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Any Suggestions For a Meaningful Geeky Wedding Band?
mbutala writes "I am getting close to popping the question, and I've been racking my brain for an idea for a cool and unique wedding band. I've been thinking of contacting a company that can (possibly) fabricate a ring from pure Iridium (Ir) or a nearly pure alloy. It is the most corrosion-resistant metal known — it cannot be dissolved in aqua regia like gold or platinum. Iridium is extremely rare on Earth, and the high concentration of it at the K-T boundary in the Earth's crust is what suggests a meteor took out the dinosaurs. I am positive that the symbolism of the permanence of Iridium, the reminder that we are star-stuff, and the fact that the ring would be one-of-a-kind would really strike a chord with my girlfriend. It's a really geeky idea, so I thought I would run it past you all — what do you think? Any other ideas?"
Just don't make the mistake of thining that any part of the wedding process (past the proposal) is about you :)
The short answer is "whatever she wants".
G.
Bucky Balls. Nothing says I love you like a ring made out of carcinogenic carbon nano tubes!
Now in less carcinogenic flavours!
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
If it's made out of Platinum-Iridium, you can make a wedding band which weighs exactly one kilogram.
My advice: Don't get too fancy. Titanium makes a dandy wedding band for a bunch of reasons:
1. It's inexpensive. My ring ran something like $99, so I can afford to have a backup living in my filing cabinet in case I ever lose this one (people lose their rings all the time -- ask that one beach volleyball player from the Olympics this year). Also, if my fingers get fatter in my old age, I can replace the ring for cheap. Overspending? Not geeky.
2. It's hard enough that it'll shatter before it deforms. Most ring-related injuries are a result of the ring bending into the finger. That's bad. My ring won't deform easily and will probably shatter before deforming, so I have a better chance of keeping my finger than someone with a gold wedding band. Inability to hit the "S" key due to a missing finger? Not geeky.
3. It can be cut off. Hospitals can cut off a 6-4 titanium band, so if I ever injur my finger badly enough that it swells up I can, again, keep my finger and continue hitting the "S" key freely. See #2.
4. It's light. I hardly know I have it on. This may or may not be a good thing, depending on what sort of person you are. It's also completely hypoallergenic, which I understand is different than simply nonreactive. Not having your ring cause you weird skin issues? Geeky.
5. It's geeky. Go rent The Abyss if you have to. While I haven't stopped any hydraulic doors with mine, it is in perfect shape after four fantastic years. The finish gets a little scuffed, but it's still in perfect shape despite some significant abuse. You want geeky? I have "Don't Panic" inscribed in the inside of mine (and "Panic" inscribed in the backup ring I mentioned in #1). Sound advice, that.
I understand the drive to be unique, but take it from me (I moonlight as a wedding photographer): Weddings are already stupid-expensive. You should get immediately out of the habit of overspending when cheaper and perfectly satisfactory alternatives exist. As for your other point: *all* rings are starstuff -- gold, platinum, titanium, whatever -- so your last point there is complete hyperbole. Again, not excessively geeky.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Geeky wedding band? Weird Al!
...Huh? Wrong kind of band?
It's all about the Pentiums, baby.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Men have wedding bands, women have wedding rings. It's just one of those things.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Zircons are forever!
Don't get your question posted on /. immediately after a story about a man killing his wife
In Soviet Amerika the ballot boxes YOU!
I think they stand on their own .. hell just getting a band who is willing to cover their songs might do well enough ...
A charmonium ring would be pretty geeky and certainly impress the heck out of her. As the ground state of a charm and anticharm quark bound state, it is also amongst the most expensive materials on the planet, costing perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of person-years to produce mere zeptomoles of the stuff. It not only has a nice moniker with the word "charm" in it, it is also a humble reminder we were once all part of a seething mass of quark-gluon plasma. Never mind the copious radiation that will be emitted as a ring-sized clump of the stuff rapidly decays on her finger. Ok, I'll shut up now. Iridium is definitely a good call.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
Our wedding bands themselves are not too metallurgically unusual (though the construction involves a difficult inlay made from palladium-gold alloy). However, my wife's diamond is extra geeky! It's an artificial blue diamond - a natural white diamond subjected to massive gamma irradiation in an industrial nuclear reactor or particle accelerator. The irradiation disturbs the crystal lattice and produces color centers in the diamond, causing a blue-green hue. She loves it, and tells the story to every geek she meets.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
what about depleted uranium?
it's super dense....and extremely long half-life (weakly radioactive...according to wiki)
My wife's engagement ring, plus our wedding bands are Titanium:
http://titaniumrings.com/
ICQ# : 30269588
"I used to be an idealist, but I got mugged by reality."
Just pop the question with no ring and tell her it's because you want everything to be perfect and want to go pick it out together with her. Then let her have 100% say.
Get used to this algorithm, you'll be applying it to all sorts of problems in the future. It even handles otherwise NP-complete issues with ease.
Trust me on this.
That way, your wife can say, "It's very, very dense. Just like my husband."
But seriously - A fancy ring is totally worth it.
Mine is Palladium/Platinum split diagonally - looks mostly like silver but if you look closely you can see the brownish tint of palladium on one side. My wife thinks it's a symbol of how close we are (or something like that - I never listen to her anyway).
If she's a geek, she's reading this. You probably shouldn't be posting such a question on Slashdot. Not to mention that this sort of thing comes from the heart. Do yourself a favor and disregard everything here. Go with what your gut tells you, not ours.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
Yes, nothing says eternal love like something that caused one of largest losses of life the Earth has ever seen.
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
I had a friend years ago who had been married 9 times when we lost track of him. Each time, he would disappear for months at a time to Alaska in order to kill a grizzly bear from whose bones he would hand carve a wedding ring for his wife-to-be. After the 4th bear, it became pretty clear that his marriages were an excuse to go kill go bears. They were all crazy hippy chicks, but none of the wives seemed to find it any less romantic that they were (nth) to have received a hand-carved wedding ring from the bones of a bear killed by the bare hands of their man.
Go north, to Alaska . . . you know what you need to do.
No matter how strong the material is, it changes with time.
You should have understood the redundancy-reliability tradeoff.
Get your redundant array of inexpensive wedding bands now!
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
My brother recently proposed to his girlfriend by doing the following: (caption from his photo follows, which I do not have permission to post)
"Optical microscopy image of the engagement device under white light. The bare Si/SiO2 substrate appears violet while the metal (chrome/gold) artwork appears yellow. The artwork was patterned using electron beam lithography and metalized using thermal evaporation. The artwork was created using QCad, a linux-compatible free software alternative to AutoCAD."
The image was the 2 of them sitting out in the wilderness watching the Perseid meteor shower and can just barely be seen with the unaided eye. He proposed while the 2 of them were out watching it, and it was also what they did for one of their very first dates. He took her out to the same spot as on their earlier date, then gave her the device, which I hear is going to be mounted in some kind of clear polymer and mounted on a ring or necklace.
I will most definitely have a high geekiness standard to live up to when I propose or am proposed to.
You can have mine.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
Your finger will likely not remain the size it is. You will lose or gain weight, so the ring will need to be resized. This will likely be a gigantic pain in the rear with an exotic metal like Iridium. It certainly is for titanium.
Any halfway competent jeweler can braze in a new segment of ring, even one with a complex pattern, if it's made of a precious metal commonly found in jewelry. Most large jewelry stores or store chains will also offer free size adjustment of the band for life as part of the deal, or for a small fee at the time of purchase.
Titanium is theoretically re-sizeable, but only smaller, as doing two small welds so close together are impractical: it needs to be welded in an oxygen-free environment. In reality, they're going to have to give you a new ring if (when) you need to re-size, as it's a lot cheaper to replace than repair. Likewise tungsten-carbide steel, which is also popular these days. I want to keep =this= ring, not have it replaced if something goes wrong. Stupid and sentimental, I know, but still...
There's also the issue of medical emergency. If your finger swells up abruptly, due to injury or allergy, the hospital will need to cut your ring off. They have tools to do this painlessly and quickly with silver/gold/platinum bands, but things get tricky with tougher stuff, like tool-grade steel, titanium, and, I'd imagine, iridium. What was a minor medical procedure is now a medical emergency requiring tools that the hospital may not have.
It was a hard choice, as there are a ton of cool carbon fiber and titanium wedding bands out there, but I found a two-tone gold band with a nice herringbone pattern. It's unusual, comfortable, and can be cut and resized as needed. It's not as cheap as titanium, carbon fiber or tool-grade tungsten-carbide, but it will be easier to maintain.
If you want =really= unusual, I have a friend who had his tattooed on. Now that's commitment.
Do what I did - get the exact replica of the ring used in the Lord of the Rings movies: http://www.jenshansen.com/thering.aspx Pricey, but so worth it for having the exact same ring as the movies. Can't get any geekier than that!
Dude, it's right there in the Silmarillion. What kind of geek are you, anyway?
All I'll add to that, is if he's found a girl who will value his imagination, willingness to put all that effort, throught and dilligence in, more than she values waving some diamonds with no intrinsic value at her friends and having them wave their own back (sometimes with a concealed snide reference to it not being worth as much their diamonds), then he should under no circumstances ever let this girl go. She's more valuable than any precious metal or gemstone.
Good luck to the submitter!
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
It's not what it was made of that made it important -- it's was how it was processed. If it was a block of silicon, it would be like the difference between a 4-core CPU die, and a solar cell block of the same size.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
My dad has a platinum wedding band.
After he'd been wearing it a couple decades, one day he slipped and started to fall in a parking lot. His hand was resting on the top of a metal fence post, and as it slipped off, the metal rod clamped to the post (that held a run of chain-link fence to it) found its way between his finger and the ring.
The ring was well fitted, so when the steel was deflected inwards by the stronger platinum, gravity caused the steel to slice him to the bone. Then he was hanging by one damaged finger with his full weight held by the steel rod inside the ring.
If you calculate the strength of your wife's finger joint relative to her weight (and she's not barsoomian or emaciated or something) you'll see that the next thing that happens is the finger pops right off. Luckily for my dad, he is quite strong, so he grabbed the chain-link with his other hand and only got his finger stretched to un-natural length.
The doctors fixed it, so it wasn't as bad as getting your silk tie caught in a generator, but it was still a real wake-up call. Unbreakable ring on breakable finger has a very bad failure mode.
Get her a really nice soft metal ring with a beautiful design. High-carat gold is really much redder than the common stuff - it's noticeably prettier - and you can always inlay it with something that's not a continuous band.
You might want to read the article. Iridium may not dissolve when exposed to aqua regia, but it's too brittle to machine. Bodes ill.
Consider getting a ring made of damascus steel. Just make sure they've smoothed off the rough edges first. Rings made this way are quite beautiful.
... and she gave me a Token Ring.
Honest.
Ohhhh. That doesn't translate across the Atlantic. When I saw 'wedding band,' that meant musical band to me. When I worked out he meant a wedding ring, it seemed natural that if he had all this concern about what sort of ring to buy, then it was hers. He can obviously do what he likes with his own.
It's a shame. If he had found a girl who would value this sort of symbolism and effort on his part over a conventional diamonds and gold thing, then he would have found a very wonderful girl (though I'm sure she is anyway).
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
FYI, Iridium is the most common hardening agent in Platinum for jewelry.
"Slapping lipstick on a pig does NOT make it Natalie Portman. Paris Hilton, maybe, but not Portman." - UncleTogie
What about having it shaped as a Mobius strip? It would be easy, as long as it twists near the stone setting (a twist on the main band would be uncomfortable), and the 2 sides being one is kind of symbolic.
Their wedding bands are going to be made of unobtanium.
If for some reason your future wife happens to need to get the ring cut off due to an accident, and the hospital cannot get the ring off with the tools on hand, they will cut off the finger. I found this out after speaking to two registered nurses.
Girls are girls first, and geeks second. I would say that even the geekiest girls have dreamed of traditional weddings, and would much rather have tradition over trends and geekiness.
Just my $0.02. Do come back and tell us how it went.
My parents wedding band was a mobius strip. I always thought that was cool.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Titanium is nice and all, but TUNGSTEN is where it's at.
The possibilities are simply endless.
I bought her an expensive gold band inlaid with several small, though almost flawless (blood-free) diamonds that cost what was an incomprehensible amount at the time.
She bought me a several hundred US$ band. In retrospect, it was because she felt guilty about her band and wanted me to have something of similar value. She didn't understand that I thought she was worth much, much, much more than any ring ever could. (Sappy but true.)
I lost that ring within the year while playing a round of golf. I then found a simple, plain silver band of an unknown metal at Hot Topic in the closest mall for $10. I bought two and am now on the second. I lost the first/second looking for a new one since the first was lost off my finger and the second was deformed during a weight lifting incident.
THe guys' ring doesn't matter, while a good woman should care about hers up to the point where she can buy a better one for herself and keep the one you bought her for sentimental reasons.
You shouldn't case about your ring except to understand that you should have some sort of band on your left ring finger forever to indicate to other women that you won't be having sex with them.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
AFAICT Iridium isn't the stuff you'd want juwelery of. It's to brittle and not very pretty. I suggest Titanium or monocrystallic Titanium - the stuff they make jet fighter turbine shovels out of. It's titanium with the entire piece being on crystaline structure. It costs quite a bit extra to get it that way, but it's even tougher than a normal piece of titanium.
However, you should check if it can be cut with regular rescue tools in an emergency, as somebody here allready pointed out.
All those material things aside - it's the love. If you get yourself and her a stainless steel ring with a synthetic diamond for 200 bucks, but are there for her when times are rough - that's worth quite a bit more imho. And a stainless steel ring can be cool aswell.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Okay I am a self confessed Geek chick and I did receive a uniquely geeky wedding band. It was a 1000 year old bronze roman ring from an archaeological site in the middle east. Let me stress that it was Legally exported and purchased aboveboard online @ http://medievalwares.com/zt/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=65. I am certain if you google you could find other similar sites as well.
Or, if you and your fiancee are truly computer geeks, you could use the electromagnet out of a mini hard-drive. It should be just the right size. ;)
-Magdalene --"there are 10 types of people in the world, those who read binary, and those who don't"
Making things yourself is great, but isn't this the sort of thing you want done by an expert? Seriously, I'm a jewellery student and I wouldn't consider myself ready for such an emotionally important assignment for a long time yet. This has to be something beautifully designed and executed, and made to last and to be able to be adapted down the track. Oh, and by the way, once you start you'll realise that the cost of jewellery tools and equipment adds up pretty fast, so there's a bit more to it than picking up a cheap drill and going for it. Just think about what you want, then go see an expert to make it happen for you!
1. Find non-geek.
2. Do what they say.
3. No matter how much you doubt it, do what they say.
4. Step. Away. From. The. Tools.
Unless of course, she's a geek too. Then, show her the plans and don't be hurt when she wants to change them. You can even let her use the tools.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Get a tattoo of a band.
One of the local news anchors in LA had that done. I give it credit for being uncommon (by no means unique), but not something I'd ever do. It sure as hell shows as a sign of permanence though!
Back in 2003 I asked a similar question - the thought of wearing a piece of jewelry which served no practical purpose was alien to me so I tried to come up with some Ideas on how to make something ornamental like a wedding ring semi-useful.
In the end we got plain wedding bands and then got some awesome designs carved into them.
5 years later I'm proud and happily married (with 2 kids too!) - so don't think too hard, because what really matters is that you want to share this with someone special.
Perhaps (if she has a friend that is tactful) see if her friend knows if she'd like it. Having a second person close to her say it is a great idea probably would be good to make sure. She may have discussed more about marriages with her friend (especially if you can find one that she was involved in, as chances are they talked for months about whether they liked the shoes, or the dress etc etc). Anyways extra points for creativity I think it is a great idea, hopefully she's open to it. Good luck :-)
It's far bigger then all the others....
Weddings and wedding magazines are porn for the average girl (and her mother).
No sig today...
Titanium is very cool (and is what my band is made out of), and don't believe the FUD about it, it is safe, emergency rooms have equipment to cut through it if needed (they don't have to cut off your finger as one jeweler claimed....)
No. Believe the FUD. I cut off a titanium band once before. It broke my ring cutter and two others and took about a half hour total time (not including getting the fire department to cough up theirs) to get it off.
It doesn't mean you shouldn't get one, but know what you are getting into. Also, if you wear a titanium band carry a small packet of antibiotic ointment in your wallet. If you clobber your finger or hand, get the ring off immediately and don't wait for the swelling to set in. If it won't come off, use the ointment to help. (The antibiotic part doesn't help. Its the vaseline that does the greasing, but they make small packets of the antibiotic ointment you can stuff in your wallet.)
It sounds like you're buying a wedding band as an engagement ring (which I've not come across before, yet noone seems to have mentioned it).If your wife-to-be is going to wear any other ring alongside this one then you need to consider the relative hardness. With gold the higher carat value the softer.
Also, if you've got a bad memory (like me) you might consider having the date of your wedding inscribed inside the band ... if your memory is really bad then get your wife's name put in there too. http://dot-jewellery.co.uk/commissions.php?c=emboss sounds like a nice way to do this, or something similar.
I'd probably have gone for a Mobius strip if I was rich enough to commission a ring.
Lastly, this is your gift to her .. I don't think you need to choose exactly what she would choose for herself. But, do remember the idea is for her to wear it for the rest of her life.
Fixed the link. Moissanite is more brilliant than diamond due to a higher refractive index. There are more brilliant gemstone materials out there, but they are more brittle. Moissanite is _the_ geek choice for "best gemstone in existence".
A caution on white gold: Many white gold items are rhodium-plated with a thin electroplated layer that will wear off, exposing the yellowish-grey alloy beneath.
Iridium is very heavy; slightly heavier than platinum, much heavier than 18 carat gold. Something light like titanium may feel flimsy and cheap. An iridium ring will be give you that "whoa" feeling when you feel its weight.
Most ring injuries are the type where someone catches their ring on an object, and the ring gets stuck(Basketball rim, hook of some sort, etc).
What happens is typically that the finger sustains a degloving type injury - thering grabs the skin and other soft tissue of the finger, and the skin is pulled off. Your finger is "skinned", just like a sock or glove coming off your foot or hand.
Usually very difficult/impossible to repair, and winds up with a digit amputation.
..........FULL STOP.
http://www.mokume-gane.com/
The metal is treated to a folding type process, not unlike samurai swords. The metal develops a cool wood like grain if different color metals are used.
..........FULL STOP.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The most important part of a marriage is the vows and the witnesses. The "in love" feelings will come and go. When they go, you need a determination to see it through regardless. For people who honor their word, solemn vows before a crowd of witnesses accomplishes that. Maybe you've made a promise to yourself to stick it out. Why not make it public? Maybe you have some private conditions under which you would give yourself permission to bail out?
The expense of a wedding can be a symbol of the degree to which the bride is "cherished". Some Christian pro-family speaker (whose name I've forgotten) tells an insightful (though likely legendary) story of an African girl who was considered the ugly duckling and despised. While most girls fetched a bride price of 4 or 5 cows, her father set hers at 1 cow in the hopes of at least getting rid of her. A man came courting (with much gossip), and ultimately paid a bride price of 10 cows. The villagers were astonished. Even more astonishing, the girl looked radiant at the ceremony. They couldn't believe their eyes. Over the years, the girl gained confidence and the inner beauty that lasts - in large part because her husband continued to demonstrate how greatly he valued her.
If you are getting married soon don't spend money on extremely expensive symbols of your affection. Save your money for real things like children. In these uncertain times when we live on the edge of great change, you should put aside money for emergencies, financial reversals, and unforeseen circumstances.
Blowing a huge sum of money on what is basically a symbolic gesture will seem insane if five years from now you are married, lose your job for some reason that is not your fault, and have a child that develops a medical problem that is not covered by ever-shrinking medical insurance. Marriage is the time when people affirm to their spouses that they will stop doing insane things. If you have the money now for an rare-metal ring, then invest it in conservative Euro-denominated stocks. Give this to your new wife instead. Believe me, she will appreciate it more than an ring that costs five figures now but will only bring four figures in an emergency sale.
Good God, before I got married I heard from dudes like you all the time. I'm in my late twenties, been married for 3 years (dating prior to that for an additional 4) and I consider myself happily married.
Marriage is what you make of it and who you marry. I see 40-50 yr old single schleps all the time and certainly would rather be married. If you're that bad off, you should get a divorce and find a better chick.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
consider that it might need to be cut if there is a small accident. I looked at something similar in the past, we were thinking of Titanium, but on the advice of a firefighter and an ER nurse, we went with gold instead. The reason, gold can be cut and repaired quite easily, where as a very hard material like titanium (in our case) would be quite difficult to cut and could result in irreparable injury to the finger.
Do something unique with the gold, make it have some interesting patterns or shapes, but keep the metal soft enough to deal with possible accidents (the other idea we were given was to have hairline cuts fused with gold or similar material, like that it could be cut if needed.)