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The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Adhesive Tape (hackaday.com)

szczys writes: You take tape for granted, but it's truly an engineering wonder. For instance, Scotch Magic tape exhibits triboluminescence; it will generate a bit of bluish light when coming off the roll in a darkened room. It emits X-Rays if unrolled in a vacuum. But this common tape is just the tip of the iceberg. Nava Whiteford looks at lab uses of many different types of tape. Kapton tape is thermally stable and non-conductive. Carbon tape is conductive but resistive. That moves into the non-resistive and more niche tape types. There's a tape for every function. This instant and non-messy way to connect two things together has a lot of science behind it, as well as ahead of it in experimentation, manufacturing, and of course household use.

4 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. duct tape... by i.r.id10t · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Duct tape is like the Force - there is a dark side and a light side, and it holds the universe together.

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    Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
  2. Re:And duct tape will do it all by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, the problem with duck(*) tape is you can't ever remove the adhesive.

    It leaves a sticky gooey mess which pretty much can't be removed. It's got its uses, but not anywhere it ever has to come off.

    (*) The original tape was duck tape, and used for waterproofing ammo boxes ... it's not meant to be used for ducts, and it's a terrible application for it, or so I've been told by people who install furnaces. Not sure why it morphed into duct tape.

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    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  3. Also, Adhesives are rare... by cablepokerface · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Luckily, with tato, mutfruit, corn and clean water you can mix your own.

  4. Re:And duct tape will do it all by cellocgw · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, it's called Duck Tape because the original manufacturer used a particular grade of sailcloth (canvas) referred to as Duck Cloth.

    You could look it up.

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    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw