Adamantite! Rearden Metal! Uru! Durasteel! Dalekanium! Unobtanium! Thousands of fictional characters have fought and died for these equally fictional supermaterials. So what is the real-life strongest substance on our puny, sun-warmed planet?
It can be bent into a U-shape, “heals” cracks with nothing more than rainwater, and is strong enough to build bridges from. Is Victor Li’s composite building material really even concrete anymore?
Two materials, lonsdaleite and wurtzite, have just been recognised as being harder than diamonds. Lonsdalite, similar to diamonds that its made from carbon, is formed during asteroid impacts, and is 58% harder than its cousin. Wurtzite boron nitride is formed during heavy volcanic eruptions and can be up to 18% harder than diamonds.
The folks at Popular Mechanics have put together a collection of 16 high-tech materials that we could find in future products. Of that group, we have selected some of our more obscure favorites.
Wood paneling and silver-painted plastic used to be cool; so I wonder when our current metal and glass gadgets will go out of style, and if so, what will future gadgets be made from?
Graphene looks like it’s going to be one of the “wonder materials” of the future, and a science team at Cornell University has just demonstrated the world’s smallest balloon made of it. They stuck sheets of graphene over microscopic wells (1 to 100 square micrometers) cut into silica glass, trapping gas inside. By varying the pressure in the wells, they could make the graphene bulge inwards or outwards like a balloon, and the membranes proved pretty resilient: They could withstand several atmospheres of pressure. Though, like real birthday party balloons, the gas leaked out after a few days, it apparently did so through the glass, not the graphene. These tiny air pockets may have future uses as micro-sized weighing scales or even precise pressure sensors: It’s another case of an invention waiting to find a use. [New Scientist]
Researchers in Japan and at Penn State have come up with a ceramic material that allows people to heat up their food twice as fast, allowing them to spend less time staring at the microwave and more time living their (read: our) rich, fulfilling lives. The new cookers are made up of 20% magnetite and 80% petalite, which unlike traditional bowls, heat up alongside the food so that the food isn’t passing off heat by warming up the bowl. As an added bonus, the container stays hot for 15 minutes, meaning you really need oven mitts to transport this thing, Jason Statham style. If you can’t wait for technology to catch up here, it’s already on sale in Japan. [Live Science]
