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The Blackest Material

Posted by kdawson on from the reflect-on-this dept.

QuantumCrypto writes "Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have created 'the world's first material that reflects virtually no light.' This anti-reflection technology is based on nanomaterial and could lead to the development of more efficient solar cells, brighter LEDs, and 'smarter' light sources. In theory, if a room were to be coated with this material, switching on the lights would only illuminate the items in the room and not the walls, giving a sense of floating free in infinite space."

29 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. tsk by scapermoya · · Score: 3, Funny

    dupe.

    --
    Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
    1. Re:tsk by Ekhymosis · · Score: 5, Funny

      As per your signature, if the walls in the dungeon were coated with this stuff, a grue would most definately have its way with you =)

      --
      Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
    2. Re:tsk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Link to earlier article: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/0 2/2113206

    3. Re:tsk by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As a Firehose user, I must say that it gets difficult to keep track of which dupe stories made it to the front page and which are just dupe submissions that have not yet made it to the front page. Despite the distinctive color, the mass of submissions become a blur.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    4. Re:tsk by vimh42 · · Score: 3, Funny

      but a dupe gives me a chance to relay something I forgot the first time I saw the story.

      My mother in law once saw a black shirt that said (in a dark brown font) "I'm just wearing this color until they find something darker."

      I guess I've found a new material to make a t-shirt out of.

  2. Looks like a fish, by Clever7Devil · · Score: 4, Funny

    Moves like a fish, steers like a cow.

    --
    "By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
  3. To get this out of the way... by EvanED · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess we know what material Hotblack Desiato used to make his stunt ship...

  4. Outside by Rie+Beam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "In theory, if a room were to be coated with this material, switching on the lights would only illuminate the items in the room and not the walls, giving a sense of floating free in infinite space."

    Outside of that gravity thing. Sounds more like standing outside in the country.

    1. Re:Outside by Darth+Muffin · · Score: 5, Funny
      ... or you could just close your eyes and get the same effect. Much cheaper too :)

      All of my kid's Goth friends are probably rejoycing and wondering when they can get a t-shirt or trechcoat made of this stuff.

      --
      Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
    2. Re:Outside by Joebert · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What happened to the good old days when it was "pussy" & everyone knew what you meant ?

      --
      Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
    3. Re:Outside by admactanium · · Score: 4, Informative

      I expect a very practical use for this material, if it is not too expensive, will be as a wall coating to replace green screens in filmmaking. It would allow lighting the subjects without worry about any light spill onto the background, and maybe allow better keying for special effects. You would just replace all pixel values that equal zero with your own background data, instead of keying on that narrow-band green which is, after all, still green.
      except that would be color keying much harder because black naturally exists on objects like people and clothes. the reason things are shot again chroma green and blue is because they're not as commonly occurring in the objects that they're trying to photograph and extract. the reason the green and blue are a very specific color is to make keying easier by isolating that color in one channel of rgb. that way it's much easier to determine the differential information. keying against black is practically useless unfortunately. you'd have to go in and rotoscope everything that is black (like hair or eyeglass frames or belt, etc) or a value of black back in to the image. plus, on set they don't worry about light spilling onto the screen because they're usually much more brightly lit than the subject to keep a consistent tone throughout. presumeably, the reason they use blue and green is to allow for photography of subjects that are in the other color range (ie, guy with green shirt on bluescreen, guy with blueshirt on greenscreen). nobody keys against chroma red because obviously everyone's skin would cause them to be semi-transparent.

      if you're talking about the key color spilling into the subject (like in between hair and such) than that's a different issue. that's why when you do a telecine, you'll do what's called a "suppress pass" which desaturated all of the key's color. that way you can comp the original footage minus the key color back into the comp to kill the color spill without having to hand-draw it into each frame.

      i'm sure it could be used for some pretty interesting techniques in photography and film but color keying isn't likely to be one of them.

  5. #GGGGGG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, THAT black?

    1. Re:#GGGGGG by ghoti · · Score: 3, Funny

      Gnaaaa, you're confusing me! I meant of course 8-bit, not 4-bit, since colors have three 8-bit components, not six 4-bit ones. Rest of the comment still holds, though, and proves that black equals white, for really dark shades of black.

      --
      EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
    2. Re:#GGGGGG by dr_dank · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.

      --
      Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
    3. Re:#GGGGGG by skoaldipper · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, you know what they say...

      Once you go #GGGG, you never go ^H^H^H^H.

      --
      I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
  6. how much more black could this be? by chameleon_skin · · Score: 5, Funny

    The answer is none.

    None more black.

  7. Possible uses for the military? by purpledinoz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It says that it reflects virtually no light. I wonder if that includes the frequencies that are used for radar. If it doesn't reflect any radar signals, that could radically change military aircraft. Currently, military aircraft use shape as well as radar absorbing materials to achieve their stealthy-ness. Imagine if you can coat an F-16 with this stuff, and bam, you have a pretty cheap stealth fighter.

  8. Re:Actually... by NotHereOrThere · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The TFA is about a perfectly black coating that reflects nothing. This does not imply that it is transparent as you seem to be inferring.

  9. Blackness by ElephanTS · · Score: 4, Funny

    Emo's are going to love this stuff.

    --
    spoonerize "magic trackpad"
  10. Re:Military use? by Carnildo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hate to be a warmonger here, but this stuff could probably be used in military applications as well, probably for night ops and the like. A modern day ninja outfit with this stuff comes to mind


    Contrary to popular belief, the best color for urban night camoflage is not solid black. Depending on the environment, it's either charcoal grey (for general hard-to-see-ness), or irregularly-patterned greys (to break up the outline of your body).
    --
    "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
  11. Doesn't work for me by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 3, Funny

    "giving a sense of floating free in infinite space" Well I tried standing in a dark space with my eyes shut, which must be pretty much the same thing, and all that happened to me was that I felt like an idiot, especially when people saw me climbing back out of the office supply cabinet.

    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  12. Claustrophobics rejoice by GiovanniZero · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Assuming this isn't just vaporware...

    This stuff could be really cool for use in MRIs or other tight spaces that claustrophobics normally have to go into. It would give those that are normally afraid to be in small spaces the sense that they were in a vastly infinite space. That's pretty cool IMO.

    I'd also like to have my home theater coated with this stuff, think about how large your house would feel! Even with low level ceilings.

    --
    Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
  13. Picture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can we get a picture?

  14. Re:Military use? by Dun+Malg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I hate to be a warmonger here, but this stuff could probably be used in military applications as well, probably for night ops and the like. A modern day ninja outfit with this stuff comes to mind


    Contrary to popular belief, the best color for urban night camoflage is not solid black. Depending on the environment, it's either charcoal grey (for general hard-to-see-ness), or irregularly-patterned greys (to break up the outline of your body).
    Indeed. This is because everything occurring in nature tends to reflect some light, even in the dark, when there isn't much to reflect. Solid black doesn't reflect enough, and subsequently actually stands out like a big empty void in a gray jumble of dimness.
    --
    If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  15. Is it blacker than priests socks? by Larry+Lightbulb · · Score: 4, Funny

    DOUGAL: Anyway, what else did you order?

    TED: Priest socks. Really black ones.

    DOUGAL: I read somewhere, I think it was in an article about priest socks that priest socks are blacker than any other type of socks.

    TED: That's right Dougal. Sometimes you see lay people wear what look like black socks but if you look closely you'll see they're very, very, very, very, very, very, very dark blue.

    DOUGAL: Actually that's true. I thought my uncle Tommy was wearing black socks but when I looked at them closely they were just very, very, very, very, very, very, VERY, very, very, very dark blue.

    TED: Never buy black socks in a normal shop. They'll shaft you every time!

  16. Re:Actually... by jdwilso2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    this is a faulty assumption ... I'll leave the "virtually" out to simplify the statements, but here you go ...

    to say something "reflects no light" does not mean it "absorbs all light" ...

    you are leaving out transmission of light. If a material does not reflect light, it either absorbs or transmits all the rest of the light.

    which is actually what this article is talking about ... material clearer than glass but not quite as clear as air.

    this was quite an errant post as it is both a dupe and factually flawed.

  17. Re:Is this a record? by maxume · · Score: 5, Funny

    Things to help you relax are available in liquid, pill, written, aural, visual, surgical and human forms, among others. Maybe give one of them some serious consideration.

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  18. Re:What does it look like? by Russ+Steffen · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here's a picture, in one of the very few graphic formats Slashdot will accept in a comment, XBM -

    #define noname_width 16
    #define noname_height 16
    static char noname_bits[] = {
    0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00, 0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
    0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00, 0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
    0x00,0x00};

  19. Re:Actually... by DittoBox · · Score: 4, Funny

    HOMER: What are you inferring?
    LISA: I'm not inferring anything. You infer; I imply.
    HOMER: Well that's a relief.

    --
    Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.