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Carbon Magnets At Room Temperature

Posted by chrisd on from the spin-me-right-round-baby dept.

Bolie writes: "Trying to make high temperature super conductors yielded an unexpected result. The pure carbon bucky ball material was put under pressure to make sheets. That worked. Picture microscopic bubble pack. But the result was a sheet that was magnetic at room temperature. It has not escaped the attention of the discoverer, Tatiana Makarova, that this might be useful for a non-metallic computer memory. The material is also lighter than metals, flexible and transparent. Lasers anyone?"

10 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Transparent? by Psiren · · Score: 5, Funny

    Transparent as in transparent aluminium, ala Trek? Can I build my whale tank now? ;)

  2. Why we will never see it come to market... by motherhead · · Score: 4, Funny

    Also, Makarova's material is flexible and transparent, properties that could make it useful for storing data when a laser is used to record on it. It might also be possible to record data at unprecedented densities.

    Man, this is really going to piss off Hillary Rosen...


  3. Re:Why the exotic ideas? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
    Why is any new discovery automatically thrown into the PC composnents arena, even when there is no actual connection?

    Because his is Slashdot. There's no one here except computer geeks. If you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

  4. Forget about Laser Memory.... by tonywestonuk · · Score: 4, Funny

    What about a new 'cool' translusent colored Fridge magnet!

    1. Re:Forget about Laser Memory.... by G-funk · · Score: 3, Funny

      Funny, except you know this is where it'll end up :-)

      And when we stick the shopping list on the fridge with our imac-coloured see-through magnets, we can tell our kids of the time when magnets had were all made of metal, and they'll look at us funny like we're older than god. I can see it now....

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money!
  5. Re:minus signs by morie · · Score: 2, Funny

    The error is in the word "higiest" alright... :-)

    --
    Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
  6. Picture microscopic bubble pack... by morie · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... to wrap microscopic hardware parts. Finally we've found a solution to that one!

    --
    Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
  7. The shape of a bucky ball... by Phrogz · · Score: 4, Funny
    The article says:
    Tatiana Makarova...discovered the material while experimenting with buckyballs, football-shaped molecules made up of 60 carbon atoms.

    I figure most geeks on slashdot already know what a buckyball looks like; just in case, for the U.S. readers, this means soccerball-shaped...

  8. Re:Carbon chemistry by Bobo+the+Space+Chimp · · Score: 5, Funny

    Picard: Is it a carbon-based life form?

    Data: No

    Picard: Is it a silicon-based life form?

    Data: No

    Picard: Is it a germanium-based life form?

    Data: No

    Picard: Neon?

    Data: No

    Picard: Uranium?

    Data: You're just guessing, aren't you?

    --
    I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
  9. Re:wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    Absolute zero is not -253.15 deg C, it is -253.15 deg C.

    But he did write 253.15. Or maybe you are using IE 5.5, which occasionnally displays a seven and sixes as fives. This feature is supposed to only kick in when displaying prices of Microsoft server software in order to make them look friendlier, but apparently, here it misfired...