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"I went [to the top of] Vehicle Assembly Building and looked down, and tears burst from my eyes. The size of this cathedral where the Rockets take off to go to the moon is so amazing."
- Ray Bradbury
 |
| 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)
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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
| California Gets Shockwave Rider-Style Avoidance Zones |
| Helios Modular Touch Screen Wall Lights |
| Harvest Water From Air With Sunlight |
| Better Than Dune Chromoplastic? This Guy Might Have Done It |
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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.
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'A vast circle of scarlet stars came up into the greenish desert dusk.'
'He had constructed an organ, a brain, of metal, entirely inorganic and lifeless...'
'I shall never forget the sight... when the yellow gleam of the precious metal appeared under the star dust.'
Oh, and now I suppose someone will develop the robotic porch pirate.
'This thing will start at one end of ...a house and build it complete to the other end, following drawings only.'
'In contrast to the airless desolation outside, the interior of this five-acre greenhouse was the one most desirable place to be.'
'It was cheaper to pay the refugees to go without up-to-the-minute equipment.'
'Evidently they have never had a planet of their own...'
