What makes a lock harder to pick than other ones? Is it possible to make a lock “unpickable”?
In: Engineering
There’s always a key of one form another, physical or virtual, that is needed to open any lock.
And ALL keys (every single one of them) can be replicated and duplicated. Some with more difficulty than others.
As Madonna famously said: you can’t have a lock without a key.
Or umm… wait… maybe she said, “I’ll be the lock, and you be the key,” or… ya… something like that.
—————————-
Anyways, as I was saying, in the end: all keys can be replicated.
HOWEVER… there is one locking mechanism in the universe that might be the ultimate unbreakable lock: black holes!
So if you’re asking what is the best lock money can buy, then the answer is a black hole!
But even then super smart people might be able to break that lock! In that sense I guess that makes the brilliant physicists Stephen Hawking nothing more than a lock-smith, trying to pick the ultimate lock.
He may have found part of the solution with something called “Hawking Radiation”!
So if smart people are just now barely beginning to figure out how to pick the ultimate lock in the universe, then you can be sure someone will figure out how to pick your door lock soon enough!
Locks function using pins. You have to use the pick to set each pin individually, and during the entire process you risk slipping and allowing all of the pins to reset to their original locations. More pins make the entire process harder. In addition, I think some locks have mechanisms that can trick you into thinking you’ve set a pin correctly when you haven’t.
Asking if you can make an unpickable lock isn’t a question that can be answered with deductive reasoning; instead, you would need to construct an example of an unpickable lock to prove it was possible, and to prove your lock was unpickable, you would need to try an exhaustive list of picking techniques (which is impossible.) So your second question cannot be answered.
If the lock takes a key, it’s highly probable someone can fashion a tool that can mimick the mechanism of the key.
That said, it’s a constant arms race with some very innovative engineering. Locks with magnets, locks with keys that turn corners to prevent standard lockpicks, locks that hide the pin tumbler entirely, requiring you to put the key inside another mechanism. Lots of fun little tricks.
Just make a lock that doesn’t use a key to unlock. Then it’s unpickable
Anyways look at the wiki page for locks though in regards to your question. It’ll make way more sense seeing it visually than any text explanation
Latest Answers