> this reminds me of a tale a friend I dance with told me
> so her physics lab professor gifted her a sphere of tungsten carbide 6 inches in diameter for reasons that aren't clear to me
> tungsten carbide isn't shiny, it's dark grey and sort of matte
> so she goes to work cutting this thing in half in the machine shop
> and then smooths down the edges and all that, gets a pelican case and cuts out two appropriately sized half-spheres in the foam
> she sets them on the radiator for a couple hours and then puts them in the pelican case and walks to her nuclear physics teacher's office
> has him open the case and he's like "wtf are these...?" "Pick one up."
> he picks it, realizes it is 1: really warm
> 2: very dense
> geeeeeently puts it back in the case, looks at her wide eyed and asks her "WHERE DID YOU GET THIS?"
> he believes she is in possession of two half-critical hemispheres of uranium.
> or, y'know... a nuclear weapon.
> She wastes no time in telling him it is in fact carbide, because if someone actually believes you have a nuclear weapon, you go to like, super jail.
> He then joins her in repeating this prank on the rest of the physics professors
> best use of tungsten carbide, easily.