Mithril, Orichalcum, & Adamantium in the real world

Bilbo Baggins’ Song of Eärendil says the Powers of Aman built Eärendil’s ship “of mithril and of elven-glass”. After the destruction of the ring and well into the Fourth Age, a descendent of the House of Durin finally succeeded in reclaiming Moria. With the Balrog dead, Dwarves were able to return to their long-abandoned home once more. Also the scarcity of aluminium as a pure metal in nature is due to it’s chemically reactive nature. The reputation requirement helps protect this question from spam and non-answer activity. Possibly an alloy of Osmium and iridium, which is extremely hard and used for things like fountain pen nibs which need to resist high wear.

With each new episode, the Prime Video series introduces us to the origin of new places, characters and objects. In the second series, the origin of the name is explained as a reference to The Lord of the Rings. In the MMORPG World of Warcraft, mithril is used to make weapons, armor, and gadgets. In the computer game Age of Mythology, mithril is a special armor type. In the Computer RPG series known as The Elder Scrolls, mithril is a kind of armour.

The mithril in ‘The Rings of Power’

The doors of Moria were inscribed with ithildin, an alloy of unknown composition that contains mithril. The Guards of the Citadel of Minas Tirith wore helmets of mithril, “heirlooms from the glory of old days.” I think from the above quote it’s fairly likely Gandalf is referring to the pure substance of mithril, not an alloy . True, you can do a mesh weave but it would need another material with it to be more metal like.

• They ventured further and realized Orcs had infested Moria once again.
• The Applied Physics Laboratory, a not-for-profit division of The Johns Hopkins University, meets critical national challenges through the innovative application of science and technology.
• As mithril can only be found in a handful of locations and clearly possesses important powers, it is in high demand with all the people of Middle-earth.
• With such a hard and light metal, weapons could be made, but also defensive items.

Of course, to anyone who’s watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, this substance is not new at all. But just in case the finer details of Tolkien metal aren’t actually that memorable to everyone, here’s a catch-up on what mithril is and why it’s important. The reason AI is especially well suited to this challenge is twofold. First, the sheer number of possible materials makes the task almost inconceivably time-consuming for humans. Second, while both humans and computers reason from what is known, computers can be trained to systematically sample the unknown. Superconductors — materials that, when cooled below a critical temperature, can conduct electricity without losing any energy — are used in a number of cutting-edge technologies.

In the D&D-inspired Nodwick comic, mithril has been a very cheap metal for a long time–bottle caps have been made from it since time immemorial. In the MMORPG Everquest, mithril is a metal that can make weapons, armor, and other equipment. The computer game Princess Maker 2 has a character who wears mithril armor when she fences.

The story is about a battle in the Misty Mountains where an Elven warrior and a Balrog of Morgoth fought over a tree that supposedly hid the last of the lost Silmarils. The Elf channeled all his light into this tree to protected it, meanwhile the Balrog channeled his hatred into it to destroy the tree. If this legend is to be believed (and Gil-gad seems to believe it) mithril contains the light of the last lost Silmarils.

Explore properties

Quench hardening does not work with metals that do not undergo the martensitic transition, but the elastic properties of metals more generally can be controlled by varying their microstructure through careful manufacture. There is, however, an intriguing alloy of nickel and titanium that undergoes the martensitic transition — and which, therefore, could be quench-hardened. The wonderful property of this alloy is that it is a ‘memory’ metal — it is light and flexible, but springs back to its original shape once bent. A multidisciplinary team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, has discovered a novel superconductor using artificial intelligence . The key to this breakthrough came through combining materials science expertise and real data into a predictive AI model, which vastly accelerates the timeline of targeted materials discovery. Mithril was a precious, silvery metal, very lightweight but immensely strong, discovered and mined by the Dwarves in Khazad-dûm.

After Gimli became Lord of the Glittering Caves, he and his Dwarves forged great gates of mithril and steel to replace the Great Gate of Minas Tirith which was broken by the Witch-king of Angmar. This article is about the precious metal of J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium. For the the real-world producers of metal mintiatures, see Mithril Miniatures.

Mithril is just the right thing to make a tough corselet of mail rings. But any skilled smith might have been able to have enhanced its properties still further, by controlling the crystalline structure of the material — an important determinant of its hardness. Swordsmiths can control the properties of blades by forging them in just the right way to ensure that the edge is extremely hard and brittle, but the main body of the blade is flexible. A key step in the forging of a samurai sword involves wrapping the sword in clay, with only the edge exposed. The sword is then heated to above what is known as the ‘martensitic’ transition, when the steel adopts a different kind of crystalline configuration. The bulk of the blade, shielded by the clay, cools more gently, resulting in a structure with much larger crystal grains, fewer defects and therefore greater resistance to fracture.

If adhering strictly to Tolkien’s text, the Balrog is awoken during the time of Durin IV’s grandson. The series already has a lot of action to cover without expanding that far into is mithril real Middle Earth’s future. Although the destruction would mirror the Númenor plot beautifully, it seems unlikely The Rings of Power will get to the end of this particular story.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

The Rings of Power is a beautiful ode to Tolkien’s Middle-earth, sharing deep cuts but also expanding the lore. In the Second Age, the dwarves of Khazad-Dûm, also known as Moria, discover mithril as we see on The Rings of Power. The rare ore will bring fame and fortune to their kingdom… and also trouble. Here’s everything you need to know about The Lord of the Rings‘ mithril. The Noldor of Eregion, the Elvish land to the west of Moria, made an alloy from it called ithildin (“star moon”), used to decorate gateways, portals and pathways. The West Gate of Moria bore inlaid ithildin designs and runes.

Unfortunately, very ductile materials ooze out of the way when you stab them. But since HorusKol has found the proper quote, I grant that perhaps mithril itself was ductile, but the dwarves made an alloy that was not. Somewhat doubtful, but then I did upvote HorusKol’s answer as a good guess. https://cryptolisting.org/ I assumed that mithril was a relatively malleable metal, but that the metal made from it which was used for armor, etc, would be an alloy. Aluminum might be a better fit than titanium, since it’s workable in pure form, but can be used to create alloys that are lightweight & extremely tough.

Interesting that this states that the Dwarves could make of it a metal, which suggests that mithril itself is not actually a metal. When Sam Gamgee believed Frodo to be dead outside Shelob’s Lair, he left the shirt with Frodo. In both Tolkien’s and Peter Jackson’s versions, the shirt was, along with Frodo’s other possessions, shown to Frodo’s allies at the Battle of the Morannon to imply falsely that he was imprisoned in Barad-dûr. Gandalf took the shirt and other tokens, but refused any offer of parley. You can maximize the efficiency and overall performance of a Netherite pickaxe with these enchantments.

What Is Mithril, the Rare Dwarven Metal on RINGS OF POWER?

A. Salvatore’s Forgotten Realms books on the world of Dark Elves, Dwarves, and other Underdark worlds. Mithril is a medium-tier metal in the online MMORPG RuneScape and its old school variant, as well as World of Warcraft. Mithril armour is featured in the video game series The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion. It seems unlikely that Durin will let it rest forever, given the lore explained in The Lord of the Rings, and, perhaps more importantly, mithril’s growing part in Rings of Power.

In the MMORPG RuneScape, mithril is a dark blue metal that can be mined, made into bars, and then forged into various weapons and armor. While it is one of the weaker metals in the game , it is stronger than steel. It also appears to be lighter than other metal armors in the game, possibly as a reference to Tolkien.

Real world

Tolkien first wrote of it in The Lord of the Rings, and it was retrospectively mentioned in the third, revised edition of The Hobbit in 1966. In the first 1937 edition, the mail shirt given to Bilbo Baggins is described as being made of “silvered steel”. It’s silvery and stronger than steel but much lighter in weight. The author first wrote of it in The Lord of the Rings, and it was retconned into the second, revised edition of The Hobbit in 1966.

It has physical properties that are impossible in a non-magical world. Carbon fiber or titanium alloys may be light and strong, but weave them into chain mail and you’ll still be plenty hurt if skewered with a high-mass spearhead. The Dwarves had a secret word for their name of the ore, claimed by Durin to be “Grey Glitter” but the term “Mithril” comes from the equivalent words in Sindarin Elvish. For fans of The Lord of the Rings, you might recognize it as the ore used for the shirt which saved Frodo’s life from a rampaging cave troll in Moria and was eventually seized by the orcs of Mordor as an offering to Sauron. Although a mail-shirt of mithril rings isn’t quite the same thing as a sword, one might imagine how a smith might put it through a quench-hardening process.