How does Yarvex work?

[alhazred23]

I've been wanting to ask this for a while, since i'm designing something that employs it, but how exactly does Yarvex do this:

"The resulting cloth like substance is impervious to penetration, although it does nothing to stop kinetic energy."

So, it cannot be penetrated, but cannot stop kinetic energy? How does that work? The two ways that i can conceptualize it are that:

A) The gluon-gluon bonds in Yarvex are infinitely elastic. That way, when Yarvex is struck with a kinetic force, the material itself will deform to any degree necessary in order to transfer all kinetic energy through itself from one side to the other. This would preserve the 'Yarvex is indestructable and inpenetrable' parts... but only to a point. If you deform a 'woven material' far enough, eventually the weave will become thin enough that it becomes penetrable.

B) The gluon-gluon bonds in Yarvex are static in length. For this to work, Yarvex must somehow be able to transfer kinetic force without deforming or moving in any way- not even through vibration. It would need to somehow absorb and transmit kinetic force vectors so that things stop cold when they hit it, but the force travels onward as a disembodied force on the other side...

So which is it?

 

[Fred]

If I make cloth indestructible, will it help protect you from me swinging a mace at your arm? Will it prevent bruising and bones from breaking? No.

If I swing a sword at you, will it prevent you from being cut? Yes. But it won't prevent you from feeling the impact of a 10-pound object swung by yours truly on you and will likely mean serious bruising.

Yarvex is indestructible cloth, more or less.

 

[Wes]

Yarvex has a mostly static length and so force is transferred to the vessel's spaceframe.

 

[alhazred23]

"The resulting cloth like substance is impervious to penetration, although it does nothing to stop kinetic energy."

The 'does nothing to stop kinetic energy' bit is misleading; anything that has mass is subject to inertia (in the absence of 'anti-inertia' fields and such), and therefore has an influence on kinetic energy, even if that influence is negligible.

This material is not a 'classical' form of matter, but it is made up of particles that have mass, so it should still be subject to inertia, and therefore still have an effect on kinetic energy. It would be less misleading to simply say that Yarvex cannot be made rigid, if that's all that 'does nothing to stop kinetic energy' really means.

This is nitpicky, I know, but taking the words for what they are, and the fact that this is a futuristic 'miracle material,' it seemed that the intent may have actually been that it's a naturally zero-inertia material, which raises some logical problems.