unobtainium
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: derivation
Etymology: From unobtain(able) + -ium (suffix typical of names of atomic elements), modelled after uranium and titanium. Compare also the origin of dysprosium.
Base: unobtainable
Affixes: -ium
Inflected forms:
form: unobtainiums
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: unobtanium
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: unobtanium
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A fictional material or component which, if it existed, would enable one to easily solve a hard problem.
pos: noun
tags: countable
humorous
uncountable
examples: Thus the invention of high temperature fuels will enable us to consider cores which are radiation cooled; such cores would be surrounded by large tanks (cooled by water) which in turn would be penetrated by beam holes. The beam holes themselves would probably have to be made of "unobtanium". (This "unobtanium" is a word coined at Atomics International to describe the material needed to make reactor projects feasible.) In between the radiation cooled reactors and the water cooled reactors is a regime suitable for liquid metal (including boiling liquid) cooled reactors. Once again "unobtanium" is needed.
In order to illustrate some of the features of data processing under ideal conditions, a set of simulated data was generated and is presented in the last four columns of Table II. The hypothetical material is called Unobtainium.
The names of materials presently used in aerospace applications are familiar: magnesium, aluminum, titanium, and so on. Propulsion scientists call the ideal material for turbine engines "Unobtainium," because it does not exist.
As early as 1969, during the initial Phase A studies, Lockheed had taken the initiative in proposing a two-stage fully-reusable design with both stages built of aluminum and using silica tiles for thermal protection. [...] Though that company indeed was in the forefront in developing such tiles, they were items for laboratory research. A design that specified their use had no more intrinsic credibility than one that proposed to use the miracle metals Unobtanium and Wishalloy.
This is not a Tom Tomorrow Bike, made of NASA unobtainiums and employing warp drives that have yet to be invented. It could be built as soon as the production technology is put on the line and powered-up, because all the vehicle technology is proven, off-the-shelf stuff.
gloss: An especially rare material or component that is outrageously expensive or otherwise almost impossible to get hold of.
pos: noun
tags: countable
humorous
uncountable
examples: The vacuum furnace has been greatly improved and today we are melting titanium, zirconium, high alloy steels and other materials which are remarkably free of impurities and possess improved properties. These high performance metals are used in turbojet engines, missiles and atomic reactors. […] We call it "unobtainium."
Bikes made of titanium, once known as "unobtainium" because of its high price, are down from the stratosphere.
Sometimes parts turn out to be made of "unobtainium," that magic element which is simply unobtainable.
It was this blend of genuine, authentic Bentley parts with his recreations of the unobtanium bits that had Patrick thinking that this ruse would actually work.
We might recognize, here, the blind pursuit of our own unobtaniums and the ways in which our ancestors forged ahead without care for the consequences of their actions to native peoples or to their environs.
For [Jeffrey] Katzenberg, having two presidents in his concert-hall-size living room was a fitting reward: no Democratic buck-raker had raised more dough in 2012. Katzenberg pitched the lunch to invitees as a once-in-a-lifetime experience—what he called "unobtainium."
These precious [rare earth] minerals are not actually rare, just so infernally difficult to sift from the earth without destroying the environment and poisoning your workers that the minerals are known in the mining industry as "unobtainiums."
People who think about space end up thinking about bullshit like Star Wars and Star Trek. [...] They have to invent unobtaniums, magic crystals that, for some reason, can't just be printed out by their transporter beams, or there's no story.
gloss: A high technology component that is extremely expensive.
pos: noun
tags: countable
humorous
uncountable
examples: [D]oes our device require any technologies that we're not likely to be able to develop, buy, or otherwise obtain? This unobtainable content is sometimes called unobtanium, and can take various forms: [...] Things that exist, but don't exist for us. If Acer needs a beautiful custom 15″ LCD panel that costs less than $50, they can get it, because they'll buy millions and millions of them. But for the vast majority of us, asking an LCD panel vendor for such a thing will yield little more than a chuckle.
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