Scientists Unveil "World's Lightest Material"

[GothmogII]

Optical computers, genetic catalogs, nanorepair modules--forget all of that. It's when you see a megaton of steel suspended over your head by a thread the thickness of a human hair that you really find God in technology.

Oh Alpha Centauri, once again your predictions are coming to fruition.

Excellent...

 

[YawningAngel]

The bit where I stopped caring was when it went from 1.0mg/cm3 to 0.9mg/cm^3 in density. That doesn't sound like it makes much of a difference to a real-world application. In any case, this record is about technological advancement and more about how much you can remove before something stops being a 'material' and starts being air with a few loose strands of fibre in it.

 

[walrusaurus]

behold the next new thing your government will waste literally trillions of dollars on.

That much multistage nano-fabrication is going to be ridiculously expensive.

 

[Valagetti]

So its a little like carbon-fibre, but on steroids?
So I know what my new bike frame will be made out of!

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Even lighter then aerogel?

Looks like it's in the same range, and the lightest form of this that they've made may even be slightly lighter than the lightest aerogels. They have extremely different properties otherwise, though, so they'd have very different uses.

 

[StANDY1338]

Its almost like, carbon fiber nano tubes?

 

[BehattedWanderer]

The material's architecture allows unprecedented mechanical behavior for a metal, including complete recovery from compression exceeding 50 percent strain and extraordinarily high energy absorption.

Wow. That is some nice recovery. Elastic deformation like that in a metal is pretty rare. So, awesome. And hooray for nanomaterials.

Yeah, I was pretty surprised by this. There's a video that shows just how well the material handles this much strain that's pretty crazy looking:

<youtube=GlGvL1CMl5E>

Whoa. 98% recovery to initial size? That's quite impressive. I wonder what kind of load they're applying.

 

[Racecarlock]

I wonder if I'll wake up next week and personal space ships will have been invented. Then maybe I could live out my wing commander fantasies. Or orbiter flight sim fantasies at least.

 

[Cyfu]

AWESOME! and they should call it Mithril. that would be fucking awesome!

 

[Leemaster777]

So... much... science... I'm beginning to feel like the Professor:


As for a name, I agree that Mithril would be a kickass name indeed.

 

[Logic 0]

Who would not want to wear a suit of that stuff?

 

[kouriichi]

So the worlds best chainmail armor will be made of tiny suits of chainmail armor connected by even tinier pieces of chainmail armor?

Wonder how well it handles a mace.....

 

[algalon]

It's actually a series of tubes!

 

[Dott]

Any chance that I can get my bones made out of this stuff so that I can fly?

People have been using orbital drops in science fiction for ages.
Now we can just jump out of planes and glide merrily into the fray.

 

[The Code]

Inb4 'Mithril'.

Holy shit, I really am 'inb4' Mithril! Yeah, I thought Mithril.

I better not be the only one who thought of the line "light as a feather, hard as dragon scales" when I read that.

DO IT.

 

[Volkov]

Flammability?

 

[Sir Shockwave]

Two fun thoughts -

A) Someone's invented Sturginium.

B) FINALLY we have a lightweight and strong metal good enough for making Giant Robots out of X3

 

[CulixCupric]

Inb4 'Mithril'.

Holy shit, I really am 'inb4' Mithril! Yeah, I thought Mithril.

light as a feather, and as strong as dragon scales.

 

[ExileNZ]

FOR SCIENCE!!!

(Yes, I did just finish Portal 2).

Seriously though, that's some pretty impressive metal, particularly its recovery rate.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I will be angry if they don't call this mithril. Let it be called mithril. For the love of god, name this marvel mithril.