Graphene Aerogel Takes World's Lightest Material Crown 198
cylonlover writes "Not even a year after it claimed the title of the world's lightest material, aerographite has been knocked off its crown by a new aerogel made from graphene. Created by a research team from China's Zhejiang University in the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering lab headed by Professor Gao Chao, the ultra-light aerogel has a density of just 0.16 mg/cm3, which is lower than that of helium and just twice that of hydrogen."
What ever happened to precision of speech? (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously not 'lightest', but 'least dense'. Sheesh, editors - do your JOB! The /. title should be "Silly folk at Gizmag confuse mass with density when describing world's least dense solid.'
Re:Aerogel vs. M&Ms (Score:5, Informative)
The insulative properties [wikimedia.org] are also pretty dramatic. There is another picture floating around with some crayons in place of the flower. That little stunt might not work as well with carbon aerogels as it does with silica ones, though...
Re:Density (Score:5, Informative)
The density is measured including its interior space. In reality the interior space is filled with air and its realtive weight is the carbon structure alone.
To make it float you would have to find a way to seal off the interior structure and remove the air from that.
Re:Density (Score:3, Informative)
If the density's lower than that of helium, why isn't it floating away
Bad journalism ...
being repeated verbatim by an idiot slashdot submitters
then not being deleted by idiot slashdot editors
then being voted up in the firehose by equally stupid readers.
On a "tech" site, with three separate links in the editorial chain, you'd think that it would have been spotted, but nooooooo.
Re:Density calculation? (Score:5, Informative)
OTOH, how strong is it? Graphene is supposed to be tough stuff.
I have no idea how strong graphene areogel is, but I have handled silica aerogel and it is extremely fragile. It it difficult to handle it without accidentally fracturing it. My daughter used a disk of aerogel as in insulator in her school science project last year, and we had to buy three disks ($30 each) because they kept breaking. I hope graphene aerogel is stonger.
Re:I'd believe it if you added the word "solid" (Score:3, Informative)
This is why no one under the age of 32 today has any fundamental understanding of the English language. ... This is why they put their punctuation inside of quotation marks even when the punctuation is not part of the thing being quoted...
Funny, APA, MLA, and the Chicago Manual of Style all recommend putting the period inside the quotation at the end of the sentence even if the original quotation does not have a period. And my copy of the Chicago Manual of Style is older than 32 years. Not that I put much effort into writing random forum posts and I'm sure I make plenty of mistakes. But if one were to try to argue technically about what is the correct approach, at best you can argue it is a stylistic choice. Otherwise, you are going against what are essentially the authorities in many circles of writing.
Re:I'd believe it if you added the word "solid" (Score:4, Informative)
The convention in the United States for decades has been to places periods inside the quotation marks. All others are based on the actual quote. The Chicago Manual of Style, as one of many, recommends this, but most guides point out that the British style placing anything not part of the quote outside of the quotation marks is acceptable but may be seen as unusual to American readers--of all ages.