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Nanotube Applications Grow And Grow
HobbySpacer writes "Carbon nanotubes are starting to transition from interesting laboratory curiosities into interesting technological applications. These apps include non-volatile RAM, flat screen displays, high strength fabrics, and smart skin for structures in aerospace and elsewhere. Perhaps if The Graduate was being made today, the one word for Benjamin Braddock's future would not be "plastics" but "nanotubes"."
And as far as commercial entities go, don't forget IBM's find back in September of 2002, which was making nanotubes with carbon instead of metal.
That's all fine and dandy, but a bullet proof piece of clothing 'as light as a t-shirt' wouldn't so squat. Kevlar is a pretty light material too, the reason bullet proof vests are so heavy is because of the large impact absorbing plates. Without some impact absorbance, the bullet would just end up dragging a whole bunch of cloth into the gaping hole in your chest. You have to have something to absorb the kinetic energy; and a t-shirt just doesn't cut it.
Will they be able to create wearable skin displays to make me invisible?
Ha, you can't see me now!!!
Is that a joke? If I didn't know any better I could've thought you were being serious.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Could be. But there could be some serious safety problems with nanites if they aren't addressed and worked with now. The bright side is that none of these problems would be hard to solve. I think something like proximity detectors could solve much of it. Other than that, I think this could be a groovy technology with benefits that really help mankind. Just a thought.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
While the strength inherent in the mithril is a component in resisting spear thrusts, it is in fact the Elfish magic that the armor has been imbued with that absorbs and dissipates the force of the blow. This is also the major factor in the delicious nature of Keebler cookies, which are also Elfish.
Variable sword
shadow square wire
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Another previously-unmentioned medical application of nanotubes involves liquid crystals. If the molecules of a material are in a liquid phase, yet are significantly longer than they are wide, they tend to line up, creating crystalline properties. Things that do this include the amphiphillic molecules in our cell membranes and many proteins, like that which causes Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad-Cow Disease). Using nanotubes as a nucleation site, scientists may be able to cause BSE proteins to clump up in infected cells, neutralizing the disease and effectively halting any spread. Cool. -Xander
That was in the Sourcebook Fields of Fire for the Shadowrun RPG. (and a damn fine gaming system it is too.)
The bulletproof clothing felt like gel when worn under normal conditions, but when subjected to a shockwave from a projectile or blast moving at or above the speed of sound it would harden into a bodycast of the wearer. After the shock had passed around the wearer, the armour would return to its fluid state. It was available in two models - the original bodysuit which made the wearer immobile until it had re-liquified, and the second-gen stuff which only hardened in the places hit.
The failure mode for a bad roll of the dice when defending against automatic weapons fire would the irreversible hardening of the suit into a permanent cast of the wearer.
A GM I played with allowed one of my teammates to take out a NPC wearing the armour with subsonic silenced rounds. Likewise, knives and arrows passed through it with no side effects other than releasing a vile poisonous goo from the punctured armour straight into the entry wound.
After that the remaining NPC Mercs wore kevlar and ceramic plates over their goo suits.