My prayers have been answered!
Posted on 02/20/2008 7:38:26 AM PST by cogitator
In the movie This is Spinal Tap, a less-than-cerebral rock guitarist, upon viewing a record-album cover designed as solid black, delivers an impromptu speech. “It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none,” he proclaims. “None more black.”
His inarticulateness is matched, sadly, by an ignorance of physics. You can get much blacker than black cardboard, which reflects a good deal of light whereas true black reflects none.
Finding an absolutely black object on Earth, though, is as likely as encountering the rock group of that 1982 film. Both are only fictions.
On the other hand, researchers now say they have created the darkest material ever made by man. The material, a thin carbon coating, reflects less than 0.1 percent of incoming light. It absorbs the rest.
It could one day serve to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of solar energy technology, infrared sensors, and other devices, said the researchers, who have applied for a Guinness World Record.
“This discovery will allow us to increase the absorption efficiency of light as well as the overall radiation-to-electricity efficiency of solar energy conservation,” said Shawn-Yu Lin, a physicist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., who led the research.
The key was to create a carpet of carbon nanotubes, structures not much thicker than an atom, he said. It also required building in a bit of “surface randomness,” he added which served to minimize reflection.
All materials reflect some light. Ordinary black paint reflects 5 to 10 percent. The darkest manmade material, prior to the Lin group’s discovery, reflected just under a fifth of a percent, Lin said. The new material has a total reflective index of less than a twentieth of a percent—in total, 0.045 percent, he said.
Its unique properties are due to “the loosely-packed forest of carbon nanotubes, which is full of nanoscale [roughly atomic-sized] gaps and holes to collect and trap light,” Lin said. “Such a nanotube array not only reflects light weakly, but also absorbs light strongly. These combined features make it an ideal candidate for one day realizing a super-black object.”
And I thought the title was referring to Hillary’s ‘heart’.
My prayers have been answered!
He ain’t black enough, Mr. Kaker ...
And when can we expect it to run for president?
Honestly, Helen Thomas is more attractive.
The Republicans have a candidate who is twice as black as Obama but he got turned away from the debates.
He’s still on the ballot in Texas’ primary and will get my vote if I don’t cross party lines to pay back those on the Left who crossed over party lines to force McCain (and to a lesser degree Ron Paul) on the GOP.
Useful technologies ping!
Cannot be exceeded.
Wow, black is in this coming spring.
Within 10 minutes of one another:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1973366/posts
But... I thought there is NONE blacker than Bill Clinton... Not even Barack!
He’s a good man, but we ALL know the Party of “tolerance” simply Clarence Thomases any black politician or cabinet member out of hand in order to eliminate them. Even if Mr Keys HAD gotten any media attention and debate time, Obama would still be the “only” black candidate. I hope you realized my post was sarcasm.
Is this blacker than the blackest black announced a month ago with thread on FR?
The date on this article is January 23, but the WashPost article was today (Feb. 20). So the WashPost article about the blackest black may be about a blacker black than the blackest black described in the article I posted.
But there is an even blacker black:
I think it is Keyes’ conservativism more than his skin color that kept him shut out from the debates.
One reason it is vital for “fringe” candidates in the party to get EQUAL face time is that they can raise issues in a public forum.
Ron Paul got to raise HIS issues at the debates even though he and his make it clear that he is Republican in name only, being unwilling to call himself a member of the Libertarian Party. At least Bernard Sanders is honest about being a Socialist (unlike so many of the Democrat DINOs).
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