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
" I sometimes suspect that we're seeing something in the Internet as significant as the birth of cities. It's really something new, it's a new kind of civilization."
- William Gibson
 |
| Water Repellent Surface | ||
| A surface that water flows over without sticking at all. |
The Fremen were tribal people who lived in the desert that covered the surface of the planet Dune. All moisture was precious; even the water in a person's body was carefully conserved after death.
| A splashing sounded on her left. She looked down the shadowy line of Fremen, saw Stilgar with Paul standing beside him and the watermasters emptying their load into the pool through a flowmeter. The meter was a round gray eye above the pool's rim. She saw its glowing pointer move as the water flowed through it, saw the pointer stop at thirty-three liters, seven and three-thirty-seconds drachms.
Superb accuracy in water measurement, Jessica thought. And she noted that the walls of the meter trough held no trace of moisture after the water's passage. The water flowed off those walls without binding tension. She saw a profound clue to Fremen technology in the simple fact: they were perfectionists. |
| From Dune,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Putnam in 1965 Additional resources -
|
How did the Fremen do it? One possible approach involves imitating plants with surfaces that have low binding tension - water just slides off. Such surfaces are made from a hydrophobic substance - usually wax-like in character. But "bumps" make it work even better:
Water cannot enter the cavities created by these bumps because the surface is hydrophobic, so the drop is left stranded on a pincushion of spikes. The gap between these spikes means that the drop is mostly in contact with the air, with only a very small part of it actually touching the leaf. This combination of repulsive chemical interactions and the physical morphology of the leaf creates a surface that is capable of efficiently repelling water and generating astonishing hydrophobic behaviour.
(From Water droplets make an impact)
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Dune
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Herbert
Tech news articles related to Dune
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
Water Repellent Surface-related
news articles:
- Water-Repellent 'Bumpy' Glass Mimics Lotus Leaves
- Slippery Liquid Infused Porous Surface
- LiquiGlide Coating, Your New Condiment Lubricant
- MIT's New Super Slippery Surface
- Laser Etching Makes Metal Super-Hydrophobic
- New Super Slippery Surface Better Than Nature's
| ODYSSEUS Solar-Powered Stratospheric Plane Flies Forever |
| Phil Nuyttnn's City Under The Sea |
| Stick-On Tape Speakers, As Predicted By Bruce Sterling |
| Has Climate Change Already Been Solved By Aliens? |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to ... erase the other internal-external damage.'
'Of course, being negative matter, when you push it, it comes toward you..'
'They'll also start pulling in gases and liquids from the local atmosphere...'
'The plastex swam and whirled like boiling toothpaste...'
'The object is built up of an infinite series of plane layers, at the focus of the ray...'
'... the computing mechanisms that studied and restructured the incoming material.'
'... an instrument having relatively small bit pieces adapted to be gripped between the teeth.'
'A procession of automatic ore carts was racing over the bleak slag'
'The cab was an egg-shaped bubble of light metals and plastics...'
