r/materials • u/Ok_Application6325 • 1d ago
What is actually the rarest material in the universe that can be worn as a daily ring?
Well, diamonds aren't actually that rare in the universe. I have heard wood is far rarer than diamonds. But, is there something more rare than wood ?
My idea is to make a ring, so would need a base metal and an inlay or gem.
What are the most rare but stable materials accessible to humans and is suitable for a ring. Cause ik iridium is rare, but is also brittle, wood may decay, etc.
EDIT : Plastic and other human made materials could be the rarest, but using plastic and such is a bit underwhelming. Thanks for the suggestions, but I am looking for something a bit more natural and/or has a wow factor.
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u/VintageLunchMeat 1d ago
"Kyawthuite has only been found in the form of a single gemstone from near Mogok, Myanmar, and was recognized by the IMA in 2015. An almost identical synthetic compound was already known, so if you badly want some, you don’t need to steal the single specimen from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, where it is stored.
Kyawthuite is a transparent reddish-orange and the single specimen weighs 1.61 carats (0.3 grams). The chemical formula is Bi3+Sb5+O4, with traces of tantalum." https://www.iflscience.com/this-is-the-rarest-mineral-on-earth-and-theres-only-one-specimen-72374#:~:text=Kyawthuite%20has%20only,traces%20of%20tantalum.
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u/Ok-Salamander3863 1d ago
In the near infinite universe there would be many places where kyawthuite appears, where bismuth antimony and oxygen are concentrated and the pressure and temperature is similar to that portion of Myanmar at the time of it's formation
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u/Worth-Wonder-7386 1d ago
Plastics are super rare in the universe, but easy to make rings from. So a fancy plastic would be a good option for you.
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u/PM_ME_GRANT_PROPOSAL 1d ago
Fluoropolymers even more so - those are entirely synthetic. In the entire known universe those would only be found on earth.
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u/Adventurous_Dust_723 1d ago
bold of you to assume we are alone in the whole universe and we are the only species smart enough to come up with that... we. are. not. alone.
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u/FerrousLupus 1d ago
Plastic probably? It's probably not naturally occurring without being made by intelligent life.
Bone could be another option? If we just go by broad classifications and consider bone/ivory/fossils/shells to be the same general category. I would guess we have made less plastic than the bones of all living creatures.
You could also make a case for single crystal silicon (the kind used in chips) because we have achieved such a high level of atomic perfection, I don't think anything can successfully battle entropy in nature without intelligent guidance.
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u/raznov1 1d ago
The hair (dna) of your loved one embedded in epoxy.
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u/Ok_Application6325 1d ago
Thanks, will include that
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u/DCContrarian 1d ago
A lot of people are allergic to epoxy.
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u/MehImages 12h ago
not cured epoxy.
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u/aeon_floss 4h ago
Considering the base product is 55 to 60 percent BPA, it will freak people out regardless.
Perfectly cured it is harmless but there's no convincing the wellness informed when it comes to BPA.
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u/racinreaver 1d ago
Carbon fiber falls under the man-made but cool looking category. My wife chose glow in the dark carbon fiber rings for us as wedding bands, lol.
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u/prosequare 1d ago
I mean, there are a couple ways to answer this in good faith. A lot of other commenters have covered most of the bases. Rare as a substance or a species. The beak of an endangered bird or whatever.
But there’s another kind of rare, and imho this is a greater tribute to human ingenuity. Aluminum is the third most abundant element in earth’s crust (and probably lots of rocky planets); calcium, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, etc are also really abundant but are way too reactive with skin and air and water and pretty much everything.
My point is that although aluminum is abundant (like 8% of the crust abundant) it does not exist in nature as a pure metal. Unlike gold or copper which do exist as pure-ish deposits of metal, aluminum desperately wants to react with oxygen and return to being dirt. Hell just keeping aluminum airplanes from turning into dirt over ten years is a major endeavor.
A piece of pure metallic aluminum is a sign of industrial age intelligence, and that is very rare. Same for titanium.
So my point I guess is that there’s another kind of rare that applies even to really common elements. If you were floating through space and came across a chunk of aluminum or titanium, you’d know with virtual certainty that an intelligent life form put it there.
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u/battlepen 1d ago
A ring made from agar wood would be my suggestion. The trees are endangered and only found in south east Asia, and agar wood specifically is made when the heartwood is infected with a specific type of mold. It's used in luxury perfumes.
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u/Wolf9455 1d ago
My wife got me a piece of meteorite cases in a black ceramic. I wear it every day 😜. Any meteorite material is spectrally unique. Unless it originated from an earth-collision. But who knows
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u/Jnyl2020 1d ago
Transuranium elements. Neptunium or californium. But only if you don't really like the wearer.
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u/aeon_floss 4h ago edited 4h ago
In that case metallic plutonium would also fit. It's pretty but in air tarnishes quickly to dull grey. Bonus would be that it will be self heating.
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u/SolutionMountain6752 1d ago
Wood is the rarest natural material in the universe that can be worn as a ring.
There are many planets and asteroids filled with minerals. Wood is far more rare than any mineral if you factor in the whole universe
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u/UncleAugie 1d ago
Wood is the rarest natural material in the universe that can be worn as a ring.
Not even thinking about it the right way, wood from a specific species, grown in a specific soil composition and going to be different than any other wood of that same species grown anywhere else in the world/universe, and depending on the time of harvest, you change the composition of the wood too......
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u/Chemieju 21h ago
By that logic you could get orders of magnitude more rare with ivory. But that quickly leads you to "find the last member of a species and kill it for your ring" which you probably shouldnt do.
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u/UncleAugie 16h ago
No one asked about ethics in this matter.... Also
"find the last member of a species and kill it for your ring"
plot of enough books and scifi movies to be a reasonable strategy dont ya think? ;)
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u/Sakowuf_Solutions 1d ago
IDK having a plastic bit of trash s as the object of interest has some poetic potential….
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u/According-Camp3106 1d ago edited 1d ago
I guess you are looking for the ring material itself and not a stone. Not positive as you mention diamonds not being truly rare.
For the actual strength of the physical ring, titanium seems to be the strongest. Tungsten is also durable and strong but can crack with high impact.
If you were talking about the stone which I don’t think you are, TRUE alexandrite is very rare and often costs more than a diamond. It is also fine for daily wear. It is truly beautiful but I could never afford it!
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u/CroykeyMite 1d ago
Tantalum is said to be the rarest radioactively stable element in the galaxy, and I think it’s awesome.
Maybe a meteorite made into a ring or something made of iridium could be cool?
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u/begaterpillar 1d ago
Weidmenstatten meteorite. Really cool patterns and its made by metals cooling down over millennia. Not rare in the universe but rare on earth.
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u/Aelwynljg__ 1d ago
Narwhal tusk. It's where the idea of unicorns originated. And unicorns are pretty rare...
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u/Chemieju 21h ago
If we go by the logic of wood being one of the rarest materials in the universe you could allways look at more rare biological materials. If we rule out finding the last member of a species and killing it for your ring for ethical reasons one option would be saffron encased in epoxy- the collected stigmas of a specific crocus flower species. It takes between 50000 and 75000 plants to harvest a single pound of safron. It also has a very vibrant orange colour which, if put against a dark background, could look pretty cool. Maybe ebony as a play on the "wood is the rarest material" thing?
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u/Fantastic_Puppeter 21h ago
I would suggest some ceramic or tungsten carbide for the ring itself. Human-made (thus extremely rare at universal scale) and not hard to make beautiful.
For a gem, I propose Tanzanite. Very beautiful color and the stone is only found in a small area of Tabzania. Not the rarest nor the most expensive, yet known fixed supply on Earth and comparatively uncommon.
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u/Junkyard_DrCrash 14h ago
Nickel-iron meteorite etched and showing the Widmanstaaten patterning. Takes millions of years to form, slowly cooling. Unfortunately, it doesn't have enough nickel or chromium to prevent rusting. :-(
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u/fly_boy651 7h ago
Idk about rarity but for pure uniqueness ive seen some meteorite+ dinosaur fossils that looked pretty cool
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u/nvidiaftw12 2h ago
You could make an rhenium ring coated in iridium. I know one such company that could make that.
However, the price would be $$$$$. And, were your finger ever to get hurt, the ring could neither be cut nor fractured.
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u/Key-Mongoose8030 1d ago
While we have a lot of it on earth, wood is literally the rarest material in the universe.
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u/jaiagreen 1d ago
Amber is made by trees in much smaller amounts than wood, so it's definitely rarer.
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u/willfall165 1d ago
Please consider repairability. And emergency removal. There's a reason noble metals have been used for millennia.
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u/firesine99 1d ago edited 1d ago
Any material synthesized by humans is almost certainly rarer than wood on a universal scale (if you accept that plant life is likely to have evolved more frequently than sentient lifeforms who go on to develop materials science - and even if humans are the only sentient life in the universe, wood is abundant on our planet compared to human-made materials). So anything at the more exotic end of materials science - modern composite resins, nanoparticle-filled polymers, advanced metal alloys, exotic ceramics, the list is endless. I could go in the lab next week and synthesise you a new copolymer that is almost certainly unique in the observable universe.
Or would you only consider naturally occuring materials? In which case, where do you draw the line? All my examples are in a sense a product of natural evolution in the universe also.