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"In 1977, it took about eight months for a slightly faster more refined mechanism to put punk in the window of Holt Renfrew. It's gotten faster ever since."
- William Gibson

Gauzy  
  A feather-light tent, made of a fabric just one molecule thick.  

Hasan is an exemplary assassin. Some people have a talent for music - they can pick up an instrument and play it within a few hours. Others have a talent for weapons.

Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough. He never slept in it, though. He just used it to stash his junk.

I seated myself on a log before the fire and Hasan ducked inside his Gauzy. He emerged a moment later with his pipe and a block of hardened, resinous-looking stuff, which he proceeded to scale and grind. He mixed it with a bit of burley and then filled the pipe.

After he got it going with a stick from the fire, he sat smoking it beside me.

"I do not want to kill you, Karagee," he said.

From This Immortal, by Roger Zelazny.
Published by Ace Science Fiction in 1966
Additional resources -

Up to the 1960's, tents were mostly made from canvas or similar materials, and used steel supports. A tent big enough for four people was not something you wanted to carry around if you could avoid it. However, tents made of more modern materials, like nylon, and the supports were made from aluminum. The Gauzy takes this process a step further, with the lightest possible material used - just one molecule thick.

For another example of an extremely thin material, see the entry for light sail.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from This Immortal
  More Ideas and Technology by Roger Zelazny
  Tech news articles related to This Immortal
  Tech news articles related to works by Roger Zelazny

Gauzy-related news articles:
  - Graphene - Nanofabric One Atom Thick
  - New Materials One Atom Thick Extracted With Micromechanical Cleavage
  - Graphene Reveals Fine Structure Constant
  - Graphene Is Also Super Strong
  - New Material Is One Molecule Thick

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