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Transparent Concrete

Posted by michael on from the mandated-by-anti-terrorism-act-of-2004 dept.

rakerman writes: "The Economist reports in How to see through walls that development is underway on translucent concrete, with hopes of eventually developing transparent concrete. Can transparent aluminium be far behind?"

1 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Transparent aluminum by Hal-9001 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Such a material already exists--in fact it predates human civilization. It's called Al2O3, or alumina, and more commonly known as sapphire (or it's chromium-doped cousin, ruby). It has a hardness of 9 out of 10 on the Mohs scale (the only harder material I know of is diamond) and is transparent in the absence of impurities. However, it is not an alloy--it's a crystalline oxide.

    Metallic aluminum cannot be transparent except in thin films; this will be explained in a reply to the top-level post in this thread.

    --
    "It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."