WEBVTT - Indestructible Materialism 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:15.400 Forward Thinking. Hey everybody, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:17.800 podcast that looks at the future and says we are 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:22.160 living in a material world. I'm Joe McCormick, I'm Lauren Volgabon, 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:27.040 and our host Jonathan Strickland is outsick today because modern 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:31.880 medicine isn't that good yet. Oh We're we're working on it. Um. 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.080 I was just kidding. It's pretty good, getting better every 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.239 day we do, according to Dr you know McCoy from 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.080 Star Trek. We're we're all we're all pretty silly right now. 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.280 But yeah, well so he is out and we hope 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.760 he's feeling better soon. But we're going to take you 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.040 on a little brain journey with the two of us. 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:53.279 And today we wanted to talk about following up with 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:58.760 a recent video that Jonathan recorded about indestructible materials, right 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.560 because because this whole Thoor film series has come out, 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:04.600 and so we were thinking a lot about Uru, the 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.000 mystical material that Thor's hammer is made out of, which 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:10.480 is completely indestructible. I don't know how much you can 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:14.679 really think about Uru, but I get what you're saying 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.120 I don't know. I've known some nerds that would probably 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.559 disagree with you, um, that have thought long and hard. 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.400 But but yeah, so so what I got there? Hard? 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:24.560 Oh I didn't even mean to pun. This is going 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:27.600 to be I'm sorry, guys. I apologize accidental puns or 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.640 even worse than ones on purpose. Okay, Well, what's the concept. 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.360 It's a it's a hammer that's like super hard. You 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.120 can't miss smash a lot of stuff with it without 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:42.280 making it smash. Yeah, which which material scientists are actually 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:44.120 working on? I mean maybe not in the thor hammer 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.120 applications specifically that I'm personally aware of. If if this 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:52.320 research is being done, it's not being reported to me personally. Um. 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:54.840 But but but I mean, but that would be pretty cool, right, 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.120 having having material that that you can do a lot 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.720 of stuff too and it doesn't get hurt. Yeah. Um, 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.520 So if we're on a search for an indestructible material, 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:06.560 I want to think about for a second, like what 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:10.640 that would really mean, because in one sense, you can't 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:16.079 really have an indestructible material because material is made of atoms, right, 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.760 and we know that even atoms themselves can be destroyed. Yeah, 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.920 atoms can be destroyed as in converted into energy in 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.160 a nuclear reaction. Right, That's what you do when you 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.919 split an atom to create break the protons of the 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.480 nucleus apart from from the electrons in a you know, 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.320 if if if you're really trying hard, but that's difficult 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.480 a splitting the atom. Yeah. So I think what we 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:44.640 mean when we're talking about indestructible materials is a a 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.400 material structure on a scale that's meaningful to us that 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.200 doesn't I'm gonna use an Internet word here, that doesn't 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:55.200 fail structurally. So it's a it's it would never make 0:02:55.240 --> 0:03:00.280 it onto the chemistry fail blog. Okay, yeah, I know 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.160 that makes sense. In terms of material science. When you're 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.480 talking about a a fail proof material, you can you 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.760 can talk about kind of three different categories. It's it's hardness, 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.680 which is going to be it's its resistance um to 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:16.960 to localized deformation a k A like scratching um. If 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.080 if you can poke it, scratch it, a braise it, 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:24.200 dent it um, then it's hardness is poor all right. Um. 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:26.720 Then you've got strength, which is the ability of a 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:33.079 material to withstand applied stress without fracture um without breaking right. So, 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.960 so within this category you've got like um tent sile strength, 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.480 which is pulling, and compressive strength, which is pushing. So 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:41.600 what we're talking about here is is yeah, like like 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.760 tearing or ripping or smooching on the other end of it. Okay, 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:50.680 you're not talking about being deformed, but about coming apart, right, right. So, 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.560 for for example, if you're talking about something really strong, 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:56.520 it would be um like like ceramics or metals, and 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.240 something really weak on on that scale would be something 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:02.120 like would oh okay that you know that that you 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:05.800 can can't you know ceramic You're not going to pull 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.000 on it and you're not going to shred it, but right, 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:10.680 And then that last category is going to be toughness, 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.080 which is um the the amount of energy and material 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:17.120 can absorb before it cracks or breaks or otherwise permanently deforms. 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.839 And that's how brittle an object is. So so going 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:22.880 back to like ceramics, ceramics are very strong but also 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.120 very brittle. Uh if you if you slack a hammer 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:27.960 at them, whether it's made of ub or not, it's 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.360 probably going to shatter into a billion pieces. Okay, So 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.799 it's not like rubber, right right, rubber is is also 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:37.200 very tough, but um, but not hard at all. It's 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.520 soft you can poke it and leave a dent and 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.600 uh and not extremely strong. At a certain point it'll 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.520 bust apart. Okay, So that's interesting. So we want to 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:52.240 talk about materials that are resilient in these different ways. Um, 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.880 But first of all, like do we really need this? 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.560 Like what would you actually use a material that's all 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.080 that hard for besides just a hammer? I mean, I 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:04.480 understand weapons and armor, but do we always have to 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.279 be so violent? Like can we use these in a 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:12.000 way that's that's nice. Well, going along with with armor, 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:14.359 I guess you could use it for stain resistant clothing 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.560 or stain proof clothing that's non violent and pretty cool. 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.200 Oh yeah, Actually, well lots of violence isn't caused by people, right, 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.440 So there's the violence that say an airplane with stands 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:28.760 when it's flying high speed against wind resistance. You could, 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.640 I guess build stronger airplane parts to like withstand all 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:38.880 that tension and what would you call it shaking? Yes, yeah? 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:41.160 Or um or or engine parts even if if you 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.039 if you make the plane engine out of parts that 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:47.200 are extremely strong, then you know, not having some some 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.400 part of an engine fail would be pretty good. Yeah, um, 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.080 you could think about I guess load bearing features too, 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:58.240 for building bridges and buildings and stuff like that. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.120 I if fewer bridge fail years over over the test 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.479 of time would be great. Yeah. Actually, a YouTube comment 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:09.200 or left a really cool comment on Jonathan's video, and 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:11.880 we we generally do have awesome YouTube commenters. But I'm 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:15.280 still personally a little bit just pleasantly shocked whenever someone 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.600 says something nice and not terrible YouTube. So so good 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.440 for good for you in particular, but but for thinking 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.720 viewers in general. Yeah, yeah, we love our people YouTube broadly. 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.880 You might be surprised if something nice happens. But yeah. 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:33.520 A commenter called the simulationist a little shout out there 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.159 on the video left a great suggestion. They said, what 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.560 about a sun probe? And I thought, oh wow, yeah, 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:44.160 by that, I assumed this person meant a solar probe, like, 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.400 you know, you're going to shoot into the body of 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.800 the Sun and send information back. Um, so that could 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.000 be really interesting. Now, that would be a certain specific 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.440 type of material resilience. It would need to survive super 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.760 high temperatures and gravity core, So I do want to 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.839 raise a question there. If we sent a probe straight 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.360 into the Sun, and that probe were built out of 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.360 some kind of magic material that meant it weren't destroyed, 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.640 I wonder if it would be able to transmit information 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.240 back to US UM because the Sun provides a lot 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:20.040 of radiation interference. Like even when you have a satellite 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.760 that's crossing across the sky, if when it's in transit 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.080 across the Sun, meaning you know, the Sun is right 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:30.040 behind it, we often have satellite outages because of the 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:33.480 interference caused by the Sun's radiation. So if something were 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.080 like going all the way into the Sun, I would 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.600 think that level of interference would be so strong it 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:40.960 would be hard to get any information back from it 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.680 at all. But sure, also I'm wondering, I'm wondering if 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:48.480 you could um broadcast out from inside a material that's indestructible. 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.480 That sounds like maybe you would run into problems. I 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.080 don't know, maybe, but still it's a cool idea, and 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.000 I like the way the person that Yeah, but let's 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:03.040 talk about some super strong or super hard or super 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:07.360 tough materials. What's out there, what's the best we got 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.960 Diamonds diamonds. Yeah, you always hear that, right, Diamonds they're 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:18.640 the strongest material, um, are they are? They not? Diamonds 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:23.840 are hard, meaning they they resist they have strong resistance 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.160 to indentation like we're talking about, so it's hard to 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.640 like scratch them. And so this is true that they're 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:32.840 very strong. I think for a long time people thought 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.520 they were the strongest material. Uh, turns out they're not. 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.400 Actually they're not even the hardest naturally occurring substance. Um 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.880 they once thought that. But I mean they're still pretty good. 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:49.000 We can use them for abrasive purposes, like diamond drill bits, right, 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:50.760 which are not made of pure diamond the way that's 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.559 a James Bond movie drill bit would would be made. 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.680 It just got diamond dust and an extremely extravagant drill. 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:01.200 I kind of kind of want that drill. I'm not 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.240 gonna lie the most lavish tool bench every Yeah it's 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:06.840 made of gold and you're just like drilling gold on 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:11.440 a Saturday for fun. Um No, So, but yeah, you 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:15.680 would have incorporated little pieces of diamonds to help make 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:18.400 it harder. Right, Because because although they may not be 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:23.400 the hardest naturally occurring substance. They're harder than many other things. 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.679 They had pretty much everything else. Yeah. So yeah, and 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:28.720 also you can you can like grind up diamond dust 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:33.200 and use that as like an abrasive paste. It's really powerful. 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:37.160 UM And actually funny little tidbit isn't totally related, but 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.600 I just couldn't resist. In case you all have never 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.280 heard of this, UM, there's at least one known exo 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.840 planet out there that may be made of diamond entirely 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:51.160 of diamond entirely. Not entirely, no, but but still a 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:56.520 significant significant portion of the planet may be made of diamonds. 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:01.440 It's can cree E. It's planet's about forty light years 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.040 away from this solar system and it's in the constellation 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:07.040 Cancer UM. And we don't know it's composition for sure, 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.680 but basically last year UM they looked at its transit 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:14.040 signature across the star in that solar system out there, 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:18.040 and based on that information, they deduced that it might 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.160 be a hard carbon planet, that it might a significant 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:26.800 amount of its structure might be pure diamond. Sweet, there's 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:28.640 the I. I just that just reminds me of this 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.240 Doctor Who episode where wherein they were stuck on a 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.320 diamond planet, and really terrifying things happened. It was very upsetting. 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:37.600 If they were on this planet would be terrifying because 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:41.319 it's like it's the hottest place ever just that there 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.720 ever was. I think, well that that would also not 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.520 be good uh less less good for resort stays. But 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.880 actually so that wouldn't Even if this planet were made 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.880 entirely of diamonds, it wouldn't be the hardest planet possible. Um. No, 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:57.880 you could make harder planets out of a couple of 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:01.280 other naturally occurring materials. Um. I'm going to refer to 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.480 the findings reported in a two thousand nine Physical Review 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:09.480 Letters paper called Harder than Diamond Superior indentation strength of 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:15.240 word site, boron nitride and lawnsdale light by Pan Sung 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.240 Jiang and Chin uh And that, yeah, that named a 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:20.240 couple of things that have been found in nature that 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:25.000 are actually harder than a diamond. And so word site 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.480 boron nitride and the molecule is born nitride. Word site 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.280 refers to the crystal structure of it, and that's formed 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.560 in volcanic eruptions. And apparently this stuff they found could 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:41.520 withstand eighteen percent more indentation stress than a diamond lawnsdale light. 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:45.360 Note how it just horribly Yeah, it doesn't unpleasant. These 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.120 names are tongue the way that diamond does. I mean. Also, 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.320 I guess there hasn't been entire industry selling me um 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.679 lawnsdalelight since I was a tiny child as a symbol 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.760 of hope for my romantic future. Yeah, Lonsdale eight is 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.679 basically it's a different form of diamond kind of it's 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:06.839 a hexagonally configured diamond. These hexagonal structures you're gonna see 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:10.319 are really important. But it's uh, it's found in tiny quantities, 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.679 I like in some meteorites sometimes, and it could withstand 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:19.040 fifty eight percent condentations dressed in diamonds. So these are 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.600 things you can find in nature, though admittedly in pretty 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.560 tiny quantities. All Right, you're not gonna just just stumble 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:27.520 across the whole rock of that. What if if you're 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:29.840 out for a walk or something. Yeah, Now, something you're 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:34.640 probably not going to find in nature is aggregated diamond 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:39.520 nano rods. Aggregated diamond nano rod sounds like an eighties 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:44.679 insult exact nano rod. Yeah, we're well, we're all nano 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.400 rods around here. But basically it's a It comes from carbon, 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.160 and a lot of these very resilient materials are made 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:53.880 of carbon um. But basically it's a way of processing 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:58.360 carbon high heat and pressure into this higher density diamond 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:01.560 form um and based. These things could also be really 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.400 useful in industrial settings like diamonds. Uh, they're a little 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:09.240 stronger and they could be used for machine ing or abrasives. Um. 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:15.320 They're basically like beefed up diamonds stuff. No, no, no, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:17.000 that's that's cool, and that makes sense a lot of 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:21.040 what we're talking about because because carbon is is a 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.760 type of atom that can bond really easily with other stuff, 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.000 including itself, it can form into all different um allotropes 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:29.640 of of carbon, which is where you get you know, 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:31.959 the fact that that graphite is one of the softest 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:34.920 naturally occurring substances that we know and diamond is one 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.560 of the hardest, and they're both made of the same stuff, 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.199 just arranged slightly differently. So so that's so that's fascinating. 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:43.280 This is this is all good. Well, I wanted to 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.880 give one more shout out something that occurs in the 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:51.000 natural world, again, not indestructible, but spider silk, right, yeah, 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:55.160 i'd i'd read about that. Um it's being ridiculously tensile. Yeah, 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:59.120 it's it's got a high tensile strength, which is different. Um. Basically, 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:00.920 what that means is you can pull it like a 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.079 rope without it snapping, and you can even know it's 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:10.000 a thread thread thin. Yeah, incredibly high weight load bearing 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:12.439 on that. So and that just comes out of a 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:17.000 spider's butt. So that's pretty impressive, right. Yeah. Not many 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.640 things that are that strong are made that easily. UM. 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:24.520 For for example, graphing is another one of these allotropes 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:26.800 of well, okay, it's it's graphing is a is a 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.000 single layer of carbon atoms that are arranged in this 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:32.640 hexagonal matrix. Um. So, so it's a single atom thick 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:37.440 sheet of graphite. UM. I'm not buying it. That's super 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:41.520 hard right now, It's really it's really, it's really quite hard. Um. Uh. 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:43.960 You know, graphites a crystal form of carbon, and so 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:48.400 when you get this this atom thick sheet, um, it 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:50.960 can be six times lighter and a hundred times stronger 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.240 than steel of the same thickness. Um. It's it's just 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.080 the way that it does. UM. I mean, basically, since 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:00.520 it's a technically a two dimensional object, or as close 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:03.200 as we can get to to a two dimensional object 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.880 that we can still perceive. Since it's an atom thick um, 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.880 you would have to bust apart the atoms to really 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.520 get it to break, which is not that easy to do. Unfortunately, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.240 it also comes I mean by by the time that 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.400 you've got graphine um. This this is what carbon nanotubes 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:20.640 are made of. Most of the time you're going to 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.240 roll it up into these into these couple atom thick 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:27.480 tubes of of awesome um that you can use to 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:31.000 do a lot of different stuff. I think carbon nanotubes 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:35.240 for me, they fit into the category of science magic 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.560 where it's like there are two main things. There's nanotechnology 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.560 and carbon nanotubes, and anytime you need magic to happen, 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:45.240 you just say, yeah, just put some carbon nanotubes in there. 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.240 It's one or the other. But but there may be 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:50.880 a good reason for that, because these things are pretty 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:54.600 dern magical. Yeah. And in addition to being that strong, 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.400 it's more conducive than copper. They can either emit or 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:02.480 absorb light depending on what you're having them do. Um. 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:05.520 One of my h they were okay, so so Graphing 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:09.120 was known about in theory for decades, but it was 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:13.240 never created in practice until around two thousand four. Assists 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.640 and researchers in a laboratory. Um, we're using scotch tape 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.520 like sellotape to to clean the surface of blocks of graphite. 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.040 And then all of a sudden they noticed they they 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.600 like pulled. They wanted to get it cleaner, and so 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:27.400 they were using the sticky stuff and then they pulled 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:29.160 it up and kind of noted that there was this 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:35.240 near translucent, very thin layers of graphite stuck to the 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:38.800 scotch tape. And they were like, oh, that's interesting. That's 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:41.720 the interesting parts. We were just throwing that away. You 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:44.040 put on your face to clean your pores. You've seen 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:48.240 those commercials, right, except it for graphic creates the hardest 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.320 substance on earth, right. Yeah, no, And this is a 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:54.840 legit scientific way of making sheets of graphing. Well, it's 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:56.680 a little bit thicker at that point. These days they're 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:01.480 using pretty precise, like heat scraping methods. I don't entirely 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.320 understand without looking at that a whole lot, but um, 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:06.679 but so okay, So, so you can use this kind 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.919 of stuff for I mean, the big one that everyone 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.600 is always excited about with graphine and carbon nanotubes is 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:15.800 space elevators, right, because you've you've got to make that 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:21.320 tether that so strong and so thin. Just a refresher 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.879 if you haven't listened to our space elevator episode. And 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:26.960 the idea is that you have a base on Earth 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.080 with a flexible tether running out into space to a 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:34.480 place in geo stationary orbit, and basically, um the two 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.160 forces are pulling, so gravity is pulling down on the tether, 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.280 and then the centrifugal force of spinning around with the 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.040 Earth is pulling up on the tether, getting it tout right, 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.000 and by both those forces pulling in the opposite directions, 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:49.520 it stays so that you can climb it with a 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.679 climbing vehicle. The problem is to make a tether like this, 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.280 it would have to be so strong it's just unthinkable, 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:58.680 all right, and the way that steel works, it would 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:01.080 have to be you know, like a you miles wide, 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.080 I think, in order to make it strong enough to 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.320 go that high. It's like something completely ridiculous, right, that 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.879 is just not practical in any way, um on on 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:15.080 a smaller scale, alright, So uh, typically speaking, your carbon nantitubes, 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.280 even in a really ideal lab environment, are only going 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:20.840 to be a few centimeters long. I think that researchers 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.960 just have made one that was like half a meter long, 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.960 and everyone is incredibly impressed by this. But researchers at 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:34.760 Rice University have created a UM a process called wet spinning, 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:38.000 which which kind of which kind of smooshes them together 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:40.040 and like like sort of dissolves them and then re 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.600 smoshes them in a very specific way that can form 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.920 this thread UM and then you can spin this threat 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.440 into spools and you can use it to for example, 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:53.160 both hang and power and LED lamp at the same time, 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:56.520 because because it's conducive and it's super strong and so 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:58.600 and so this is you know, that kind of process 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.160 I think is going to may be some day hopefully 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.360 lead us up to space elevators. But right now I'm 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.840 pretty impressed that they're hanging a lamp. That's pretty awesome, UM, 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.439 and elevators kind of like hanging lamp, a very large 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:17.320 geostationary lamp. Yeah yeah, sorry, please go ahead, no no, UM. 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:19.880 I was also going to say that, you know, people 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:24.320 talk about incorporating carbonana tubes into other materials like uh, 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.240 like like again the body of planes or cars. This 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.720 is going to It would make something that's very lightweight 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:34.000 but hypothetically very strong, which is good for for fuel 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.639 efficiency and all kinds of fancy stuff like that. Also, 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:39.800 since they're conducive, you could put them into stuff like 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.560 a like computer chips hypothetically and uh and make some 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:47.919 some really fancy stuff like that. Awesome. Yeah, I've actually 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:53.040 read about that being used in h microprocessors. But what's 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:55.960 the deal with carbine? Jonathan talked about it in the 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:57.919 video and he's not here to explain it to me, 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:05.080 all right. Carbine. Carbine is another allotrope of carbon more carbon. Specifically, 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:09.399 it is linear act alnic carbon I'm gonna go with 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:13.399 that pronunciation u uh, and it forms in a single 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:17.240 chain of atoms, the most successful form so far as pollens, 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:21.040 which are alternating single and triple atomic bonds in the 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.200 single chain. And since it's a single chain, it's sometimes 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:26.879 referred to as being a one dimensional object, as opposed 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:31.399 to the kind of two dimensional graphing plane, which is 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:34.080 not really um but it also doesn't I mean, okay, 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.920 so so people have kind of almost made it happen 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.040 in labs, but most of the time when they try 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.200 to create it in labs, it's sort of this black 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:44.000 goo at the bottom of a test tube that no 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.760 one can really do anything with. It mostly exists in 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:50.360 theory and as computer models because these things are just 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:54.080 just really hard to make and not superstable as of yet. Um. 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.959 But hypothetically the stuff could be twice as strong as 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:00.880 graphing in terms of tensile strength, and um three times stiffer, 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:06.399 like harder than diamond. So yeah, that's pretty good. Also, 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:08.920 when you twist it like ninety degrees from its normal state, 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:13.520 it could act as a magnetic semiconductor, so important stuff. 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.560 You know, it could be really lightweight and have a 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:19.600 huge surface area if you could, you know, create threads 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:21.919 of this and use those to create some kind of 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:26.480 three dimensional object, and therefore it could be amazing for 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:29.960 making like battery electrodes or chemical sensors, anything that you want. 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:33.639 Those those properties in space elevators. Again, space elevators, Yeah, 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.080 it's nice. The future is carbon related space elevators of 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:40.680 some kind. Well, so pretty much everything we've talked about 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:42.919 so far is carbon based. But I do you want 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:47.240 to talk about something with special properties that's not heard of, 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.320 super alloys. I have not to tell me about them, 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:53.719 super alloys, Okay. So basically they're they're alloy metals that 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:58.200 have good performance in extreme conditions. So you can think 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:00.880 about like nickel alloys and what they do. As they say, 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:05.400 it's strong at really really high heat, whereas something like steel, say, 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:10.520 might be weakened structurally by high heat. Yeah. These nickel 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:12.800 super alloys, you can heat them way up and they 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.440 still stay strong, and they also resist corrosion, and this 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:19.520 makes them ideal for stuff like gas turbine parts. So 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:22.480 it's really hot in there, they're not going to get 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:25.439 distorted or be more prone to breaking over time than 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.000 become brittle the way that right, normal metal might. Right, 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:31.760 So this would make them great, say in jet jet 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:37.440 engines for airplanes, or in like power generator hardware. Yeah. Um. 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:39.959 Also an interesting thing is that it was a nickel 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:43.680 alloy that Jonathan was talking about in the video when 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.560 he referred to the m I T scientists discovering the 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:52.080 self healing materials. Yeah yeah, yeah. So this was another 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:56.440 paper in Physical Review Letters published October. It was called 0:22:56.480 --> 0:23:01.440 Healing Nano Cracks by disclinations but zoo and dim cowits. 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:05.040 And essentially what this showed was that nano cracks, so 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:09.159 really tiny fractures in the in the plane of the 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:14.600 metal would repair themselves without being compressed together. Um. And 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:17.800