By: Jacob Mattie, Peak Associate
In a recent press report, gender-proud man and SFU materials science researcher Mike Roeskòp alleged that diamond remains the hardest substance known to mankind. He and his all-male entourage have refused to talk to literally anyone else about their other, harder materials. The group, which go by the self-styled moniker “Mankind” are as exclusive as they are lacking in diversity.
Boron-nitride in wurtzite configuration — colloquially known as “hardinite”— has been shown to be 58% more robust than diamond. While hardinite is well-known among material scientists, its existence seems to have been lost in communication with Roeskòp and his compatriots, despite a new study by his SFU colleagues.
The Peak reached out to Roeskòp for further detail.
“We know diamond is the hardest material. We know this because man is, among all animals, the smartest species, and therefore cannot be wrong,” said Roeskòp.
Some people might try to convince you that there are different kinds of intelligence, like how owls can process an incredible amount of sensory information, or how dolphins use a language 20 times as information-dense as our own, but don’t believe that quackery. We’re smart in the way that we put a man on the moon. 12 men, actually, so ipso facto we’re at least 12 times as smart as anything else you’d care to name — I’d like to see an owl try and fly that high.”
On the controversy around his proclamation, Roeskòp said, “People have tried to tell me that I’m not as intelligent as I declare, but they just don’t get my genius.”
According to Roeskòp, relations between some male scientists and their declared rivals — “the rest of humanity” — have been under strain since the plagiarism by James Watson & Frances Crick of Rosalind Franklin’s discovery of the double-helix shape of DNA.
Allie Trope, an SFU researcher and author of a recent publication on hardinite, responded to Roeskòp’s accusations of rivalry.
“What? I mean of course what [Watson & Crick] did was unacceptable, but most likely they were just miscreants. It’s Roeskòp’s defensive attitude that’s making it a gender thing. Our results on hardinite are, in true scientific spirit, publicly available behind a $50 paywall. We even have a dedicated room within SFU’s RCB Hall to showcase both the material and its manufacturing processes. Which, to be frank, is something I doubt our self-declared nemeses saw.”
When told about the room in the RCB, Roeskòp nodded sagely and replied, “We have our best men working on it.” Reports indicate that Roeskòp and his fellows are to this day still striding through RCB in search of the material display room.
