In sci.physics, Uncle Al

wrote
on Fri, 08 Sep 2006 14:32:11 -0700
:
Robert Clark wrote:

It's referred to as "polyyne" he

Polyyne said to be 40 times harder than diamond.
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2111

The research is published he

Harder than Diamond: Determining the Cross-Sectional Area and Young's
Modulus of Molecular Rods.
Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Volume 44, Issue 45, Pages
7315-7483 (November 18, 2005).
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/c...30826/ABSTRACT

The research actually only calculated Young's modulus. It didn't
measure it.
Also the hardness claim is coming from the fact the calculated Young's
modulus was 40 times that of diamond, and hardness is correlated to
Young's modulus.

Bob Clark

Let's ask a simple low-tech question: Are Israeli diamond cutters
lining up to put it on their wheels?


I also seem to recall -- don't remember the details now -- of a
theoretical explosive that basically fizzled. Something tells me
we have a long way to go before predictive chemistry becomes the
norm. :-)

In any event diamond's crystal structure is a very interesting and
regular pattern; I doubt it can really be improved upon using pure
carbon.

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