It seems that Graphene
is about to be joined by two or three others, I am trying to remember
the third, that is going to revolutionise things.
The first of these is
metallic hydrogen. Something that has long puzzled me about hydrogen
and its relationships, or rather place, on the periodic table.
Under extreme pressures
someone now claims to have … coerced hydrogen into its shiny metal
state for the first time. The rather impressive claims are that
metallic hydrogen could conduct electricity over long distances
without dissipation. Plus high powered magnets like those used in MRI
machines would not require liquid helium to cool them down to a
temperature where they become operational because they would actually
operate at room temperature.
Also they could use
this metallic hydrogen to produce humongous amounts of energy and it
will be extremely interesting to hear just how this pans out down the
road.
Though being held at
these extreme pressures there exists a theory that if they release
the pressure they hydrogen will remain in its metal like state?
Stunning. Revolutionary if true.
Quite how they will go
about trying to gain stability is something of a puzzle and one that
I am keen on finding out, hopefully in the not too distant future?
Considering that this
could revolutionise the way we explore space this alone stands to
make very,, very big changes in what we can achieve and along with
single atom thick carbon being stronger then steel … the mind truly
boggles at what both of these things can do in the way of changes to
science?
But how about a third?
Hmm … this ones is
Berkeley?
OK so they have
produced a metal with some very strange properties and, would you
believe, abilities?
Anyone seen and
remember Star Trek IV The Voyage Home? Do you recall what they needed
to fit the Klingon ship with to take the whales into the future with
them? Do you remember what Scotty provided the company with to
acquire the plates? Transparent aluminium. Yeah … it kinda goes
something like that … with a twist. Yes this metal is transparent
and yet that is at a certain temperature otherwise it looks like …
well, metal?!
What kind of alchemy
and voodoo magic is this?
It gets better as this
metal has the strange ability to conduct electricity without heat?!
Alchemists I tell yah!
In one single day I
read about metallic hydrogen that conducts electricity without
dissipation and vanadium oxide that conducts electricity without
heat? Just … HOW?! How in the world am I reading about two
breakthroughs in the same day?!
Holy Moley!
Ahh … but there is
that name again … Berkeley. Were they not the university that was
behind that … Waterseer … thingey? The device that collects water
that is not there to begin with that acquired many thousands in
funding? Debunked very easily by the man with the loud feet?
If true my mind races
with the possibilities of combining these to metals for various
functions previously impossible of even combine them with Graphene
for other tricks previously impossible.
Since Graphene exploded
into the scientific community my mind has wondered how this could be
implemented in the creation of computer chips like Central Processing
Units or Graphic Processing Units.
The lithography, or
width of the pipelines and, supposedly, transistors in computer chips
have reached a … kind if brick wall or are not very far away from
it. I have watched as they have shrunk down from sizes way bigger
than 130 nanometres to now just 14 nanometres in size. It was
predicted that getting below 10 nanometres would be tricky to
impossible due to the impurities of silicon. The chips would just
fracture with any current running through them.
I fact I have expected
to start hearing of people's chips frying through even the lightest
over-cocking of the chips after a time and for this to start becoming
a common thing. Time will tell on that one.
It is interesting
reading about both AMD and Intel claiming to have chips with a
lithography of just 7 nanometres in a little over a year from now at
some point during 2018. I strongly believe now that Graphene and
maybe some other newly discovered material in combination with
Graphene with CPUs and GPUs at smaller than 7 nanometres in size. Or
maybe they already are but I just have not read about it yet?
I think about the
possibilities of creating a much more efficient way of converting the
suns light into electricity and how this along with the previous
three things combined would just change the very face of the
scientific landscape along with what we could do and achieve in just
5 to 10 years?!
Mind blowing.
You know the more I
think about these things and the more things that seem to materialise
I am wondering of there is some reason behind this explosion of
scientific discoveries and wonder what things will be like in the
next decade?!
Exciting times ahead,
me thinks.
Once the largest
companies along with those that are at the cutting edge of
technologies and their associated industries get their own rights to
work with these things I bet there are people beavering away with
theories they are putting to the test? Thinking of ways they can
combine all of these three things with anything else discovered in
recent times.
Huge leap forward like
this leading to technologies and machines that are a huge leap
forward also leads to even more discoveries.
I wonder how long it
will be before companies have light weight be strong mining ships
that start going out to the asteroid belt and in time even the Kuiper
Belt mining for things to bring back to Earth?
Just look at each thing
in turn logically …
- You can build both much stronger along with much lighter craft
- You now have something that produces far more energy than anything we have had previously
- We can now conduct electricity far more efficiently and so need less energy, except we can now produce far more energy that we have before, see above bullet point
- Go farther, faster while being stronger and not being taken down by micro meteors and such like
These are just points
off the top of my head without sitting down and trying to apply these
new materials and technologies to other things! I cannot wait to see
what people come up with!
Independent Report I
dug up on Metallic Hydrogen …
Berkeley Lab and
Vanadium dioxide …
No comments:
Post a Comment