Vantablack: The blackest material on Earth
Posted by Michelle Moquin on June 25th, 2016
Good Morning!
For you science freaks, this is cool.
From Science Alert:
WATCH: The blackest material on Earth can make dense metal float
One of the very first things you’ll learn in science class is that if something is denser than water, it sinks. A rock or a hunk of metal is denser than water, so no surprises what happens when you chuck one of those into a pond, but styrofoam is less dense than water, so it floats. Strangely enough, crude oil is slightly less dense than salt water, so that’s why it floats on the surface of the ocean.
Now that we’ve established the rules, let’s break them, using the coolest material ever – Vantablack, the blackest material on Earth.
In the video above, scientists from Surrey Nanosystems – the British company that invented Vantablack back in 2014 - demonstrate how the material is somehow able to make an aluminium disk float in a tub of water.
As you can see in the footage, both the aluminium and the water aren’t particularly happy about the situation, because the water is doing everything it can to bulge up and over the aluminium, but the incredibly hydrophobic Vantablack coating keeps repelling it away.
When the aluminium is dunked and retrieved from the water, it’s completely dry.
So what the hell is this physics-breaking substance? It might look like it, but Vantablack isn’t a paint, pigment, or fabric – it’s a special coating made from millions of carbon nanotubes, each one measuring around 20 namometres by 14 to 50 microns (1 nanometre equals 0.001 microns).
According to Surrey Nanosystems, a surface area of just 1 cm squared would contain around 1,000 million of these nanotubes.
When it was first unveiled back in 2014 as the blackest material ever produced, it could absorb all but 0.035 percent of visible light, making it borderline invisible to our eyes. In March, the team managed to make it even more black, and claimed that no spectrometer in the world is powerful enough to measure how much light it absorbs.
The reason Vantablack can render a dense aluminium disk buoyant is because, not only is it incredibly black, it also has ultra-low surface energy. As the video above explains, the coating’s low surface energy combined with the area of the disk helps to give it positive buoyancy. So cool.
To see more of this crazy stuff in action, here’s the newest iteration of the immeasurably black Vantablack:
!!!!!
Pretty cool huh? What’s on your mind this morning?
Blog me.Â
Thanks for being here with me!
Erica: It is one of the reasons why I am so pro Hillary. Sympathy only gets you so far, and as we women have seen and experienced, it doesn’t take us far enough. Men will never be able to empathize with us women. Only a woman can do that. It’s time we women ban together and as you say, “…vote the male misogynistic bastards out.” I’m with ya.
George/WP: You know I don’t hate men. I hate the things they do. You’ve been here long enough – you should know that by now. For once I agree with you and plan to do that. Just watch me.
DSCC: Nicely stated. I too cannot stress enough that Hillary needs those coattails…long and flowing. It’s up to us to get off of our lazy asses and give them to her. I HOPE America gets it.
Social Butterfly: Thanks for posting, Loved it. If so many are for gun control laws, and we know the majority are, we/they need to speak out and call Congress. There is no more sitting through silence and wishing things would change. We the people have to demand change.
Wayne: Thank you for posting this. It is just so sickening to me. I signed the petition from MoveOn. I encourage everyone else to sign as well.
Helen: My pleasure. I thought of getting a Samsung but decided to go with the iphone for convenience since I have a mac. The camera on the Samsung is such a better quality than the iphone 5s. I hope you’re enjoying it.
Right on, MoveOn.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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June 26th, 2016 at 5:59 am
Michelle, I don’t think for a moment you will get women to unite against men. Most women are not butch like you. They need a strong man to look after them.
Most of them know that we come with a firm touch. So if they get out of line we spank that ass.
God made man the head of the household for a reason. That reason was so we could control the bitch. Do your damnedest. This is not like when you got them to vote in that nigger.
I’ll admit that probably some white sluts voted for the nigger so they could have an excuse to bring a picture of a black man into a white man’s home.
We took care of that by declaring that the nigger wasn’t a legal POTUS since he wasn’t born here. Therefore
anything the nigger did would not be acceptable.
Then we told our bitches not to bring anything that was a reflection of his illegal holding of that office into out homes, especially any picture of that nigger.
We have control of both houses of Congress. We had control of the Judiciary and we will again when we take control of the White House.
God has given the White man his destiny. We will control the world from the seat of the Greatest nation on earth, the United States of America.
Firewood, niggers, tacos, and muds will learn who their masters are. This time we won’t be stopped by NLBs.
June 26th, 2016 at 8:04 am
Even from the view point of this white man, you are sick George.
June 26th, 2016 at 8:07 am
Thanks for this post Michelle. I think this is some cool stuff with enormous potential.
June 26th, 2016 at 8:15 am
I thought I was among a few older Californians looking to continue to work pass my 65th, but after reading this I am appalled.
“…residents are rushing out of California in droves for many reason, least of which is the high cost of living. For those older California residents that choose to stay however because they simply can’t uproot their lives and start “fresh” somewhere else, the reality is even more gruesome as they have no choice but to continue working into their retirement years. More than 740,000 Californians between the ages 65 and 74 are still employed or looking for work the Sacramento Bee reports, and the reasons are largely attributable to money.
The republicans have given so many tax breaks to the rich that there is no more middle class. We just have to toil till we die.
June 26th, 2016 at 8:29 am
If you’re headed out to attend the parade today, enjoy yourself, celebrate and expect to see more police officers than in past years.
New security measures, announced on Monday, include checkpoints with metal detectors at every entrance to the official Pride festival at San Francisco’s Civic Center. Bags will be subject to search and no bags larger than 18 by 18 inches will be allowed.
“We ask that people plan accordingly, and please be patient if there is a wait to get in,” said George Ridgely, SF Pride executive director. “We expect this could create delays.”
For more information visit KQED’s News Fix article, and see a full list of security measures on the San Francisco Pride website.
June 26th, 2016 at 8:31 am
One of the most memorable moments of my presidency was one year ago today, on a warm summer night, when we lit up the White House in the colors of the rainbow flag. It was hours after the Supreme Court had ruled that love is love, and all marriages would be equal under the law.
It was a powerful symbol here at home, where our fellow Americans could finally feel accepted and whole in a country that recognized the love they share. It was also a beacon for LGBT people here and around the world that we are still fighting for the fullness of equality.
When you divide the world into “us” and “them,” and denigrate and express hatred because of skin color or faith or sexual orientation, you feed something very dangerous.
And so we have to keep on pushing. We have to keep pushing to make sure our LGBT brothers and sisters are not attacked, or even killed, for just being who they are. We have to keep pushing to make sure jobs are not being denied and people aren’t being fired because of their sexual orientation. We have to keep pushing to make sure every single member of our American family feels welcomed and valued and loved.
So while we can celebrate incredible victories like we did on June 26th, 2015, we also have to remember that history doesn’t just travel forward. It can go backwards if we don’t work hard. We can’t be complacent when it comes to securing the gains we’ve made. And that means we have to vote, because we have the opportunity this November.
June 26th, 2016 at 8:39 am
Hafa Adai:
We celebrated Pride Day yesterday,but I wanted those of you on the mainland to know:
Guam was the first territory to legalize same sex marriage when the Guam Marriage Equality Act of 2015 lapsed into law without the governor’s signature nearly a year ago. Senator Nerissa Bretania-Underwood introduced Bill 119-33, which seeks to provide equal protection for all families in Guam by creating equality in civil marriage.
The law aligns local statute with a federal court order issued on June 5, which prohibited the Guam government from banning same-sex marriage based on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Latta v. Otter. District Court of Guam Chief Justice Frances Tydingco-Gatewood’s order took effect on June 9.
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Have a good and safe one.
Anna
June 26th, 2016 at 8:54 am
Hello, Michelle. Just got back. Decided to go see the story of me. Not quite right, but it is true in many places.
Let’s talk. Will call.
June 26th, 2016 at 10:19 am
[…] George, WP: Lol. Butch?! That is the first time anyone has ever called me that. What a hoot. I will have to add that to my list of “interesting” terms men have given me. […]