New state of matter found in crystal made from buckyballs

On 09/05/2015 02:41, RichA wrote:

Buckyballs, carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, all have come to f--- all when it comes to advancements.
But the "glad news" will still ring-out from the scientific pulpits,
so as to keep the MONEY flowing.

Typical of a reactionary anti-science Luddite that wants to prevent any
and all scientific research - preferring wilful ignorance to knowledge.

Carbon fibre composite materials are now mainstream manufacturing
technology for Boeing and Airbus new build of the largest airframes.

http://www.materialstoday.com/compos...site-a350-xwb/

Buckyballs are interesting in that they were a third allotrope of carbon
sat there waiting to be discovered in soot and observed as interstellar
dust by astronomers since infra red spectroscopy became possible with no
identifiable terrestrial compound to match it.

Quantum dots show promise as high efficiency emitters that can be easily
tuned for wavelength in mass processing. Time will tell if they or OLEDs
win out in the marketplace. My money is on OLEDs.

http://phys.org/news/2013-05-quantum...l-maximum.html

I can recall when the first OLEDs took months of work to get something
that barely glowed and lived for a few hours if you were lucky. I know
the group that developed the technology and the polyacetylene research
that preceded it laying the basic foundations of the physics.

Rich would be the gainsayer arguing that LEDs were no use in the 1970s
because they were too faint and only available in limited colours. Today
LEDs have become mainstream lighting and just about everyone depends on
semiconductor lasers to play their CDs and DVDs.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Monday, May 11, 2015 at 09:41:34 UTC, Martin Brown wrote:

Rich would be the gainsayer arguing that LEDs were no use in the 1970s
because they were too faint and only available in limited colours. Today
LEDs have become mainstream lighting and just about everyone depends on
semiconductor lasers to play their CDs and DVDs.

Yet around 10 years ago, you said that LEDs were "pure fantasy" for street-
lighting...

On Monday, May 11, 2015 at 3:41:34 AM UTC-6, Martin Brown wrote:

Rich would be the gainsayer arguing that LEDs were no use in the 1970s
because they were too faint and only available in limited colours.

Well, they were very useful, even then, for indicator lights that needed to
turn on and off quickly, which would be hard to replace if they burned out, or
which needed to run from small batteries for a long period of time.

That blue LEDs became available, and that it became practical to use LEDs for
things like home lighting, came as a surprise to me. They were useful for
certain things at one time, and now, with progress, they have become useful for
additional things.

If we didn't have LEDs, of course, we had other energy-efficient forms of
lighting. I'm dismayed that we aren't sticking with low-pressure sodium for
street lighting... for a reason that should be obvious on this forum.

Oh, incidentally, that should be "naysayer". To _gainsay_ someone is to
contradict him (against-say), as in "Who dares to gainsay Throg, mightiest
warrior of Helmetheim".

John Savard

On Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 10:16:32 PM UTC-6, RichA wrote:

There has never been a practical vehicle that could be man-powered. Even an
Olympic athlete hasn't got the horsepower to fly anything. And GLIDING doesn't
count!

Well, some people have flown in impractical man-powered craft, so at least some
people, maybe Olympic athletes, have been able to fly by pedalling gigantic
contraptions with big propellers.

So while you're right about impractical, you're wrong about impossible.

John Savard

On Mon, 11 May 2015 14:21:16 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
wrote:

If we didn't have LEDs, of course, we had other energy-efficient forms of
lighting. I'm dismayed that we aren't sticking with low-pressure sodium for
street lighting... for a reason that should be obvious on this forum.

Well, there's an argument to be made for their use near important
observatories. Otherwise, I think LEDs are the right choice. But that
assumes they are used in a way that takes advantage of features they
offer that LPS (and most other technologies) does not- in particular,
the ability to be dimmed.