What I’m pointing at there is that for strength/weight purposes, using big calcium nuclei to create stronger individual bonds in bone, is like making a steel beam stronger by putting more steel into it; the strength costs weight.
As a physicist, I think your understanding of bonds is a little off here.
using big calcium nuclei to create stronger individual bonds in bone
Using bigger nuclei usually makes an atom bond weaker, rather than stronger, for reasons to do with the quantum mechanical bond natures. See this explanation for why si-si bonds are weaker than C-C bonds. The simplest explanation for why is simply that the bonding electrons are much further out in heavier elements, because more atomic shells have been filled, so there is correspondingly less force of attraction between them.
I was a little confused learning this initially because i thought that the extra protons in the nuclei would have a bigger attractive effect, but then I remembered that the extra protons come along with extra electrons, so overall the effect is much more complicated and averages out to bigger atom= weaker bond.
But as @Thomas Pilgrim and the linked post pointed out, there are exceptions to this rule due to the intricacies of particular types of bonds, and you really have to dig into the quantum mechanical nature of things to be sure.
What I’m pointing at there is that for strength/weight purposes, using big calcium nuclei to create stronger individual bonds in bone, is like making a steel beam stronger by putting more steel into it; the strength costs weight.
As a physicist, I think your understanding of bonds is a little off here.
Using bigger nuclei usually makes an atom bond weaker, rather than stronger, for reasons to do with the quantum mechanical bond natures. See this explanation for why si-si bonds are weaker than C-C bonds. The simplest explanation for why is simply that the bonding electrons are much further out in heavier elements, because more atomic shells have been filled, so there is correspondingly less force of attraction between them.
I was a little confused learning this initially because i thought that the extra protons in the nuclei would have a bigger attractive effect, but then I remembered that the extra protons come along with extra electrons, so overall the effect is much more complicated and averages out to bigger atom= weaker bond.
But as @Thomas Pilgrim and the linked post pointed out, there are exceptions to this rule due to the intricacies of particular types of bonds, and you really have to dig into the quantum mechanical nature of things to be sure.