I really don't understand what your objection is here. People do crazy experiments and make leaps of logic all the time, and particularly in this kind of field. You have no technical objection, you're just being "Ohhhhh I don't think people are that clever."
My "technical objection" is that it is highly improbable that someone will take something used in one field for one property and lead to it being used here for the desired property. Apparently that someone might randomly mix together two things because they want to see what happens is good enough for some people, but I have objections to it:
This isn't about "clever". This is about that being a huge leap of the sort that
doesn't happen all the time. We hear about experiments like this when they worked
because you wouldn't expect them to.
Not to mention that for this to work to the extent desired, you not only have to have someone mix A with B, you have to have them mix it well enough to produce something superior - instead of putting so little in that it has no effect or so much that its too brittle.
Besides, even if it wasn't a plausible outcome, if it was technically possible than surely we can discuss it here, in an alternate history forum. There's being a devil's advocate, and there's nay-saying. The difference lies in whether you're constructively adding to the discussion.
I'm carefully not calling this an ASB thing. But the improbability of it occurring is ignored.
Technically possible? Sure. Am I against discussing it? No. I'm arguing that its an improbable discovery, not that it shouldn't be discussed. I'd be delighted to see someone construct a believable unlikely outcome, instead of mentioning that because its possible that someone could do it that it could happen and using that as a foundation. At least make a token "So-and-so felt that existing steel was too weak. So he tried various elements, hitting upon ____ because of _____."
Really, if you're not concerned with the hoops that have to be jumped through to get to the discovery, you're not going to have a very plausible foundation for making active discoveries as opposed to passive ones (discoveries where you intentionally seek to discover what happens, as opposed to accidentally spilling something and observing what it does, for instance). And a passive discovery is very unlikely here.
tchizek said:
Rather than focusing on steel what about other materials? Early Synthetic Silk? (AKA Rayon), I don't know how it would be for bullet proof vests but I do know that silk works fairly well in this use.
I know that there were many people working on European silk production in the 17-19th century, maybe some of them start working on a replacement for silk?
Silk is expensive, if memory serves. Wouldn't it be really handy to have something that's cheaper so that you don't have to pay as much for it?
To tormsen: This is exactly what is missing in the steel idea. Something where an experiment has a reason to occur that could lead to the desired result, instead of the assumption that anything not specifically impossible can be assumed to happen. That someone seeking tougher steel would use something that has no relationship to hardness even in the material it is used in is not some minor, insignificant detail - it is a major barrier towards it being used any time soon unless someone has a reason like the one Muffet had OTL.
Now, how rayon* being discovered translate into armor is another story, but at least we're going somewhere.
Personally I'd love to see this one followed up, and not just because the steel thing is driving me nuts.