Galt's Gulch
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Has Rearden Metal Arrived?

Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 11 months ago to Technology
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This could be a game-changer for many technological applications if it can be produced at a reasonable cost.
SOURCE URL: http://phys.org/news/2017-01-porous-d-graphene-mit-strong.html

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  • Posted by ProfChuck 7 years, 11 months ago
    As a physicist and retired "rocket scientist" I find this discovery especially exciting. Materials with this kind of strength to weight ratio have thousands of applications but one of my favorites is the manufacture of a tether that is strong and light enough to make a space elevator possible. That would be the biggest game changer of all for space exploration and exploitation.
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  • Posted by HocusLocus 7 years, 11 months ago
    Graphene is more like Rearden Ceramics... useful in many ways but you wouldn't necessarily want to balance a railroad upon it. Steel compresses, stretches and maintains reasonable integrity across a wide temperature range.
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    • Posted by Enyway 7 years, 11 months ago
      Yes, and the world was once flat, man will never be able to fly in this atmosphere, much less to the moon. The biggest wall in our way is the government. Keeping the government out of the mix is paramount. Let us not forget the words of Ronald Reagan when he coined the 9 most terrifying words in the English language, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help!"
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  • Posted by terrycan 7 years, 11 months ago
    It is just a begining.
    Materials Science still has many break thrus to come.
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    • Posted by CircuitGuy 7 years, 11 months ago
      "Materials Science still has many break thrus to come."
      When I was a kid people said we went from breaking the sound barrier to the moon in 20 years, so in the future there will be space colonies everywhere.
      That didn't happen, but information technology leaped forward. There's talk of computers becoming self-aware in the near future.
      Maybe computers will plateau and the next revolution will be in materials.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 7 years, 11 months ago
    The porous graphene is a nice advance. Propping the graphene apart is not hard. Getting the pores to not collapse requires supercritical solvent extraction, and even with that, is not easy. If interested in this, contact me about the Nanotech Minor Program at Florida Tech. I will cover this in late February.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 7 years, 11 months ago
    That's not Rearden Metal. Rearden Metal is a substitutional alloy of iron and copper, with carbon in the interstices. But those graphene forms could make a better interstitium for any kind of metal. Henry Rearden would likely have used this along with an iron-and-copper mix.
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