentions real-life facts (such as the part about SR-71 Blackbird), but doesn't give its sources. Just because the article is about a fictional material doesn't mean that it shouldn't meet the usual Wikipedia standards. Aardark

 * And the fiction can be cited too, as it mostly is in this article already (Scrith is from Ringworld, etc.) Bryan 17:10, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Titanium discourse
Quote a bit of the text covering titanium as "unobtainium" is not really relevant to this article. I've reduced it to the basic point, removed some total irrelevancies, and footnoted the rest to leave it available for potential transfer to the Titanium article. The footnotes should probably be removed (or at least trimmed down) once that article's editors decide if they want it. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Intro
I change the intro for the following reason. Any fictional material referred to as "unobtanium", even if the real-world existence of is currently thought to be unlikely or impossible, may prove at some point in the future to not be so. Our understanding of the universe is limited and our understanding of science is based on assumption that certain rules could never be violated. In the future we may find that there are ways around certian rules of science. I felt it was important to make it clear that the unlikeliness or impossibility of "unobtanium" is based current scientific thought and not claim that such a substance is impossible as we might some day find a far off planet where such a substance really exists. --Cab88 12:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Um
Is the chemical symbol for Unobtainium "Um" ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.51.166.250 (talk • contribs) 08:55, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * There is no chemical symbol for Unobtainium because it's not a real material. Bryan 08:55, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

 * Is there a chemical symbol for "doesn't have a sense of humour?" -- Charlene 18:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Sadly, it's not without precedent that people have posted on this talk page genuinely believing that there is such a thing as the element "unobtainium". Lacking any other cues suggesting humor IMO it warranted a serious response. Bryan 07:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Science fiction section
I had to remove a lot of content from the SciFi section; it was filled with awful speculation: "unobtainium is an informal one, apparently developed within science fiction fandom..." If the editor even read the listed world wide words source, a very good source for word etymology, he'd know that statement is wrong. I cleaned of all speculation but a better historic perspective is needed; right now it just makes references to a couple of scifi series. —Mitaphane talk 19:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

What happened to good ol' Balonium?Rich 10:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

For evidence of the use of Galena for 'Unobtainium' in Avatar see http://www.nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/labels/minerals.html (for the attention of the Great Interferer LouScheffer). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.31.125 (talk) 10:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

This whole section could be replaced by a single link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilithium_%28Star_Trek%29#Fictional_elements_and_materials (or the direct link, which I can't find at present). Then if anyone wants to tweak it they can be directed there and be an SEP (Someone Else's Problem). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.111.18 (talk) 14:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Would a better Trek analogy not be Latinum? 109.78.71.84 (talk) 22:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

That would have to be Gold Plated Latinum --

 * Latinum isn't the same as unobtainium if you think about it it's not really all that rare considering it's used for general bartering. Also it's more commonly refered to in DS9 as gold-pressed latinum. --Andy Frogman 124.148.32.133 (talk) 10:22, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

 * We're getting off on a tangent here, but, for the record, the "unobtainable" quality of latinum in DS9 is that it cannot be synthesized by available matter-replication technology, which is probably what contributor 109.78.71.84 was referring to; this property combined with its relative natural scarcity make its value both sufficiently high and sufficiently stable to be useful as currency; the "gold-pressed" part (see DS9 S6E12 "Who Mourns for Morn") comes from pure latinum being a liquid at room temperature / pressure, and typically suspended in standard-size bars (and smaller strips and slips and larger bricks) of otherwise "worthless" (due to aforementioned matter-replication tech) gold for ease of handling. Furthermore, individual bricks/bars/strips/slips of gold-pressed latinum hold very small quantities of actual latinum - a half-full shot glass of pure liquid latinum is a hundred bricks worth.  On the other hand, latinum has no known canon uses other than monetary and decorative, while "unobtainium" usually has engineering/technology applications.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.120.9.41 (talk) 20:43, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

As a "Dune" fan, I dissent from "Melange" ("the spice") being given as an example of 'Unobtainium'. The substance was in fact widely available and widely used, however expensive it might have been, nor was it difficult to obtain (just dangerous.) 2601:410:200:2C80:7086:EA8F:596D:A31A (talk) 19:12, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Don't delete the page !
The word "unobtainium" popped into mind during a discussion on manufacturer's pseudo-scientific claims about speaker-construction materials. I wanted to explain the concept, but couldn't remember where I first heard. Wikipedia to the rescue: I thoroughly enjoyed and found the info very helpful. My one suggestion would be to lead off with the engineering info, because I believe that's where the term really started. The length of the titanium discourse is really tangential and could be cut to a sentence. Also, I don't know how many sf citations are really necessary, but if people want to add that trivia to the end, I see no harm in it. Richard Grossman 07:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Useful info but way to many words .. to tell the meaning of a word... I first heard it in HAM RADIO to tell of a radio tube no one could find and later to describe how rare a part for an old motorcycle was ..THE subject needs a complete rewright to less than 150 words 65.78.219.138 15:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC):) ar wd8cyv David Thompson

 * If the purpose of the article was simply to tell the meaning of the word it'd be a candidate for moving to Wiktionary. Encyclopedia articles should go into more depth than just defining it, I don't see how the information currently present could possibly be condensed down to 150 words. Bryan 20:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed addition to the SF section: usual useage of unobtainium and handwavium
unnobtainium: a material/mechanism that is theoreticaly possibly - however we have not way to produce it at this time

handwavium: a material/mechanism that is theoretically not possible - its existance needs lots of handwaving .. see also: techno babble ..

the lower the content of handwavium in a story is the more it is considered "hard SF"

Markus84.112.41.61 13:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Problem is that I've seen "unobtainium" used in both contexts, so we can't simply declare that one of them is the correct one and one's incorrect. That'd be attempting to define the term ourselves rather than describing how it's used in real life. Do you have any external sources suggesting this distinction? Bryan 00:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

how far would discussions with hard SF authors and gamedesigners count as evidence in this case .. ? it is there that the difference between "unobtainium" and "handwavium" was pointed out to me. if we add the information that this particular usage is possibly limited to hard SF only?84.112.41.61 10:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

 * If it's just personal conversations you've had with authors there isn't any way to cite that and it can't really be used as a source. It needs to be at the barest minimum fixed in some tangible form where other editors would have some chance at getting access to it as well to verify it. If it's in interviews that have been published in some manner then by all means dig them up and we'll mention it here. Even a Usenet posting by a notable author or game designer might be useful. Bryan 16:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

woud this be considered adequate or should i seek more references?:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3a.html

about mid-page - tihs is a quote from Ken Burnside - designer of a very interesting and critically acclaimed §D space combat game, that REALLY pays attention to physics .. "attack vector tactical" 84.112.41.61 20:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Yeah, that looks like a decent source for this sort of thing. Bryan 21:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Unattainium?
Is unattainium a variant or just a mispelling? Google shows only 68 references for unattainium, versus about 93,000 for unobtainium. Is it worth pointing out such a small usage in the very first sentence?

 * Unobtainium is a portmanteau of unobtainable (obtain: to gain possession) and the suffix '-ium.' Likewise, Unattainium is a portmanteau of unattainable (attain: to achieve as a goal) and '-ium.'  The two fictitious element names have have nearly identical meanings/uses. Just as an article of a person will be titled by the name they go by most popularly, while the opening paragraph will give aliases or even birth names that differ from their current, this article is basically doing the same. 98.215.128.112 (talk) 15:13, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

 * "Basically" is a weasel word. The second sentence does in fact considerably more than just give an alternate name; it provides an etymology. Moreover, its use of the word "Likewise" seems to indicate a near-equality between the two words, whereas "unattainium" is much rarer. Illexsquid (talk) 22:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

 * OK, I removed it.  LouScheffer (talk) 02:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Modern?
The article makes a number of references to "modern". From the context, it appears that "modern" in the mind of the respective contributors is sometime in the last 3-5 years; the design and construction of the SR-71 is, therefore, "ancient". Such terminology makes the article sound ridiculous, written from the perspective of an adolescent. It's definitely not scholarly or encyclopedic. For practical purposes, the modern age may include the last two or three centuries, not just years. —QuicksilverT @ 16:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

 * OK I fixed it. Why does your username not match your username? 76.247.105.28 04:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

But context is often used, even in technical and encylopedic documents, to define "modern". You will certainly find articles referring to "modern art", and "modern programming models", referring (unambiguously) to very different timescales. In fact, it would sound very stilted to speak of Linux, for example, as "a late-contemporary operating system", rather than a "modern operating system". Since the article states that the term dates from the 1980s, "modern", in this context, clearly refers to the last few years. I don't feel strongly enough to change it back, but I think it was fine the way it was. LouScheffer 04:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Impossible with conventional materials?
I think the addition "that is impossible with conventional materials" makes the definition more complex without helping. If conventional materials would work, then no exotic ones would be needed, so this is already covered. So I think the original sentence makes the same point, but more succinctly. Also, I'm not sure the reference adds anything - the reference seems like many others on the topic, and is not an early one or one that is special in any way, so it seems not to add much. But if others think differently please chime in here. LouScheffer (talk) 03:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

 * At first, I simply wanted to add a citation for the initial definition and so looked up for a good source that tried to explain it under the context of science/engineering, not from science fiction. I read the reference I added which stated:

[Unobtainium] is the term coined for a smart material with properties once considered unimaginable: a material that would self-heal; self-replicate; turn invisible on demand; automatically shrivel up to sneak through wall cracks yet remember its original shape afterwards; generate its own power; be able to store and transmit huge amounts of data; flap like a bird and one day, replace human organs on demand.

 * That quote showed what kind of applications unobtainium would have been used for, most, if not all, of them impossible with the materials that exist. So I thought it was also better to elaborate not only what this fictional material is, but what kind of application that requires it. From the initial definition, one could say gold and diamond are unobtainium since it's costly, probably extremely rare too, and used for various applications. Basically, I tried to close up what I thought was a loophole in the definition.

 * That said though, I think what I chose as a citation was poor since it dealt with being able to obtain obtainium.

 * I have another reason why, but that depends on paradox and how one thinks of unobtainium, and I already got confused just by thinking about it :x --BirdKr (talk) 10:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

 * Edit: On reflection though, I shouldn't really give much concern to the definition as we're talking something imaginary >_> --BirdKr (talk) 10:42, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Oakley
I was surprised to check this page and not see anything on Oakley's use of the 'element' name.

Several glasses in the oakley product range now feature "unobtanium" ear- or nose-pieces; this material grips better when a person sweats. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.116.190.31 (talk) 05:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

In addition to the glasses, they have other products that use "Unobtanium" as well such as their HOLESHOT Unobtainium Strap Edition watch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.38.190.22 (talk) 18:15, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Element 404
After some searching, I could not find a reference for this that dates before the introduction into Wikipedia (16 Jan 2009). There are plenty of copies spawned by Wikipedia, and one in uncyclopedia with no 'unobtainium' content (just 'not found'). I think a pre-wikipedia reference is needed before restoring this. LouScheffer (talk) 15:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I couldn't help but comment on the irony that your search resulted in "404 Not Found", right? Without being able to find 'Element 404' you were unable to obtain the results you wanted. ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 20:42, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Avatar movie
I'm not going to revert at the current moment -- but unless it bombs catastrophically at the box office, the Avatar movie is going to elevate "unobtainium" from being something of a footnote of science fiction fandom and engineering in-jokes to a whole new level of pop-culture prominence... AnonMoos (talk) 19:01, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

 * If Avatar indeed has this effect, and other sources note this phenominon, then it should be included. But it's not the job of an encyclopedia to predict; it should summarize what has happened, not predict what may happen.  LouScheffer (talk) 00:05, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

 * We'll know by Sunday evening. AnonMoos (talk) 04:11, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

 * Judging by the responses I've read, this event has eventuated. glasnt  <3  00:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

 * The material shown in the movie appeared to be a High temperature superconductor which has the properties of the Meissner_effect at room temperature 90.205.4.108 (talk) 07:39, 12 January 2010 (UTC).

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.205.4.108 (talk) 07:34, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Facetious vs humorous
There is a question of whether the usage of unobtainium should be described as 'humorous' or 'facetious'. I think we should use 'humorous' since it get the point across and is a common word. Even if facetious is better (which I am not sure it is), and we don't want to write down to readers, the small gain in exactness is more than penalized by the number of reader who won't know that this means a humorous usage. So I think that we should stick to humorous. (Note that 'facetious' links to the page 'humor' anyway.) Evidence that facetious is not common knowledge might be these SAT prep pages which list it with lots of other uncommon words SAT words and TOEFL words. Of course this is open for discussion and comments are welcome, LouScheffer (talk) 15:48, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

 * Since when do you look up words in an encyclopedia????? Hey, perhaps we could link to the place you look up words... you know, a dictionary.- Wolfkeeper  00:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

 * I agree that linking to the definition would surely be better in this case. However, even if you do so the question of which one to use remains.  According to these lists of English word frequency Words 1-10000 and words 10001-20000, humor and humour rank together about 2000th in the list of English usage, with about 40000 references (combined) per billion words.  Facetious has 1827 references per billion, or about 1/22 as much, and ranks as (roughly) the 13,500th common word in English. 13K words is a pretty sizable English vocabulary.   LouScheffer (talk) 01:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

 * Yeah it's a less common word, and?? Many words are less common than others, we don't cut them out of the encyclopedia, and it's more common than unobtainium. You seem to be confusing this with the simple encyclopedia; and you seem to be confusing this article with a dictionary entry; encyclopedia articles are not primarily about words.- Wolfkeeper  01:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

 * I'll disagree here - I think we *should* cut sufficiently uncommon words out of the encyclopedia.  I work with a lot of folks who speak English as a second language (in science, so these are sharp folks, but not linguists).   A good second language knowledge is a few thousand words, as opposed to the 20K or so words of a good native speaker.  So if we can get the idea across using common words, we should.   LouScheffer (talk) 13:53, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

 * Yeah "humorous" is fine. causa sui  ×  18:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Linguistics#Prithee for background on Wolfkeeper's opinions about "words" in Wikipedia. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Technical use vs McGuffin
Should we use examples here? I think it's a useful distinction - sometimes the main use is to make an implausible invention possible, but in others it's mainly an object to be fought over. Certainly these categories overlap (presumably cavorite would be valuable and could be fought over, and unobtainium might not be fought over if it had little use), but the *primary* reason for the author to use the material is usually one or the other. This is certainly true in real life and movies as well - you fight over the heavy water since it enables an atomic bomb (and pay no attention to how much it costs), but you fight over gold because it's valuable, not because it's corrosion resistant. LouScheffer (talk) 18:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Is 'unobtainium' primarily a description or a material?
Clearly, there is some controversy of what 'unobtainium' really means. Is it primarily a material, or a description of the material? As a thought experiment, what is the composition of unobtainium? You cannot say. Furthermore, if I describe a material, such a 50% mixture of carbon nanotubes and kryptonite, could you say whether this is unobtainium? No, you can't. Also, in the case of rare or expensive materials that really exist, the same material can be unobtainium for some uses and not for others. Basically 'unobtainium' is a concept that is undefined without a context. (Another way of seeing the seeing the same thing is asking what all unobtainiumss have in common. The answer is nothing, except for the idea behind them.)

This is very different from a real material such as titanium, where I certainly agree the article should be about the material, and not the word, which might be different in each language. However, the questions above are completely un-ambiguous for a real material such as titanium - you can tell me what it is, and tell me if a lump of something is titanium, independent of context.

Overall, despite the fact that unobtainium is a conceptual description rather than a material, it is notable, as shown by all the references. So we should describe it this way. As always, counter-arguments are welcome,  LouScheffer (talk) 20:18, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

 * It's a concept, not a term. The article 'free speech' is about the concept of free speech, not about the letters 'f' 'r' 'e' 'e' ' ' 's' 'p' 'e' 'e' 'c' 'h' and how it came to be written like that and the history of the usage, although that is sometimes included as well. It is also a goal that the article should be completely translatable into foreign languages, without still referring to the English language; when articles are on terms, then they are not translatable.- Wolfkeeper  01:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

 * But a name that can apply to different things in different contexts is a concept, not a definition, and the article makes this very clear. You could explicitly call it a designation, or a concept, but that just makes the article harder to read without improving the meaning.  Demanding complete translatability is an excellent goal, but not practical in this case, since it depends of the similarity of (for example), titanium, 'uranium', and unobtainium.  LouScheffer (talk) 18:28, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Wolfkeeper has some nonconsensus views on articles about "words" in Wikipedia, and on how to interpret WP:NAD. See the link given 2 threads above for background and examples. He has edited many article leads to remove the pattern "is a term" or "is a phrase", often to the articles' detriment. eg. I could elaborate, but this is not an appropriate location for that wider issue, and he has declared himself unconvincable so discussion is essentially pointless. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Note that Quiddity is attacking me personally rather than arguing about the actual issues involved. In general when this occurs it is a clear sign that somebody has lost the argument.- Wolfkeeper  21:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I'm trying to point out the details of the difference of opinion, and the size of it. Just as everyone was in the last thread at Wikipedia talk:Lead section. Ignoring the results of this many discussions is pure WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. -- Quiddity (talk) 06:43, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Wolfkeeper. If a word has different meanings in different contexts, then each meaning should be split with a disambiguation. Since 'unobtainium' has a few meanings but they are all related, I think keeping it in one article is okay, but we need to focus on explaining each definition, rather than getting hung up on work usage, (which is what dictionaries are for). Ashmoo (talk) 14:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

encyclopedia vs dictionary
Articles in an encyclopedia are primarily about *things* or ideas, not words or names.

The first sentence/paragraph defines what the topic is about (WP:NAD), and the topic (unlike a dictionary) is about the thing. The thing here is a type of material (more or less any material that is unobtainable), not the term or name that refers to a type of material that is unobtainable.- Wolfkeeper  16:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This is different from a dictionary, there the word unobtainium is the primary topic.- Wolfkeeper  16:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

 * I agree that this would make no sense for a real material such as titanium, where the article is on the material itself, quite independent of the name. But unobtainium is an idea, which as you point out is an acceptable subject.  It's both ambiguous and context dependent - more than one material can be unobtainium for a given context, and a single material may be unobtainium in one context and not another.  Now this context-dependent class of materials has a name, and *the name itself* is of interest, and is notable.  If you were to explain to an alien why it's called unobtainium, you would need to explain that it's a pun on the real element names such as titanium or uranium.  Thus the *name* aspect is fundamental - you cannot explain the term without it.  LouScheffer (talk) 16:52, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

 * I'm sorry, but that's incorrect. This article is about materials that cannot be sourced, including similar related things denoted by terms like 'wishalloy'. If you define the article to be simply about 'unobtainium' then wishalloy is off-topic. The point is that the opening sentence has to say what the article is about, and you cannot do that by defining it to be about the word 'unobtainium'. In encyclopedias articles are not about words, because single words can have radically different meanings, (e.g. rocket can be about space vehicles or salad vegetables- that's why encyclopedia articles do NOT cover terms).- Wolfkeeper  21:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That's your perspective. It is not widely shared. Category:Words has dozens of subsubcategories, and thousands of articles. Almost all of which are legitimate given that Wikipedia is "an encyclopedia that incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias". -- Quiddity (talk) 21:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but what is an encyclopedia? According to you... it's a dictionary.- Wolfkeeper  14:16, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

 * The entire second paragraph of the lead is about the name, and how it came about, and why it's related to other terms. So using 'name' in the first line is proper, and indeed necessary.   LouScheffer (talk) 00:29, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

 * No. As per WP:NAD and WP:ISNOT the first sentence defines what the article is about. The article is NOT only about the term. Therefore your edit warring is completely unacceptable.- Wolfkeeper  14:16, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Unobtanium
Please don't add OR descriptions of how this stuff is used in the movie. And please don't make anonymous reverts without commenting here - I'd like to be able to respond to any reversion of my edits.

Unobtanium is clearly mentioned by the film itself, and unless you can ref a source stating otherwise, it is (to me) crystal clear the characters are talking about unobtanium the mineral.

It is thus not "humorous" nor "oblique". It simply is the name of the film's valuable stuff. However, feel free to add some kind of clarification it isn't spelled "Unobtainium" if you like.

Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 16:38, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

 * Original contributors are also averse to their input being stomped on by someone else's righteous size 10's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.111.18 (talk) 13:02, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Avatar reference "oblique"?!
Re: "It is oblique in-so-far as they mis-spell it, either intentionally or ....." (an edit comment)

Okay, so "mineral obliquely called "unobtanium" (sp)" totally don't cut it - "sp" is internet shorthand and comes across as colloquial.

If you wish to attribute some underlying meaning to how Avatar uses this word (in one of its alternative spellings) feel free, as long as you can provide a source. However, merely calling the reference "oblique" is confusing, because it's use in the movie is completely straight-forward. So it's mis-spelled (insofar it can be misspelled, which we could discuss elsewhere) - then say so instead of being unclear by using a "fancy" word like oblique.

Enough with the re-insertion of this adjective - or any other qualifier - already. If you absolutely must have it in (without adequate explanation), find a source!

But hopefully, you can realize its usage here isn't uncontested, and so we could instead agree to simply and neutrally report the usage in the movie. CapnZapp (talk) 23:15, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

 * I made a stab at conveying the (I hope) honest reason behind "oblique", in a (hopefully) clear manner to all. CapnZapp (talk) 23:17, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

 * As long as we don't get 'actually' put back in, as unobtanium is not 'actually' unobtainium.

 * The additional explanation for Avatar is just silly. There is no point in differentiating between the article's unobtainium and Avatar's -- the latter serves as a generic highly-valuable resource purely for plot purposes, thus fulfilling the description in this article. The presence of the "traditional element naming" and wiktionary links demonstrate the only truly notable aspect of this: that the -tanium spelling is perceived as more legimate, for no valid reason. How does removing the i "conform to chemical element naming"? 99.251.204.24 (talk) 19:39, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

 * How does removing the i "conform to chemical element naming"? I really don't know, all I've done is add a citation of that as the reason for the difference. But, I also don't know why this article spends time in the lead telling us that: Unobtainium = "Unobtainable" + "ium", which also has no sound basis in compound/element naming, but is also uncited, blinding-obvious, probably WP:OR, and actually admits to being illogically reasoned by saying "However, the name unobtainium was in use long before the IUPAC systematic names were created". We have that in the lead, and yet we are talking about one cited sentence about Avatar! Now THAT is what makes Unobtanium "truly notable"... it's current cultural recognition factor. While the Avatar stuff is silly, it adds a direct citation of something 99.251.204.24 considers the "only truly notable aspect" of Unobtanium (its missing i). Now, that citation is far from ideal, because it's a fictional universe explanation (I couldn't find the real reason for the change in this universe- hopefully somebody can) but at least it partially answers (or makes convincing) the MAIN thing that this page is being looked at for. I should also say something else here: If Unobtanium becomes a cultural phenomenon then it is inherently notable for that, and that phenomenon would have to be discussed on this page (it not being important or different enough to have its own article). - On the other hand, this whole article is silly - it's a terrible word and idea, but we should be able to get the silly articles right. --Wragge (talk) 08:18, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

 * The additional explanation is necessary because a) the spelling used in the film is without the 'i' and b) ignorant editors keep changing it to the 'i' included version with annoying regularity if you don't explain it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.99.101 (talk) 07:31, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It is spelled without the 'i' here ("Official" Avatar site) -- But I can't find an explanation for the alternate spelling. ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 22:20, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * UPDATE: okay, here's the ©2007 screenplay by James Cameron from the Wayback archives -- Spelling = Unobtanium ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 20:57, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Unobatinium is not Science Fiction
Just recently scientist working on the Web Telescope have created a new type of composite material that can withstand high temperatures of space, here is a link to confirm this... http://bigthink.com/ideas/24334 Zymyne (talk) 04:44, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

 * However, Unobtainium bas been many things in many contexts... AnonMoos (talk) 15:31, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Unnamed sources report, and a consensus of anonymous scientists agree that Unobtanium extracted from alien spacecraft is being used for a number of top-secret government black-projects at Area 51. An example of its application can be seen here: (Anti-Didactic Enigmatium Device?) ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 22:01, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Misc. edits

 * Removed and sometimes handwavium from alternate spelling -- perhaps a.k.a. but certainly not an alternate spelling. Handwavium is mentioned in 'Similar words' section, which seems like a proper place for it. ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 23:08, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Considered changing (also spelled unobtanium) to (sometimes spelled unobtanium) but chickened out. Consensus?  Even Google says "Did you mean..." ~Eric F [Special:Contributions/184.76.225.106|184.76.225.106]] (talk) 23:59, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Removed metals. (See: -ium, metals only? above). ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 04:20, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Spherical cow
There is a question of whether spherical cow should be referenced here. I think not, since it's a very different idea. The point of a spherical cow is not that it's hard to obtain, or that it is particularly good for any application. Instead, it's a nonsensical approximation, which may be better, or worse, or irrelevant, to any real application. Other opinions are welcome, of course. LouScheffer (talk) 01:22, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Unobtanium
Please correct the spelling for this article as Unobtainium is simply wrong, and every scientist on the planet would disagree with this spelling. It is seriously bothering me the original author is obviously a plebeian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.190.183.161 (talk) 17:01, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure any scientist wouldn't care less what name or spelling was given to a fictional - and satirical - element. It seriously bothers me that it seriously bothers you to the extent you feel the need to insult editors of the article:  No personal attacks please.  Chaheel Riens (talk) 18:52, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I invite the brand new editor - and of course the IP above - to discuss why the change from sourced and established "unobtainium" to "unobtanium" should be made. As per available sources and wp:retain there is no reason for the change.  Chaheel Riens (talk) 22:53, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

If you don't care why you changed it back? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nekomata3 (talk • contribs) 23:04, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

 * Don't know why something which was mainly confined to the folklore of scientists, engineers, and science fiction fans for many decades would necessarily have an "official" spelling... AnonMoos (talk) 03:57, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

 * I never said that I don't care, only that scientists wouldn't care. I care very much so, which is why I reverted back to the stable version and invited discussion here on the talk page.
 * Please stop your changes until a consensus for change is established here.
 * To start the ball rolling, I ran a quick Google search for "unobtanium" - 500,000 hits, and "unobtainium" - 900,000 hits.
 * Out of the 14 currently used references, only 2 refer to "unobtanium" - and one of those acknowledges the spelling of "unobtainium" as well.
 * The external link here World Wide Words — Unobtanium makes mention of "unobtanium" - yet the page itself is entitled - and refers to - "unobtainium"
 * The other link is a 404 not found, and the final link does refer to "unobtanium"
 * So far it's not conclusive enough to make a change. Chaheel Riens (talk) 08:00, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Why does this article refuse to correct the spelling? Would you spell Titanium Titainium? No, you wouldn't. Case closed, just because people spell it one way, does not make it correct. You are just supporting a major typographical error. Stubborn as well. -- 19 January 2014 68.190.183.161

lol — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nekomata3 (talk • contribs) 10:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

 * Hardly. Please put forward your arguments - before change.  Chaheel Riens (talk) 10:44, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

 * Conversely, would you spell "unobtainable" as "unobtanable"? No, you this would make the "a" short, not long.  There are two possible motivations for the spelling
 * You should spell it "unobtainium" in reference to the fact that it cannot be obtained,
 * Or, you could spell it "unobtanium" in analogy to "titanium" and similar metals.
 * Clearly, different writers have come to different conclusions on which spelling makes the most sense. Both of them are acceptable, like "labeled" and "labelled".  So we need to pick one and use it in the article.  "Unobtainium" is the form used in the first written reference anyone has been able to find, NASA history document.   Furthermore it's slightly more common in current use.  So it seems sensible to use that spelling.   LouScheffer (talk) 02:41, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

 * Here are a number of well respected sources that spell it "unobtainium".
 * A 1995 article from the New York Times
 * An abstract from the American Physical Society
 * An article from the IEEE, one of the world's largest engineering societies.
 * At the very least, this indicates the spelling "unobtainium" is certainly acceptable.  LouScheffer (talk) 03:15, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

SPELLING
SEE: Titanium

Prounounced TIght-TAIN-ium

Spelling Unobtanium with an AI is simply wrong, and whoever keeps editing the page is wrong about the spelling. -- 18 January 2014 68.190.183.161

 * Please join the discussion of an already active topic - one that you started. Your edits also broke the spellings in the references and sources.  Chaheel Riens (talk) 20:55, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

 * Stop reverting my changes, I have a right to edit these pages just as much as you do. -- 19 January 2014 68.190.183.161

 * Well, sort of. Nobody has a right to edit Wikipedia - only a priviledge.  See here for the policy regarding editing in general.
 * All of this is covered in the welcome message that Cirt left you back in December - I'd advise you read it (and the links).
 * Also, I think you're manually adding a sig to your posts - you don't need to do this, but can just add ~ to the end of your post, and it will add the necessary sig for you. It makes it easier for other editors to contact you.  Chaheel Riens (talk) 09:07, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Eludium/Illudium
"The term Eludium (also spelled with variants such as Illudium) has been used to describe a material which has eluded attempts to develop it." I thought Illudium was different - something Illusory or for use in casting Illusions [lexically challenged editors please note: not Allusions nor Elusions].

Also while I was here I did something useful - linked cryptocurrency to its article. Shannock9 (talk) 08:58, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Crypto-currency?
It mentions in the article that this is also the name of a crypto-currency. Is this crypto-currency in widespread enough usage to merit mention in the article? There are a lot of them at this point. Zell Faze (talk) 12:29, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Helium joke
I don't seem to understand the reference to Helium in the first paragraph. Is being stronger than helium supposed to be surprising for a material that is lighter than air?211.30.197.108 (talk) 09:45, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * That's what I was thinking. Maybe it is supposed to read "stronger than steel (titanium, aluminum, etc.)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshualouie711 (talk • contribs) 00:25, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Dysprosium
The name of this element comes from the Greek word "dysprositos", meaning "hard go get". This is sufficiently similar in meaning and etymology to "unobtainium" to be worth at least mentioning in this article. For now, I have simply added a link and brief explanation of relevance to the See Also section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.120.9.41 (talk) 21:04, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

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Incorrect link
Rare-metal link goes to electric vehicles or something 97.83.18.143 (talk) 12:26, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

 * This wasn't wrong, but I've reworked the paragraph to make the reference clearer. Dan Bloch (talk) 13:19, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Unobtainium