Comments on: Wannabes

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:51:02 +0000

BillT,

Glass only flows if “very, very slowly” means “over more time than the age of the Universe.” Please refer to Cornell research at this link: http://www.cmog.org/dynamic.aspx?id=294 . Note that lead flows billions of times faster.

Yes, my late followup reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/386/ but it took me a while to remember on what forum I’d found this thread.

Dave

By: Casey

Casey — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:33:44 +0000

Hmmm. Transparent aluminum, anyone?

Heh.

By: ELP

ELP — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:11:30 +0000

How often to sharks go into the shop to get a center-barrel-replacement?

By: craig mclaughlin

craig mclaughlin — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:30:19 +0000

Max,

I think Waldo Lyon tried to sell Rickover on a glass hulled submarine back in the ’60s. My memory is hazy but I seem to recall reading that in Bill Leary’s book about Waldo.

craig

By: MaxDamage

MaxDamage — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:49:45 +0000

There was interest at one time, and may still be, about using glass to create deep-sea vessels, capable of reaching depths that the best steel frames would crush at. The idea has some merit. Perfectly-formed glass, without chips, has a compression strength approaching 1 million psi before fracturing. That’s a lot of water above the bridge, so to speak.

The difficulty is, since glass is a chrystalline material, that one minor chip or flaw will reduce its compression strength dramatically.

Still, the thought of riding in a psuedo-liquid shell to great depths in a very-liquid environment has a certain ironic appeal.

– Max

By: Allen

Allen — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:43:51 +0000

It’s back? Well I suppose it’s about due. I have often noted how R&D seems to cycle, usually around a 20 year cycle. Metglass was a hot topic back in the mid to late 80′s.

High-temp superconductors should be due for a resurgence.