# Pencil lead found to exhibit surprising quantum effects- Scientific American article **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 18, 2005, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pencil-lead-found-to-exhibit-surprising-quantum-effects-scientific-american-article/331646 "2005-11-18T15:15:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pencil-lead-found-to-exhibit-surprising-quantum-effects-scientific-american-article/331646/1 "2005-11-18T15:15:42Z")
[Graphite Found to Exhibit Surprising Quantum Effects](http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=00033D41-7354-1372-B35483414B7F0000) > [@](#): > > Pencil lead is actually graphite–a carbon mineral that, when dragged across paper, leaves writing behind because its atomic layers separate easily. This also means that it is an excellent conductor of electricity. Last year, Andre Geim of the University of Manchester in the U.K. used adhesive tape to strip graphite down to a layer just one atom thick; they called this superthin layer of graphite “graphene.” > > Experiments on graphene have revealed some strange phenomena, as detailed in two papers in today’s Nature. The two-dimensional material remains capable of conducting electricity thanks to the free-floating electron in the honeycomb structure of carbon atoms. But these electrons display some unusual properties. > Geim’s team found that they do not slow down, even at very low temperatures. In essence, the electrons act as if they have no mass, or no “rest mass,” to use the more precise phrase from special relativity. It also means that graphite–at least the two-dimensional variety–never stops conducting. Dubbing these pseudo-relativistic particles “massless Dirac fermions,” the researchers also proved that they travel far faster than electrons in other semiconductors. As such, they conform to that famous equation E=mc2 (with their actual speed, some 400 times slower than the speed of light, standing in for c). ---
**Author:** ![LeeshaJoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e8cbc/32.png) [@LeeshaJoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LeeshaJoy)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pencil-lead-found-to-exhibit-surprising-quantum-effects-scientific-american-article/331646/2 "2005-11-18T15:54:37Z")
So all this time, when it looked like I was doodling anime characters in class, I was really designing the next generation of circuit board technology? Sweet! ---
**Author:** ![Madd\_Maxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Madd\_Maxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Madd_Maxx)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pencil-lead-found-to-exhibit-surprising-quantum-effects-scientific-american-article/331646/3 "2005-11-18T16:05:34Z")
Connect the dots, La la la la! ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pencil-lead-found-to-exhibit-surprising-quantum-effects-scientific-american-article/331646/4 "2005-11-18T19:07:46Z")
" Geim’s team found that they do not slow down, even at very low temperatures." I thought conductors tended to superconduct at very low temperature. Is this in anyway linked to superconductivity (where electron speed equals c I believe). ---
**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pencil-lead-found-to-exhibit-surprising-quantum-effects-scientific-american-article/331646/5 "2005-11-18T19:47:13Z")
> [@LeeshaJoy](#): > > So all this time, when it looked like I was doodling anime characters in class, I was really designing the next generation of circuit board technology? Sweet! And you don’t even need a soldering gun! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pencil-lead-found-to-exhibit-surprising-quantum-effects-scientific-american-article/331646/6 "2005-11-18T19:54:09Z")
Is there anything carbon _can’t_ do? “Why, I can make a hat or a brooch or a pterodactyl!” “It’s a dessert topping! It’s a floor wax! It’s BOTH!” ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pencil-lead-found-to-exhibit-surprising-quantum-effects-scientific-american-article/331646/7 "2005-11-18T23:04:13Z")
“…used adhesive tape to strip graphite down to a layer just one atom thick…” …yet it still stubbornly refused to pick up the stray lint and cat hair from their black clothing. Stumped, the 3M researchers went back to the drawing board. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pencil-lead-found-to-exhibit-surprising-quantum-effects-scientific-american-article/331646/8 "2005-11-18T23:56:33Z")
- - - I once had the idea to make conductive “crayons”, that students could literally draw out working circuits with. You could have P- and N-conductive color for making semiconductors, regular-conductive color, resistive color, capacitors, and inductors… ehhh… -I hadn’t figured inductors out as of then. - It was a brilliant idea, except for the fact that nobody anywhere seems to know how to make a crayon conductive and also not horribly toxic. …-And also, to make a working Z80-era CPU, you’d need a sheet of paper about four hundred feet square. ~ ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pencil-lead-found-to-exhibit-surprising-quantum-effects-scientific-american-article/331646/9 "2005-11-19T00:00:07Z")
So maybe that’s the reason I seem to attract an undue amount of static electricity shocks. I have a tiny piece of pencil lead in my left knee. I tell people it’s my tattoo- of the world as seen from a great distance.