Transparent Aluminum is Here

Slashdot ^ | 8/23/2004 | Hemos

[sionnsar]

from the like-blue-LEDs dept. Alien54 writes "Scientists in the US have developed a novel technique to make bulk quantities of glass from alumina for the first time. (link includes a picture of samples)

Anatoly Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy alumina (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce strong glass with good optical properties. The method avoids many of the problems encountered in conventional glass forming and could, say the team, be extended to other oxides (see also: A Rosenflanz et al. 2004 Nature 430 761).

Scotty would be pleased."

[joesnuffy]

It was too bad that the Enterprise crew...when in S.F. looking for the appropriate Cetaceans
didnt stumble into a 'StarTrek' convention...
And had the "Trekkies" tell them that while they kinda looked cool their costumes were all wrong...

[Publius6961]

Now...

Where are those freepin' whales again?

[tjwmason]

The headline is misleading. Alumina is an oxide of aluminum not a metal. Where do journalists get their science training, public school?

Are you suggesting that journalists should have sufficient grasp of science (or indeed of the English language) to realise that there is a difference between alumina and aluminium (that's aluminum for you chaps over the Atlantic)? If we were to have partially educated journalists goodness only knows what changes would be wrought in the media.

[null and void]

But does it make good hats???

[null and void]

But does it make good hats???

[texpat72]

They traded the formula for transparent aluminum for the plexiglass.

[Charles Martel]

First flip phones, now aluminium, soon warp drive, I hope.

I want to leave and settle on New Israel.

That sounds nice. I'd kinda like to run that little place that Chris Pike fantasized about.

[null and void]

I want my flying car...

[Charles Martel]

Well, point out to your kids that a classic Star Trek communicator didn't have to be recharged daily, could talk to starships in orbit, and can produce a strong enough signal to cause rocks to slide off of a cliff. Let's see a flip phone do that.

That's transtator technology for you. Now you know why Kirk was so riled when McCoy left his communicator behind on Sigma Iota II.

[RightWhale]

Me, too.

[DBrow]

Folks have been making aluminum oxynitride glass for years now- called alon.

[mamaduck]

I thought they just used plexiglass in the movie.

They did and Scotty gave them the formula for transparent aluminum as payment . . .

[Robert A Cook PE]

Scotty would be pleased?

Heck!

The Stars Wars novels have written about transparasteel for years and years.....

(Robt mumbles and grumbles about out-of-date science writers ....)

[Cboldt]

54th post is the first one to distinguish alumina from aluminum.

LOL. Nice job, btw.

[Question_Assumptions]

Too bad Next Generation never followed up on them coming back for a piece of the action...

[Question_Assumptions]

I'm basing that assumption on the fact that several episodes last more than the few days that a cell phone battery would last and their communicators still worked.

[ArGee]

I want my flying car...

Considering the way people manage to maneuver the little gravity challenged beasties we have now do you really want flying cars? Bad enough you have to watch for idiots coming at you from all 360 degrees in a single plane.

(shudder)The very thought gives me the creeps.

Shalom.

[tophat9000]

"A mouse...how quaint..."

Hopeing someday "A rat...how quaint..."

[ArrogantBustard]

My first cell phone, an analog (IS54) device, used a NiCd battery which would hold charge for a few hours if left on and intermittently used. This was in the mid-1990s.

My second cell phone, a CDMA/IS54 device, used a large NiMH battery, and would hold charge for two days or so, if left on and intermittently used. I purchased it in 1999.

My current cell phone, a "tri-mode" device, uses a small NiMH battery, and will hold charge for almost five days if left on and intermittently used. I purchased it in 2002.

If Starfleet can't come up with a better battery than Nokia, it need to hire better engineers.

[ArGee]

If Starfleet can't come up with a better battery than Nokia, it need to hire better engineers.

Well, consider that starfleet put warp engines in pods on the end of tiny sticks to push a huge dish full of people from 0 to Warp 6 in a few seconds.

Never could figure out why the engines didn't just rip themselves off and go flying through subspace on their own.

But I maintain that the communicators were recharged with solar power or methane gas (the were worn on the backside after al). They needed more power than your Nokia phone to reach the ship in orbit.

Shalom.