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120 Comments
- Zeigy, on 07/14/2009, -0/+137Gives the nastiest paper cuts.
- bluehouse, on 07/14/2009, -7/+101Coming to products near you in 2130
- Frostek, on 07/14/2009, -1/+92Graphene has been about for years! Still, interesting material though.
- anthropodeus, on 07/14/2009, -0/+59yeah. in fact, carbon nanotubes are just graphene rolled into cylinders, and even carbon nanotubes have been around for a long time.
- RIB08, on 07/14/2009, -3/+57Why do we read articles like this but it never seems like we see products. I remember reading 5 years ago how CDs would be multi-layered and hold 500 terabytes. Wake me up when I can get it on newegg.
- rebirf, on 07/14/2009, -0/+42wikipedia - Graphene is presently one of the most expensive materials on Earth, with a sample that can be placed at the cross section of a human hair costing more than $1,000 (as of April 2008).[3] The price may fall dramatically, though, if commercial production methods are developed in the future.
- diggduggDOOM, on 07/14/2009, -4/+42Does this mean we have a material suitable for the cable on a space elevator?
- 4321234, on 07/14/2009, -0/+35"Atomic scale honeycomb lattice". Sounds delicious.
- AndrewDB, on 07/14/2009, -1/+32Nope, Calista Flockhart still retains that title.
- InTheUnion, on 07/14/2009, -0/+29"Replacing silicon, the basic electronic material in computer chips, however, "is a long way off ... far beyond the horizon," said Geim"
GET THE HELL ON WITH IT THEN!!! - TheUngod, on 07/14/2009, -1/+28 Fry: Wow, you even look beautiful in 2-D!
Colleen: I do? But from your perspective I'm just a line segment.
Fry: A really hot line segment. - enantiodromia, on 07/14/2009, -0/+23in the late 80s, i heard about "blue lasers" and how one day we would be able to put movies on cd like disks which used a blue laser to read it.
it seems to take these R&D dudes decades to get anything to market. - bluehouse, on 07/14/2009, -1/+24I picked an arbitrary date to illustrate how we always see these exciting new developments but never see the results
- Inceptious, on 07/14/2009, -0/+20What the hell is PhysOrg smoking? "New Wonder Material" WTF
- 1x253, on 07/14/2009, -1/+19Imagine the bikini's!
- kylethompson1, on 07/15/2009, -0/+17You missed the joke 1x253. He was saying that you don't need the apostrophe. You're giving the bikini ownership with the apostrophe.
- uptwolait, on 07/15/2009, -1/+18It might slice so cleanly between atoms that no cellular or vascular damage even occurs.
That might make for a cool bar trick. - IClavdivs, on 07/14/2009, -2/+19Mystery of disappearing bees solved; They turned into scientists apparently.
- salculd, on 07/14/2009, -1/+17Imagine the bikini's what?
- alconebay, on 07/14/2009, -1/+15You must have forgot what you said in that first sentence.
- LordStryker, on 07/14/2009, -2/+13Yes, unfortunately this is how science works today. Promising 'potential' in research is quickly announced creating buzz and excitement for one reason: to get grant money or snag investors. This results in premature announcements with people racing to beat each other to the punch to be "the first" to say it with hardly anything to show for it (ie. implementation of mass production, sound consumer applications, etc.) Oh well. *sigh*
- danj484, on 07/14/2009, -0/+10The predominant material of choice at present is a bundle of carbon nanotubes, since they're basically graphene rolled into a tube. Unfortunately, they can currently only be grown to be a few hundred microns long. Graphene would probably be a good choice for the elevator itself though.
- AndrewDB, on 07/14/2009, -2/+12Ohhh. I thought it was one scientist thick and made atoms buzz.
- Hodor, on 07/14/2009, -6/+16one atom thick and it buzzes too!!
- nismerf, on 07/14/2009, -1/+11Yes but will it blend?
- cryonix, on 07/15/2009, -0/+10-- Mind -- Blown --
- marktastic, on 07/14/2009, -0/+9Please tell me you didn't intend to use "clothes" in that sentence.
- oehmer08, on 07/15/2009, -0/+8K, so you running for President in 2012?
- mfrancis107, on 07/14/2009, -2/+102020 would be a better estimate. If you think it's going to be 2130 then you are underestimating the growth of technology.
- chmodU, on 07/14/2009, -3/+11One atom thick eh?
So does it appear invisible when viewed from the side? - lazyrussian, on 07/14/2009, -0/+8Way to go off on a tangent.
Space elevators are possible, but you have to be a bit inventive on how you tether the whole thing together. You'd have to add support not only below the structure, but at different angles and different heights on the structure. Or you can build a whole sequence of these elevators and tether them to each other equidistantly for support. It's still in the realm of SciFi, but it will be possible to do with the right material, and the right setup. - BahamaBreeze, on 07/15/2009, -0/+7"In 20 years time, a graphene chip computer will be able to map DNA in seconds, simulate the most complicated physic models, and most importantly, run Crysis on Ultra high settings."
-Real scientist - jjvors, on 07/14/2009, -1/+8Human hair 1/100 inch.
Football field: 100 yards, 300 feet, 3600 inches, 360,000 hundredths by
50 yards, 150 feet, 1800 inches, 180,000 hundredths
equals: 64,800,000,000 (hundredths square) times $1,000 =
$64,800,000,000,000 - about $65 trillion simoleans.
Now, I assume that is the retail expense. If we can manufacture it at only $500/hundredth inch square, we would get $32 trillion in profit, pay off the national debt and have enough for health care for a couple of decades. - Traiklin, on 07/14/2009, -0/+6Super Atom ass kicker 9000!
- gilgamesh23, on 07/14/2009, -2/+8I can haz molecular edged sword?
- Czaja, on 07/14/2009, -3/+9Dugg for the Scotch Tape technique.
- aserer511, on 07/15/2009, -0/+5is is stronger than a diamond/mass, or is this article implying a one-atom thick sheet of this material would cut through a diamond, etc
- kenToneee, on 07/14/2009, -0/+5Graphene isn't like the newest thing... Carbon nanotubes are made out of rolled graphene sheets so it obviously predates CNT's. And...it's not stronger than diamond, diamond is tetravalently bonded, graphene is trivalent. It'll have revolutionary applications nonetheless.
- t3hNinj4, on 07/14/2009, -1/+6Umm... the last time I checked, Arnold didn't have a shell. I'm fairly the robots had good, old-fashioned endoskeletons in that movie.
- fwdkfwdkfwdk, on 07/15/2009, -0/+5but does it cure cancer yet?
well, since it's on digg, it must. - Sideshowslob, on 07/14/2009, -0/+4Very insightful.
- zueke, on 07/15/2009, -3/+7Graphite = pencil lead = so called 'bulk' graphene. You can't build a space ladder out of pencil lead, I assure you. The problem with any space elevator design is actually tensile forces, not compressive forces. ---->
The basic design for a space ladder is to counterbalance the part that sticks down by having half of the structure extend beyond the geosynchronous distance. If you do that, the whole thing balances its mass on the geosynchronous point, and basically floats like an iceberg in the ocean. IMPORTANT: The space ladder design isn't actually anchored to the ground, so it floats.
So the forces inside the cable at any point are VERY large tensile forces. Covalent materials, like graphene, diamond, or alumina all tend to have very low tensile strengths. The problem is that they all have point defects on a microscopic level (thanks to thermodynamics!!). The stress state near point defects is slightly higher, but the material can't deform at a micro-level because of the large bond length in covalent materials. Without a way for it to deform, the stress state can't be lowered, and the material tends to break rather suddenly and at a MUCH lower stress level than if it were loaded in compression.
Moral of the story? Graphene will never do it alone for a space ladder. If a space ladder ever works, it will be something like a nanotube + metal composite structure, where the nanotubes are embedded in something like the strongest titanium alloy ever made. The unfortunate problem is that none of the engineering alloy systems used today work well when you add carbon, in any form, to the material. Don't expect a space ladder before the year 2200.
Information sources: I'm getting a PhD in materials science. - Atario, on 07/14/2009, -0/+4Honeycomb's small, yeah yeah yeah
It's not big, no no no - y2ace2, on 07/15/2009, -0/+3Correct me if I am wrong, but essentially this is the exact same as carbon nano tubes but instead of tube/pill structures they are just single sheets of carbon atoms.
- inactive, on 07/15/2009, -0/+3Your first line is a horrific misquote of the article. You certainly can't build a space ladder out of pencil lead, no. Good luck with the PhD.
Graphite and Graphene aren't the same thing. FTA: "Graphite, the lead in a pencil, is made of stacks of graphene layers. Although each individual layer is tough, the bonds between them are weak, so they slip off easily and leave a dark mark when you write." - darkfish, on 07/15/2009, -0/+3Yes. FTW (For The Wings).
- orville1151, on 07/15/2009, -0/+3Can we have atomic bees with that?
- homercles337, on 07/14/2009, -1/+4I cant believe how old this is...
- enantiodromia, on 07/14/2009, -1/+4i have read that gold can be hammered to thin it becomes transparent. i haven't tried this my self however, but i cam looking for investors.
- unboring, on 07/15/2009, -0/+3"A few grams could cover a football field," said Rod Ruoff, a graphene researcher at the University of Texas, Austin, in an e-mail. A gram is about 1/30th of an ounce.
hahaha I love how the writer dumbs metric down for American, Burma (Myanmar) and Liberian citizens. -
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