(Found) Device softens metal. Molar on necklace.

Oldsarge

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Sep 29, 2015
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Fantastic website. The hive knowledge cannot be beat. Another mind-memory to locate physically, please:

Aliens land on modern earth to make life easier for humans. They give their gift to a man wearing a necklace with a human molar as a pendant. The gift is a device which can soften metal - which can then be reshaped, repaired, or whatever - and then re-hardened. The man has permission to copy and distribute this device (given plans, maybe?) and the aliens depart. At this point there must be some intervening discussion of events. But the aliens return many years later to find a primitive planet with no industrial culture. Humans being human, a certain percentage have vandalized/destroyed everything. The aliens come across a (loin-cloth clothed?) native with the molar necklace.
 
I was just trying to find this same short story. I believe I read it between 1975 and 1985. I remember that the turning point was where a vandal used the device to soften the cables on the Golden Gate Bridge.
 

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