Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
 |
Comments on Femtosecond Laser Pulse Turns Metals Pitch Black
Remarkable process creates a perfectly black finish without paints or other coatings. (Read
the complete story)
| "I think you missed a science-fiction point: think Douglas Adams and 'The Restaurant at the End of the Universe' (Pan MacMillan, Jan. 1, 1980), the part where they steal the 'blacker than a black-hole' black ship from the parking garage of the restaurant. It belonged to a band named 'Disaster Area', and the ship absorbed so much light in such a way that 'your eyes simply slide right off it'." ( 12/3/2006 9:45:08 PM) |
| "I agree... when I read "absorbs 100% of incident light" the first thing I thought of was Adams' pitch black ship. " (Mr. Jip 12/3/2006 11:10:24 PM) |
| "I poked around in my library, and found my first edition copy; I hadn't read it since 1980. Here's the quote about the stuntship whose sole purpose was to fly into the sun to provide spectacular effects for a rock concert:
'It was a ship of classic, simple design, like a flattened salmon, twenty yards long, very clean, very sleek. There was just one remarkable thing about it. 'It's so... black!' said Ford Prefect. 'You can hardly make out it's shape... light just seems to fall into it!' The blackness of it was so extreme that it was almost impossible to tell how close you were standing to it...''" (Bill Christensen 12/4/2006 4:38:28 AM) |
| "The monoliths in Clarke's 2001 are also perfect absorbers of light." (Mark 12/8/2006 11:46:36 AM) |
| "By an odd coincidence, I happen to have that reference - 'The object before which the spacesuited man was posing was a vertical slab of jet-black material, about ten feet high and five feet wide: it reminded Floyd, somewhat ominously, of a giant tombstone. Perfectly sharp-edged and symmetrical, it was so black it seemed to have swallowed up the light falling upon it; there was no surface detail at all... (Read more about TMA-1 the Tycho Monolith)" (Bill Christensen 12/24/2006 3:35:10 PM) |
Get more information on Femtosecond Laser Pulse Turns Metals Pitch Black
Leave a comment:
Tediously, spammers have returned; if you have a comment, send it to bill at this site (include the story name) and I'll post it.
More Articles
SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
Elon Musk Says Robotaxis Will Be Ready This August, 2024
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Moonwalkers AI-Controlled Electric Shoes
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
Steve Jobs: 'Capture The Next Aristotle - With AI'
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
No Tips! Robotic Food Delivery In Phoenix
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
Electric Catamaran 'Explorer Eco 40m' Has 'Solar Skin'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
Orbital Mechanics, The Liftoff, The Turnover, The Retrograde Burn
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
Harvest Power From Tears And Blinking With Smart Contact Lens
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
Europa Clipper Plate Carries A Special Message
'...a universal cryptogram — yet it is one which can be interpreted by any intelligent creature on any planet in the Solar System!'
Micro-Robots Are Smallest, Fully Functional
'With a whir, the Scarab shot from the concealing shadows of the corner where it had hidden itself.'
AI Enhances Images Your Brain Sees
'I could have sworn the psychomat showed pictures almost as sharp and detailed as reality itself'
Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI
'Stasis, cold sleep, hibernation, hypothermia, reduced metabolism, call it what you will - the logistics-medicine research teams had found a way to stack people like cordwood and use them when needed.'
Deflector Plasma Screen For Drones ala Star Wars
'If the enemy persists in attacking or even intensifies their power, the density of the plasma in space will suddenly increase, causing it to reflect most of the incoming energy like a mirror.'
DIY Robotic Hand Made After Loss Of Fingers
'I made them... with the fine work of the watchmaker...'
Cheap Drunk Driver Detection From UofM
"Look, I can drive... Start, darn it!"
Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail?
'If she starts to roll sideways — blooey! The underjets only hold you up when they’re pointing down, you know.'
Robot Snakes No Longer Stopped By Stairs
'...she dropped her hands from the wheel, took the robot snake from his box.'
Has Turkey Been Stealing Rain From Iran?
Can one country take another's rain?
