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Is it possible the strongest stuff in the universe
is just one atom thick?
Hey guys, it's Jonathan Strickland with Fw:Thinking.
I'm here at the movie theatre. I'm about to catch the next Thor film, which got me to
thinking about his mighty hammer, which as we all know is made out of Uru, a nigh-invulerable
material.
Which got me to thinking, is there such a stuff here in the real world?
Material science has come an incredibly long way. For example: carbon nanotubes. I know
you've heard about them, they're the stuff of the future. What are they?
Well, take a sheet of carbon atoms. It's one atom thick. Roll it into a tube.
This thing is hundreds of times stronger than steel, and six times lighter. And for a while
it was the strongest stuff we could imagine, which kind of puts some limitations on what
we want to do in the future.
But those limitations can say "Bye, bye."
I'm talking about carbyne. This is just a string of carbon atoms that have single and
triple bonds between them, and it ends up being twice as strong as graphene, and nearly
three times stronger than diamond.
Now that means this stuff could possibly have the tensile strength that we would need to
make something like, I don't know...
...a space elevator.
So this is kind of a super material. But still not invincible.
Now amorphous metals have been super cooled and formed in such a way that they don't have
a crystalline structure. They're much more messy. They get really locked down. So if
you strike it, those layers have nowhere to go, and it's much more resilient to impact.
But they're also really malleable, so you can form them into whatever you like.
It's pretty awesome. I can finally make my Thor hammer, right?
Eh, there is a drawback. They actually suffer from fatigue more readily than regular metals
do. So after whackin' a few bad guys my hammer's gonna break.
But that's where self-healing materials come in.
Some guys at MIT were playing around with some nickel alloy and they noticed that microscopic
tears in the metal were healing themselves after pressure was being applied to other
parts of the metal. Stressing this material made it stronger. It would heal other injuries.
This is phenomenal stuff.
If we can engineer this, imagine the possibilities. We're talking buildings that heal themselves,
bridges that repair themselves, airplane wings that get stronger the more times we fly!
Now, none of this stuff is going to get me my immortal, invulnerable hammer. But I think
it's pretty cool that just by manipulating a few molecules, we can make everything from
electronics better, to find a new way to get to the moon.
And I've got a question for all of you. If you could make something out of an indestructible
material, what would it be? Let me know in the comments below.
And remember, if you enjoyed this video, make sure you "like" the video, and subscribe to
the channel...
...or I'll sick the Incredible Hulk on you!
And you wouldn't like him when he's angry!
Also he told me you should watch these!