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Radical fabric is one atom thick

could something the thickness of an atom and the size of a sheet of A4 be seen?? how would it look??
 
iGAV said:
could something the thickness of an atom and the size of a sheet of A4 be seen?? how would it look??
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You would think that ordinary light might not have the necessary wavelength: hence electron microscopes.

Just a guess...
 
I was going to bring that up, depending on the linear density of the substance, it would be hard to "see" it at all. Weakly interacting particals like photons or neutrinos wouldn't interact much as there isn't much substance to interact with. Nor would charged or strongly interacting particals interact much because the barrier they would need to penetrate would be so "small" that tunneling would be easy. So I would think it would be difficult to "see" without the aid of electron microscopes or scanning tunneling microscopes.
 
Reading the previous posts, this could be the single most important advancement in the field of Lingerie since the use of whale bones in corset! :D

No really, back on topic. I wonder if this could eventually used in other applications than electronics and superconductors. I wonder how resistant / light this "fabric" is.
 
This discovery of a one atom thick fabric sounds awesome. Sounds like we will have to wait and see the future nanofabrics.
 
srobert said:
Reading the previous posts, this could be the single most important advancement in the field of Lingerie since the use of whale bones in corset! :D

No really, back on topic. I wonder if this could eventually used in other applications than electronics and superconductors. I wonder how resistant / light this "fabric" is.
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LOL!
This seems like a real breakthrough but 10 years! We will have to wait for lightspeed nano tech.

edit, just thought of this. If you had a piece of the material infront of you say A4 sized then would it be totally invisible or would you be able to see a slight distortion as the light passes through it? How thick do you think it would have to be for you to be able to see it?
 
stevehaslip said:
edit, just thought of this. If you had a piece of the material infront of you say A4 sized then would it be totally invisible or would you be able to see a slight distortion as the light passes through it? How thick do you think it would have to be for you to be able to see it?
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that's whats being bothering me... it'll be thin that's for sure... but its surface area will still be A4 sized... so would it actually be invisible when seen face on??
 
srobert said:
I you make it thicker, it's no longer 1-atom thick material. :)
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I think what he means is the surface area, if you look at it face on (210mmx297mm) then surely you'd see it??
 
iGAV said:
I think what he means is the surface area, if you look at it face on (210mmx297mm) then surely you'd see it??
Click to expand...

1-atom thick? Light's wavelenght... I don't understand anymore... Ah! Got! It! MAGIC!

So simple.
 
think about a piece of hair, it has many atoms in it when you look at it under a microscope. But how hard is it to see a hair? I don't think that you'd be able to see it, you can't see spiders webs half the time and how big are they?

(I think) this stuff would be nearly invisible, can anyone comment for sure? any scientists about?
 
stevehaslip said:
think about a piece of hair, it has many atoms in it when you look at it under a microscope. But how hard is it to see a hair? I don't think that you'd be able to see it, you can't see spiders webs half the time and how big are they?

(I think) this stuff would be nearly invisible, can anyone comment for sure? any scientists about?
Click to expand...

I already did comment ;)
 
Oh and it would probably be near transparent, but work as a defraction sheet. But it wouldn't work well as a defraction sheet because most atom and crystal defraction works on the basis of there being many evenly spaced atoms through a crystalline lattice. It would of course be easy to see with a scanning tunneling microscope. but to the naked eye and normal microscope you would probably see interference lines, not the surface itself.
 
staring at it head on would be similar to looking through a ultra-fine mesh screen. you'd see distortion of light (very little) but you wouldn't see an actual solid surface. looking at it any other way than head on would most likely render it "invisible" to the naked eye.
 
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