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Transparent Aluminum Is Here
Alien54 writes "Scientists in the US have developed a novel technique to make bulk quantities of glass from alumina for the first time. (link includes a picture of samples) Anatoly Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy alumina (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce strong glass with good optical properties. The method avoids many of the problems encountered in conventional glass forming and could, say the team, be extended to other oxides (see also: A Rosenflanz et al. 2004 Nature 430 761). Scotty would be pleased."
Yes. It seems that he didn't pollute the time-line after all.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
The whales will have a safe journey home!
Now I can watch as the food in the fridge turns green... Ye-hah!
Glass breakthrough
11 August 2004
Scientists in the US have developed a novel technique to make bulk quantities of glass from alumina for the first time. Anatoly Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy alumina (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce strong glass with good optical properties. The method avoids many of the problems encountered in conventional glass forming and could, say the team, be extended to other oxides (A Rosenflanz et al. 2004 Nature 430 761).
Glass is formed when a molten material is cooled so quickly that its constituent atoms do not have time to align themselves into an ordered lattice. However, it is difficult to make glasses from most materials because they need to be cooled -- or quenched -- at rates of up to 10 million degrees per second.
Silica is widely used in glass-making because the quenching rates are much lower, but researchers would like to make glass from alumina as well because of its superior mechanical and optical properties. Alumina can form glass if it is alloyed with calcium or rare-earth oxides, but the required quenching rate can be as high as 1000 degrees per second, which makes it difficult to produce bulk quantities.
Rosenflanz and colleagues started by mixing around 80 mole % of powdered alumina with various rare-earth oxide powders -- including lanthanum, gadolinium and yttrium oxides. Next, they fed the powders into a high-temperature hydrogen-oxygen flame to produce molten particles that were then quenched in water. The resulting glass beads, which were less than 140 microns across, were then heat-treated -- or sintered -- at around 1000C. This produced bulk glass samples in which nanocrystalline alumina-rich phases were dispersed throughout a glassy matrix. The new method avoids the need to apply pressures of 1 gigapascal or more, as is required in existing techniques.
Click to enlarge
Aluminate glasses
The 3M scientists characterised the glasses using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis, and tested the strength of the materials with hardness and fracture toughness tests. They found that their samples were much harder than conventional silica-based glasses and were almost as hard as pure polycrystalline alumina.
Moreover, over 95% of the glasses were transparent (see figure) and had attractive optical properties. For example, fully crystallized alumina-rare earth oxide ceramics showed high refractive indices if the grains were kept below a certain size.
Author
Belle Dumé is Science Writer at PhysicsWeb
I am beginning to suspect that the whole idea of sci-fi is in fact a future society time-travelling back every now and then to make a new 'Star Trek' film to nudge society onto a slightly different path
The number of Star-Trek-driven ideas that have become reality is astounding -
Ok, we're missing the big one, warp drive, but apparently we have to have a war that more or less wipes out humanity first, so I'll be happy to give it a miss in my lifetime...
Oh yeah, FOR [insert deity]'s SAKE, STOP THE WHALING!!!
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
who doesn't know the difference between Alumina and Aluminum.
What next, suggesting people use the silicon in their computers as a breast implant?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
...but I still can't do something primitive like use my mouse to talk to the computer.
The first thing that came to my mind as well...
Oh who am I kidding, there are already a bunch of them by now...
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Aren't many jewels aluminum compounds?t s/13.html
google search of rubies and aluminum:
http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elemen
Alumina (aluminium oxide) is not the same as aluminium, that's like saying that water ice(hydrogen oxide) is 'Transparent Hydrogen'.
Alumina or corundum as the natural material is known, is found in nature as a clear mineral - different colour variations give you Ruby and Sapphire.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
And the rest of the story,... is available on DVD!
As glass itself is technically not a solid but a slow-moving liquid would glass not made from silica have the same general properites as "normal" glass?
I generally think of glass as being very inert for example. Anyone know if this would be the case if the glass was composed of differant substances?
(chemistry maybe?)
Ok, I have a college degree, but not in science. After reading the article, my head's swiming in gigapascals and moles. Here's my idiot's summary: They mix it with some stuff, get it really hot, and cool it down really fast (in water), but not as fast as some other stuff, and you can kinda see through it, but looking at the pics, not very well. I was feeling pretty stupid until I noticed this was on physicsweb.com. That made me feel better. At least I understand the stuff posted on devshed and onlamp...
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
We're so far behind on launching ubermenchen into deep space on the Botany Bay. And where's Voyager VII?
That's great!
But in August? Not so much...
With that technology, we can create Alumina Bullet Proof Glass... That's great.
How about building with alumina windows ? Beter Resistance to fire and EarthQuake ?
It's a good discovery. Realy.
Scotty: How do we know he didn't event the damn stuff?
Isn't Aluminum a major constituant part of Alumina? (along with Oxygen)... Seams to me that that makes the term 'Transparant Aluminum' valid.
One of the great things about sci-fi as a thematic backdrop (be it literature or movies/tv) is that it alone of all the genres has the possibility of inspiring a tangible effect upon the real world.
I remember an interview with James Doohan where he said his greatest pride that came from his career was that he inspired other people to pursue careers where they could make a difference to the world. How many engineers became engineers or went into sciences because of Star Trek?
I'm familiar with the Arthur C Clarke suggesting satellites; I doubt a similar cause/effect with Star Trek IV happened here. However, the similarities are cool, and at least with this genre there is the POSSIBILITY of changing the world for the better.
PS Fortunately such transitions from sci-fi fantasy to real world are few and far between. 90%+ of tv SF and pulp SF is dreck, and I myself and not looking forward to a Brave New World...
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
.. oh... joy.
E.
Never rub another man's rhubarb - The Joker
10 bucks goes to the first company/person to make me a case out of this stuff.
Only 20 comments and the server is toast...anyone have a mirror?
Thats really neat. I geuss many inventors get ideas from Sci-Fi and try to work out solutions like that. Kinda cool. http://jesuspower.spymac.net
__ Jesus Loves you! He died in your place so you would not have to die and go to Hell.
Yea, but I want the cool thing to wear on my shirt.... hey that's a good idea for a cellphone company :)
Tibbon
tibbon.com
He traded the formula of Transparent Aluminum for sufficiently strong plexiglass for the tank.
Wonder woman would be all over this... this is the missing ingredient for the ever elusive "invisible plane".
Seriously though, this has crazy applications. Imagine all the things you could make with this stuff:
Windshields that bend instead of crack, providing protection during an accident
Pairs of glasses that won't break
No more broken windows because the kid down the street hits a baseball at your house.
There seem to be virtually limitless applications, assuming the optical properties are similar to that of glass, which the article alludes to.
Why not link to the article on transparent alumina as well? Though it needs a slight update, mind you.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Where are all the crazy modders?
;-)
;-( ]
- Transparent aluminum case
- Transparent hard drives
- Transparent power supplies
All without voiding your warranty
And for military uses - the sky is the limit (really - think about it...)
Get a free ipod [it really works - my buddy just got his... should have believed it earlier
Is nothing new - it's called corundum or as you more probably know it, sapphire (or ruby when it is red).
And hard is only one part of the story. Glass is hard, yet I wouldn't want to make structural elements of an aircraft from large hunks of glass... Aluminum is light and Tough (high energy to break). It is also ductile (deforms before breaking) something that no ceramic is...
So, while this is cool, and will probably be used for super scratch proof layers on spyplane camera transparencies or something like that where they can afford something like this, it isn't what you think it is.
As an aside, translucent alumina is used in something you see everyday - sodium vapor lamps use alumina to encapsulate the sodium metal that they use as their filament.
+++ ATH0 +++
There is some debate, the scientific consensus at the moment is that (ordinary) glass is NOT a liquid. Wikipedia has some interesting background info on this discussion.
In general, the composition of glass makes a huge different in properties such as hardness, inertness, transparancy and color. In ordinary glass, CaO is added to lower solubility in water and various other solvents.
The communicators in star trek go over subspace and can carry instantanious signals over huge distances, right through planets and stars. A mobile phone has a range of something like a kilometer and is easily blocked by something as trivial as a mountain.
...only a die-hard trekkie would bother to point that out.
Glass may flow, but it does so very very very slowly. As in "age of the entire universe" slowly.
Is it region coded? In 2367 can one finally get a region free dvd?! And, finally, what everyone wants to know is, did the copyright on mickey finally expire?!
Does this mean that we'll soon be getting more durable Post-it Notes?
Read any good sonnets lately?
Since Alumina is the same stuff that's naturally occuring in gems like rubies, does that mean they'll be able to create rubies synthetically?
Star Trek IV was on CBS on Saturday night. I stayed up to watch the transparent aluminum scene -- who knew the real thing was coming just 2 days later?
MORTAR COMBAT!
Now I can build myself that Wonder Woman jet I always wanted!
Woohoo! This means I can build myself a covert tinfoil hat!
I'm gonna be upgrading to a transparent aluminium HELMET!
(complete with transparent aluminium visor, batteries not included, some assembly required)
While we're at it, where's Voyager III? I guess we can file this under late-1970's-NASA-plans-that-got-scrapped...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
"Attractive optical properties" must be nerd talk for "pretty"...
Seems a couple other people beat me to rebuking this, but I figured I'd throw another link in just in case there is any lingering doubt.
Glass is not a liquid. Glass is an amorphous solid.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
okay is this stuff better than what eye doctors use for glasses now. I'm sick of my 8 year old always breaking his glasses or scratching them so will this stuff survive a growing kid for reading glasses?
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
Now I can make a transparent tinfoil^H^H^H^H^H^H^Haluminum foil hat!
Take-off every
Glass breakthrough
11 August 2004
Scientists in the US have developed a novel technique to make bulk quantities of glass from alumina for the first time. Anatoly Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy alumina (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce strong glass with good optical properties. The method avoids many of the problems encountered in conventional glass forming and could, say the team, be extended to other oxides (A Rosenflanz et al. 2004 Nature 430 761).
Glass is formed when a molten material is cooled so quickly that its constituent atoms do not have time to align themselves into an ordered lattice. However, it is difficult to make glasses from most materials because they need to be cooled -- or quenched -- at rates of up to 10 million degrees per second.
Silica is widely used in glass-making because the quenching rates are much lower, but researchers would like to make glass from alumina as well because of its superior mechanical and optical properties. Alumina can form glass if it is alloyed with calcium or rare-earth oxides, but the required quenching rate can be as high as 1000 degrees per second, which makes it difficult to produce bulk quantities.
Rosenflanz and colleagues started by mixing around 80 mole % of powdered alumina with various rare-earth oxide powders -- including lanthanum, gadolinium and yttrium oxides. Next, they fed the powders into a high-temperature hydrogen-oxygen flame to produce molten particles that were then quenched in water. The resulting glass beads, which were less than 140 microns across, were then heat-treated -- or sintered -- at around 1000C. This produced bulk glass samples in which nanocrystalline alumina-rich phases were dispersed throughout a glassy matrix. The new method avoids the need to apply pressures of 1 gigapascal or more, as is required in existing techniques.
Aluminate glasses
The 3M scientists characterised the glasses using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis, and tested the strength of the materials with hardness and fracture toughness tests. They found that their samples were much harder than conventional silica-based glasses and were almost as hard as pure polycrystalline alumina.
Moreover, over 95% of the glasses were transparent (see figure) and had attractive optical properties. For example, fully crystallized alumina-rare earth oxide ceramics showed high refractive indices if the grains were kept below a certain size.
Author
Belle Dumé is Science Writer at PhysicsWeb
Transparent Aluminum Is Here
NO IT ISN'T! Commercially developed transparent Alumina (think clear ruby/sapphire) is here, HUGE difference. Sorry Trek fans, you will have to wait longer. There will be no clear planes, no clear cases made of Alumina. If cases were transparent Alumina then they would have the same properties as silica glass and you would have a nice greenhouse effect going on slowly (or not so slowly) frying your computer.
Alumina is a mineral/glass/ceramic, Aluminum is a metal!
Rosenflanz and Gildenflurn are dead!
sorry, go ahead mod me down. I couldn't help it!
Download my free songs!
Remember, an Ion Drive powered the Deep Space 1.
"Nobody writes jokes in base 13." - Douglas Adams
Somehow, I get the feeling that Apple is going to use this for the next gen of PowerBooks.
(It's a joke -- all the materials scientists don't need to correct me.)
-"Zow"
Well, Hydrogen in gaseous and liquid forms already is transparent... but there's another form of hydrogen that is silvery and opaque: Metallic Hydrogen which can exist under extreme pressures such as the core of Jupiter and Saturn. It is theorized that metallic hydrogen would look a lot like molten lithium, perhaps even a lighter silver, almost white, if you could view it.
As If a million Startrek geeks cryed out in joy.
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
From the article in Nature:
Similarly, when the grain size is maintained below the scattering limit, the fully crystallized Al[2]O[3] REO ceramics exhibit attractive optical characteristics including high refractive index (1.8 and higher) and transparency through the mid-infrared range.
Cool. Finally something to tackle the 1.8 barrier, and smaller glasses for me. 8-)
That would be coolest thing since stubbies!
Live forever, or die trying.
Sure it's been said but bears repeating.
If you have a high quality watch it is likely that the crystal is made from polycrystalline alumina (i.e. corundum...in this case synthetic corundum). The alumina glass is different however in the fact that it is a glass and therefore lacks crystal structure.
Since it doesn't have to be crystallized it is likely that it will be able to be produced in large sizes. However, being a glass it is not going to have the malleable properties of aluminum metal and will probably shatter if hit hard enough.
I love the way they can "resequence your DNA", or reconstruct the cell damage from nano parasites...whatever... all while you are alert and aware...by waving a blue flashlight over you.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Now that's a headline I'd get excited about.
I'd love a pair of sapphire-lensed sunglasses.
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
I once knew a guy who had this great idea to use aluminum oxide on DVDs and CDs to prevent scratching. He said the disks could be bulletproof, scratchproof, and unbreakable, although I think he was exagerating...
If that was the case, that would be an AWESOME application for this. Although the MP/RIAA would see that as a reason for preventing backup copies of your media. I mean, if the disk can't be damaged, why would you need a backup? Although you could still lose it or have it stolen...
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
May I be the first to welcome our new light-weight, translucent overlords!!!
"If cases were transparent Alumina then they would have the same properties as silica glass and you would have a nice greenhouse effect going on slowly (or not so slowly) frying your computer."
No they wouldn't, unless you leave your computer out in the sun or something.
We're way past the point where the heat inside a computer would simply be dissipated through the case. We now rely on fans to push warm air out and suck colder air in.
We've been past that point for over a decade. Even in an old 286 you likely had ar least the PSU fan.
Nowadays, it can get even more extreme. My case has 7 fans on the case alone, plus two more on the PSU. That's a lot of air circulated through the case.
So basically it REALLY doesn't matter what material you make your case of. There are already wooden cases, leather covered cases, or literally styrofoam cases. Yes, literally, some people put their computer in a styrofoam statue, thermally insulated by almost one foot of styrofoam in all directions.
As long as you pump enough air through it, you really won't see any difference in temperature.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
How do we know he didn't invent the stuff in the first place?
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
"...or shall I just punch up clear?"
"I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
After all sapphires are basically alluminum oxide too....
Are these windows amorphous like glass or crystaline like sapphires? (Assuming amorphous, but not sure).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
"Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in Minnesota" One of those colleagues wouldn't happen to be named Guildenstein, would they?
Huh? I somehow doubt my mobile would still work when I stand let's say on board the ISS.
Why? Because what movie did I watch last night, the first time I've ever heard of Transparent alumminum? Star Trek IV. Coincidence or conspiracy?
Coincidence. But a hell of one.
Presumably he had a run of bad tea-machine experiences like this:
"Tea, Earl Grey." <sip> "Awww fuck my old boots, it's half-cold and stewed you fucker"
Clear so you can see the amazing low carb beverage!
Well, at least we can have comfort that here in a couple hundred years when they go back and introduce transparent aluminum to some guy in San Francisco in the mid-80s, they're not going to disrupt the timeline too terribly much.
http://www.theapplecollection.com/Collection/ AppleMovies/mov/scotty.html
Be patient, QuickTime movie takes a while to load.
Medical uses and saving whales are all fine and good, but when are they going to do something important and make a computer case out of it?
---
Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who don't know how, supervise
Now I can ram people with my radiator of my car and they wont even see it coming!
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
I think the KEY to the discover of transparent alluminum was a MacPlus with a keyboard and a mouse (only because the speech recognition A.I. was under repair).
This news should not be surprising to anyone, since it's essentially a dupe! http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/2 0/0358206&tid=126&tid=14
The amusing thing, is that American scientists are given credit here, but if you look at the original article from 2+1/2 years ago, it was the Germans who discovered it. Hmmm...
You could argue that this article is just a 'refinement' of the previous article. I could believe that only if a link had been provided to the original article. Ah well... Odd that the article itself doesn't mention previous work by the Germans either...
This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
I still can't talk to my mouse. How long do I have to wait for that?
Could it be that Krik wanted the transparent view... because he wanted to watch Gracie and the male whale procreate? Maybe he was going nutty and figured the time travel would provide the longest union of all, aquatic and space time continuum.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
This news should not be surprising to anyone, since it's essentially a dupe! http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/2 0/0358206&tid=126&tid=14 [slashdot.org]
The amusing thing, is that American scientists are given credit here, but if you look at the original article from 2+1/2 years ago, it was the Germans who discovered it. Hmmm...
You could argue that this article is just a 'refinement' of the previous article. I could believe that only if a link had been provided to the original article. Ah well... Odd that the article itself doesn't mention previous work by the Germans either...
This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
An excellent opportunity for quality low brow comments about wonder woman (like Lynda Carter look alikes) and everyone spends time discussing whether you could acutally build the plane.
Is anyone here interested in girls? For pete's sake, some step up.
Great, all we needed was yet another common source of aluminium. Although the Aluminum-Alzheimer link has not been scientifically established, so can be said about cigarettes and cancer, if you ask the tobacco companies..
http://www.alzscot.org/info/aluminium.html
Could anyone please check if there is a Klingon ship cloacked somewhere over SF park? Like, can you please go around a throw arrows every now and then upwards?
Thank you.
Oh, and don't forget the 'Beam Me Up' sign! It could help!
I read some comprehensive article on "transparent concrete", probably the NY Times Sunday Magazine, but cant locate the reference. There are several related articles on Google. Concrete is seeing a resurgence as a decorative material, i.e. wall and floor coverings. Theres many ways to modify it to have more attractive decorative properties if you willing to sacrifice some structural strength. Concrete is inexpensive and easy to manipulate.
A more accurate term is translucent concrete. One guy embeds perpendicular optical fibers so some external sunlight gets through. There are other techniques too.
Remote sensing technologies, used to indicate the presence of living bodies onboard an approaching spaceship, as well as the composition of their alien atmosphere. What do we have? X-rays and spectroscopy, both dependent on electromagnetic radiation and a clear line of vision, and we still wrap christmas presents in paper for a surprise effect... Give the kid a tricorder, and there will be no point in wrapping any more gifts for him!
Also, I love the work they have done on galactic standardization, allowing instant video and audio communication between species that have hardly ever met before. What protocol do they use to agree on frame rate, aspect ratio and colour coding? Not to mention their translation and interpretation services. Someone ought to explain their identification of weapons signatures too; do different munitions have some kind of encoding or does the identification rely on their physical properties only?
Finally a chance for Slashdotters to score with Wonder Woman, and you're all drooling over Scotty.
--
make install -not war
These guys (IGEN, now Bioveris) even licensed the name from Paramount.
http://www.biospace.com/news_story.cfm?StoryID=379 5304&full=1
"IGEN's TRICORDER is a self-contained diagnostic detection module ideally suited for hospital POC testing. It is based on IGEN's proprietary ORIGEN(R) technology, which enables high-value clinical testing, including immunodiagnostic and nucleic acid probe-based measurements."
Changing the material of the windows is unlikely to help unless you incorporate the material into the design of the building. The windows are likely going to be designed for easy access and replacement, so it's unlikely to add to the structural integrity of the building unless they are actually designed to do so.
As to fires, the problem is that if alumina is stronger, it'll be harder for the firefighters to break the windows to let smoke out, gain access to portions of the building, or rescue people (I can't imagine watching people clawing at the windows from inside as they slowly burn to death, while you're helpless to stop it--or maybe I can, but just don't want to).
Technically they are transparent aluminum.. just with a bit of natural tint to make them pretty..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Aluminium not Aluminum?
Since that is how it is internationally known.
As Captain Scott's name sake, I feel very proud that his work had finaly been finished! Here's one for you, Captain!
Al-U-minium
I imagine he knows very well that aluminum != alumina.
Transparent glass. Wow.
I could have sworn that they stated it was just information in one of the episodes. Something along the lines of that Riker had gotten stuck in the system. They'd transmitted his info, vaporized the one at the other pad, and then couldn't retrieve him on the other side. All I really remember about the episode though was that they occasionally showed Riker's viewpoint, and there were some funky eel-like things swimming through the air. *shrug* Or it could be I'm conflating episodes.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I seem to recall that this was mentioned in The Original Series, and there is a satellite/probe using it to propel itself away from Earth to the moon.
I thought it was this one, but I could swear there was another probe, too, bound for some outer planet:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3136004. stm
Hopefully I wasn't hallucianting that other one. I'm sure someone around here will gently correct me if I'm wrong... this is slashdot, after all.
I'm not a scientist, but I think the idea was that you have ionized xenon gas that's accelerated with an electron gun to produce the thrust.
NASA has this description, but it's still kinda confusing to me:
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Sionrock.ht m
Anyhooo, just figured I'd tack another one onto the list. Will it stick? I dunno.
Cheers!
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
...Anatoly Rosenflanz was still able to get Scotty's formula off his original Macintosh after all these years.
I wanted to talk about it while it was still cool.Don't you ppl read newscientist, physicsweb, etc. ?
http://science.slashdot.org/science/02/09/03/18262 22.shtml?tid=134
/. a while back and dug it up. It's regarding the viscosity of pitch. I thought it was relevant given that people were speculating on the long times one would have to wait to see glass flow (which it does not) The article also has a link to the whole Glass is not a liquid fact as well...
I remembered this link on
....is the fact that a reference to Scotty at the end of a post about transparent aluminum is understood with a group "nod and smile".
This is why, in the modern age, we have the Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
OK, so it's really corundum. But you know, that's pretty fricking hard stuff anyway - last I checked, only a diamond could cut that stuff.
This sig no verb.
This guy is a fucktard, it isn't even funny.
The sun won't reach your parent's basement.
Hah-hah...
Tell that to the women who had pseudonyms as men, and who wrote those homo-erotic Kirk-Spock novels. I saw one in the "Adult Section" at an ST convention in San Jose back 'round 1990. I was shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
I'll posit this then: Kirk wanted the tank for himself and Spock, but he didn't figure on battling clingy Klingons doing aquas interruptus.
Anyway, the passage I saw when I fanned thru the novel at the convention went something like this:
Kirk rushes to the Transporter Room and dismisses the technician.
"Spock, can't you let someone else beam down?"
"Jim," Spock said, "You know I am the most qualified. This mission is dangerous, and I am capable of breathing the atmosphere..."
"But, let someone else do it... I love you, Spock."
"Jim..."
"I'll be waiting in your quarters for you upon your return. Be careful. I love you..."
=========
I was SHOCKED! SHOCKED!!! I mean, I MIGHT have subconsciously, as a kid MAYBE wondered, but it never came to the surface of my mind. But, as I read the passaged, I didn't know whether to laugh aloud, scream, or blow it off...
I was also shocked that women had to write under pseudonyms to be taken seriously as Star Trek or fiction authors. But, I guess the homo-erotic yarns of Kirk and Spock came from better-brained/erotic-yarn-spinning authors in that regard...
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Your spell checker!
Silly submitter, who doesn't know the difference between Alumina and Aluminum.
... editors no longer care what they post.
Well I don't know about the submitter (Alien54), but certainly the poster Hemos should know the difference because he hangs around the nanotech crowd, and knowing elementary chemistry is a prerequisite there.
I think it's just another symptom of the same problem that gives us dups
Riker had a twin created in once episode (actually 10 years prior, but they found him), when an atmospheric distrubance created an echo back on the planet.
The episode with the eel like things in the Transport Stream revolved around Ensign Barclay and his fear of Transporters. They were investigating some ship where all the crew had disappeared, ended up they were the eel like things in the transport stream, and they were able to rescue most of them.
You forget water is more then just hydrogen..
And the idea of a ruby being transparent aluminum + some coloring also fits the bill for the sought after properties.. Its one of the hardest known substances known to man..
its also reproducible in the lab.. perhaps not in 'sheet' form, but it would have been a good starting point for research into a practical method of mass production.
Even if you were correct, and water was just hydrogen, that's still a far stretch, while my example is pretty damned close to the desired material..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I recall hearing something about IBM making a glass platter hard drive with massive storage capabilities, but due to the nature of glass they abandoned the project, they failed to achieve a product that could survive shipping.
Could this be the answer to their problem?
Mobile phones are better than communicators? Since when?
The range of the transporters -- at least on The Next Generation -- is 40,000 km. Communicators work at least as far as the range of the transporters, since otherwise they wouldn't be very useful.
You ever seen a cell phone that could transmit and receive from a tower that was 40,000 klicks away? Me either.
Now that even aluminum has better transparency support than IE.
Doh!
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
hurray! now noone will be able to see my aluminum hat!
"why you tattoring fan sucked doo belly - i have to go buy something to strike you with... excuse me."
The Vurneil inverted flame fusion process already dealt with such a concept. Granted, it was a more crude process than theirs with post sintering, but the concept of alumina or aluminum oxide powder being heated by a torch and formed into a "glass like product" isn't new.
The fact that 3M has it produce a product which incorporates other oxides and rare metals isn't all that new either.
The only "Facet" of this technique which is new is the fact that the "glass" isn't peppered with air bubbles like Vurneil's method. There is also the interesting lack of mention that these "glass-like" objects are actually what most people would call "Sythetic gems". Rubys and Sapphires, I would think, since the base is Alumina.
So the produced "glass" is as hard as a ruby, huh? Great. Bring out the new class of hand weapons!
Maybe those old AD&D items like Ruby sword, Ruby Shield, Ruby helmet, etc are going to be a reality now...
The ruby dagger... completely undetectable in most security systems... blah blah blah...
Guess those whales from the future will have a nice holding tank now. (startrek)
Winged Power Photography
Gosh. Why do posts on slashdot pointing out a dupe (whether they're right or wrong!) automatically get moderated up to +5?
Although I can't read the article from the 2.5year old post, that slashdot post is merely pointing out that German scientists have devised a method for making glass from aluminum oxides. This new post, however, points out that researchers at 3M have developed a process for making large quantities of said glass, bringing aluminum glass much closer to market.
This is just as newsworthy, if not more so, than the article that this is supposedly a "dupe" of. Quit jumping the gun like that.
Well, since we dont have silicate fuels yet, it may be a stretch, but considering the large amounts of aluminum in aircraft skin...
Or a transparent aluminum siding house?
~Scourge
How about they work on inventing laser-based weapons that people can dodge. ;)
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
I remember reading about this years ago....
m
Heres an article that has a link to one of the original article i read http://www.rense.com/general20/transparentalum.ht
Did zi germans invent first?
It's called an Alcubierre Drive. You can finish yourself off now.
{hawking} "I call it a Hawking Drive." {/hawking}
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
Giving new meaning to the word bombshell
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
In the UK, now, I understand they do call them 'rooters'. Sounds to me like those things plumbers use to clear tree roots from the drains.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
So if 3M owns it, would it be:
ScotchGlass(tm) ???
(Scotty would indeed be proud!)
It's called plastic. Common sizes are 600ml, 1L, and 2L. And guess what? It's not just for Coke, Pepsi has it too!
Just think if it did work though - we could sit in a nice restaurant with plenty of big windows, and where cellphones wouldn't work... And no need for signal jammers (illegal in most places, although Canada was considering allowing them for some uses).
Of course, I also have no idea if this stuff qualifies as "reasonably affordable" only as compared to gigantic diamonds...
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
H.G. Wells, now there was someone who really changed history...
No, really - I know what you mean - as a fiction genre, not non-fiction...
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
I can't believe nobody's pointed out that transparent aluminum was referenced in Neuromancer long before Star Trek IV.
demi
Using AI to "figure that stuff out" is also a form of protocol, albeit on a higher level than simply encoding the video using PAL or NTSC (I doubt the communication officers ever need to get involved with such mundane tasks as selecting a false-colour palette to represent the signals from a ship designed by aliens using infrared as their primary means of vision, but it has to be done of course).
Problem is, both ships may have equally sophisticated technology (and skilled officers), only their default modes are mutually incompatible. If both systems try simultaneously to adapt to the default mode of the other party, they may easily enter a deadlock state. They may agree that the party initiating contact is also responsible for adapting their communication mode, or that the receivers are adapted at each end, but either way, such an agreement itself constitutes a form of protocol.
We have already made attempts to communicate with alien life forms, without knowing the capabilities of the recipients, when transmitting signals from the Arecibo radio telescope and encoding images on the Voyager discs. The protocol is described along with the message itself, using a language based on what we believe to be universal knowledge (mathematics and the laws of physics). We can only hope the recipients will understand that language (if they can receive the radio signals, or recover the Voyager probe intact from space, I think they stand a good chance of success). It remains to be seen whether they will respond using our suggested format, or encode their message according to their own preferences, to be figured out by us.
I hope they will use plain text rather than HTML, but it may be a good idea if they include a copy of what they received from us, just in case our 641st-century descendants manage to delete the copies we have saved, or the response is picked up by the Interstellar Wiretapping Agency.
It never ceases to amuse me at how clueless people are on this board. Geez, I thought geeks were meant to be smart? Your post is the same word for word as one posted hours ago. If there was a moderator option for '-1 Smack with the serious cluebat', you'd earn it. Not only is your post a repeat, but it's also DUMB. Sure hydrogen is transparent as a gas, so are most gasses, the original post was comparing with SOLID ICE. And even then... Oh I give up. There's no hope for the future. Humanity is doomed.
"So anyway, it's some kind of a crystaline compound, containing aluminum, that's supposed to be transparent, but far stronger than any form of conventional glass."
But there's nothing new about that, either.
Sapphire and ruby are alumina-based, also.
Sapphires (and synthetic sapphires) are used as scratch-resistant, shatter-resistant alternative to glass or plastic for watch crystals (the clear part over the numbers).
So what this story seems to be is that they have a new kind of glass which incorporates or has some of the properties of sapphire-type substances.
The joke is in Start Trek IV; go watch it (n/t)
There's a big difference between transparent and translucent. Those pictures clearly show the color of light passing through the matrial being changed.
Why is there no topic? Oh yeah, it's transparent.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
I just wonder what's the point of making bulk quantities of something that depends on RARE (read: Very, VERY hard to find) materials.
Beam us up, Scotty, we have to find more rare materials for the production.
I look forward to transparent rust.
Just think, he could have patented this in the 80's, then turned up 300 years to file for damages and 3 centuries of back dated licensing.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
"It looks like you are asking for a drink! Would you like help with that?"
1. Recieve message from future self.
2. Patent Everything!
3. Profit!
4. Send message to past self.
You see, it's really not that hard to get rich.
Please insert your old boots for processing.
Repeat after me:
AL-YOO-MIN-EE-UM
Aluminium
Don't profess to be an English-speaking nation until you can speak ENGLISH.
It's *transparent*.
Hello, McFly anybody home!
Alumina (aluminum oxide) is not aluminum, any more than table salt (sodium chloride) is sodium or chlorine.
Haven't you heard? Guidenstein is dead!
Data mentioned TV would become unpolular as the Earth interplanatory network took over the entertainment medium sometime in first decade of the 21st century.
Today the FCC is phasing out TV signals on antenna by 2006 and this interplanatary network is called the internet and world wide web. Hmm?
If you have a digital cable box today you may see the technicians from the cable company setup each units IP address. Its an intranet and if you pay for high speed access you can be routed to the internet. In other news its part of this interplanatary network even though its a private network routed to it.
My guess over the next decade digital boxes will become more like Tivo's or smart PVR devices. It may become more of a mini-computer so to speak that can be used for games, IM, or just watching video streams. Hmmm it looks alot like Lcars terminals on the enteprise that could do all of that. In another decade it will be less of standard television as we know it kind of like a gradual revolution.
Also replication and teleportation is already happening. Particles and photons already have been teleported or replicated depending on how you look at it through entagglement. Its mentioned in past slashdot stories.
Star Trek use to hire consultants in all sorts of fields as future specialists, to physcists, to even nasa engineers, to help their writers. It showed.
Man do I miss those days. Bearman SUCKS!
http://saveie6.com/
Here are the scientist creating tranparent aluminum -
Creating Tranparent Aluminum
and here is the final product -
Tranparent Aluminum
In a world that is Free and Open, who needs Windows and Gates?
His last public appearance is this weekend, at the The James Doohan Farewell Star Trek Convention & Tribute, August 27th-30th 2004 - at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel.
It would be terrific if a geek conspiracy could be implemented to get a piece of the material to him in a nice display. Alumina/aluminum difference aside, he'd be thrilled, I'm sure.
---
Statistically, real threats are rare, but ambition and corruption are common. - Seth Finkelstein
But there's no Federation (or other) Insignia that you hit, and it doesn't make the cool StarTrek sound...
Tibbon
tibbon.com