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"The answer to the problem of information overload on the Net is reputations… engineer a system called a reputation server."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Black Coating | ||
| A material that absorbs practically all incident light. |
One good way to be invisible in space is to be non-reflective.
| “Well, we have a black coating now that’s ninety-nine percent absorptive, and I don’t need ports or windows. At that, though, one percent reflection would be enough to give me away at a critical time. How’d it be to put a couple of the boys on that job? Have them put a decimal point after the ninety nine and see how many nines they can tack on behind it?” |
| Technovelgy from Gray Lensman,
by E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1942 Additional resources -
|
Compare to absolute black from The Shadow and the Flash (1903) by Jack London, absolute black from Douglas Adams' 1980 book Restaurant at the End of the Universe and fuligin from Gene Wolfe's 1980 novel The Shadow of the Torturer.
Thanks to Winchell Chung (@nyrath at Project Rho) for submitting this item.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Gray Lensman
More Ideas
and Technology by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
Tech news articles related to Gray Lensman
Tech news articles related to works by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
Black Coating-related
news articles:
- Femtosecond Laser Pulse Turns Metals Pitch Black
- Carbon Nanotube Blackness Blacker Than Black
- New Black From NASA Uses Nanotubes
- Blacker-Than-Black Corrugated Metamaterials
- NASA's Super-Black Now Even Blacker
- Army Wants Black Blacker Than Black
- Vantablack Is Blacker Than Your Black
- Blackest Black? New Disordered Nanostructured Material
| Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly |
| Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer |
| Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick |
| GNoME AI From DeepMind Invents Millions Of New Materials |
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I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
'He carried on his person a triggering mechanism sensitive to his heartbeat.'
'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
