I don’t really have much time to comment on this, and frankly, don’t know enough about the material to do so. Other than to say that nanotubes seem to be the next high tech material.
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050815/full/050815-8.html
Holy Cow. Previsously, nanotubes had to be look at with a microscope. Is this new stuff really nanotube materal? Or just a bunch of nanotubes stuck on scotch tape?
I’m curious what folks think? It seems like an incredible break through.
I’ve been hearing a lot about this today, it seems like a big deal. Can anyone quickly explain to this moron what they are and why they’re so good?
Good god this is huge.
Nanotubes are the likely to replace Kelvar in Personnal Armor, Replace plastics in many apllications and will hopefully progress to the point where we can actually think about building a space elevator.
Other Apps:
Possibly even revolutionize Solar Power
Replace silicon for transistors
WOW, Wow 
More:
Carbon nanotubes key to future flat TVs, says scientist
This could be the kind of revolution that plastic and microchips were
I was really hoping that nanosheets would be transparent- that’s a lot more versatile than anything opaque. Solar sails! Efficient solar panels! Extremely lightweight airplanes! Hell, condoms!
Best news I’ve heard in a long, long time.
Suddenly the future looks so bright, I gotta wear
From what I know, or think I do. It’s light weight and incredibly strong. And it’s made out of one of the most abundant materials on earth, carbon.
If this is true, it’s an incredible step forward.
I haven’t been this excited by a news story since the Berlin Wall went down.
This is such a huge leap forward. Basically to very carefully craft 3" long strings to rapid production of sheets of material.
The Nobel Prize will not be enough if this all pans out.
I wonder, if you had a sheet of this, could it be strong enough that you would even feel it if you tried to poke a hole in it? It’s light and strong, but it can’t be that strong can it? It’ll need to be woven together for any real applications I suppose.
Nothing wrong with that of course. Maybe will end up with somthing as thick as a human hair that is as strong as say sewing thread? Is that a good comparison?
It’s actually stronger than that if I under stand correctly. Your human hair thickness should be as strong as 30lb monofilament.
I will have to look for comparisons.
I have heard it will be stronger and lighter than Kelvar. Stronger than Spider silk and much stronger than steel.
Think about everyplace various plastics have ended up and then realize this is will be even more places.
according to this article: Nanotubes are about 50 to 60 times stronger than high-grade steels
I wonder if it will only be able to be used as a cloth?
Is it strong on compression like concrete (if you could get it thick enough)?
This seems like an amazing breakthrough, but we have to wait until we fully understand the properties of this stuff before we get too excited. How will it stand up over time? How easy is it to work with? Can it be molded? How thick a panel can you make? Is it dimensionally stable when the temperature changes? How does UV radiation affect it over time?
Given that, I’m still very optimistic. Imagine a car body that’s half the weight of current bodies. Now imagine that the entire body is a storage battery for the electric motor for the car. And imagine that the outer layer is a photovoltaic battery trickle-charging the rest of the car all the time the sun is out. And at night, the car softly glows so it’s easily seen.
Imagine windows in your house that are nearly unbreakable, which auto-dim when the sun is shining through them, and which act as solar cells. At night, they glow to provide what looks like natural light to the house anyway.
Imagine clothing that can be heated, or be designed to display different colors and patterns as the mood suits you.
Depending on how cheap this stuff is and how easy it is to work with, this could be anything from a new niche product to a society-changing material that will dramatically improve the quality of our lives on the same scale that plastic and the transistor did.
And perhaps the coolest uses for it are things we haven’t even thought of because we never had a material like this. Just like plastic revolutionized industries in ways we never imagined and the transistor led to the internet.
I want that car.
There are some more breakthroughs in Nanotubes that by coincidence were announced this week.
Customized Y-shaped Carbon Nanotubes Can Compute
The Vice Geek Presents…Carbon Nanotubes and Us: The Curing Cancer Edition
Time to start planning for the flying cars
Declan
This is huge!
Think about how plastic has changed society in just a few decades. Well, this is going to be much bigger, and have far more applications than can even be envisioned at this point in time. Scientists are generally not practical visionaries, but once this product is placed in a few designer’s hands, there is almost no limit to the uses.
Damn.
At 1/2000 the thickness of paper and many, many more times the strength, the edge of that sucker isn’t going anywhere near the vitals.
And, this is great, we have no freaking way to destroy/recycle/get rid of them when we are done using them!
Isn’t that great!? :rolleyes: :smack: :dubious:
Just what environmental effect will this wonder material have on our environment, when some doofus pitches it into my backyard from his car?
Never build something you can’t break when you need to.
Cite?
It’s pure carbon. It may be very easy to recycle.