Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electricity But Not Heat (2017)

Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by twic on Sunday December 01, 2019 @09:17AM (#21675569)

> But a team in the US showed this isn't the case for metallic vanadium dioxide (VO2) - a material that's already well known for its strange ability to switch from a see-through insulator to a conductive metal at the temperature of 67 degrees Celsius (152 degrees Fahrenheit).

The next time you need to do whale sous-vide, i think.

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by the8472 on Sunday December 01, 2019 @09:52AM (#21675696)

The transition temperature can be tuned with dopants[0]. And the switching happens from transparent at low temperatures to reflective at higher temperatures.

That said, its highest transmittance is in the infrared, it's not that great in the visible spectrum.

[0] https://dr.ntu.edu.sg/bitstream/handle/10220/25845/for-your-...

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by ianai on Sunday December 01, 2019 @09:42AM (#21675657)

Is that a Star Trek movie reference?

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by dghughes on Sunday December 01, 2019 @09:54AM (#21675710)

Yes. Original series when they went back in time. Scotty showed an earth engineer how to make transparent aluminum.

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by ars on Sunday December 01, 2019 @02:00PM (#21677166)

> how to make transparent aluminum

Which is just alumna (aluminium oxide, AKA ruby and other gems).

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by agumonkey on Monday December 02, 2019 @04:00PM (#21686870)

Homelab torch process can be seen on YouTube

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by mike_hock on Sunday December 01, 2019 @11:02AM (#21676046)

A keyboard? How quaint!

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by Jgrubb on Sunday December 01, 2019 @11:07AM (#21676066)

proceeds to type at 400 wpm...

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by furgooswft13 on Sunday December 01, 2019 @12:29PM (#21676586)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkqiDu1BQXY

Using mostly his index fingers.

Suck it vim users, your editor has nothing on MOLECULAR DESIGN for System 3.0

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by mike_hock on Sunday December 01, 2019 @11:14AM (#21676100)

Also makes you wonder how he was going to input that into the computer using voice commands.

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by zeeZ on Sunday December 01, 2019 @11:54AM (#21676316)

It's not as surprising of you can imagine all the stuff probably going on in the background when you say "<assistant of choice>, play the next episode of Star Trek on my TV"

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by mike_hock on Sunday December 01, 2019 @12:39PM (#21676657)

Lots of stuff going on, but based on concepts known to the developers. He had to teach the computer how to synthesize a hitherto unknown substance. Can't get around the information entropy of the stuff he'd've had to input into the computer.

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by Godel_unicode on Monday December 02, 2019 @12:38AM (#21680089)

How hard is it to say "take $known_aluminum_alloy and add $dopant using $heating_process"?

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by dghughes on Sunday December 01, 2019 @12:22PM (#21676540)

Obviously by using the corded speakerphone "Hello computer".

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by dreamcompiler on Sunday December 01, 2019 @03:18PM (#21677567)

Aye laddie. Indeed.

Now if we only had computers we could talk to. (Without trying to sell us something in the process.)

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by cellular on Sunday December 01, 2019 @05:22PM (#21678197)

I never understood why the whales needed to see outside their tank.

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by mrfusion on Sunday December 01, 2019 @01:17PM (#21676879)

I never understood why the tank needed to be transparent.

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by carapace on Sunday December 01, 2019 @01:23PM (#21676916)

It didn't need to be, it was transparent because it was glass.

They traded the formula for the glass. The company didn't manufacture transparent aluminum on the spot and give it to them.

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by StephanTLavavej on Sunday December 01, 2019 @02:21PM (#21677272)

Plexiglass: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Plexicorp

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by mrfusion on Sunday December 01, 2019 @01:48PM (#21677091)

My question is more, why not I’m just use steel or aluminum?

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Re:Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electric... by carapace on Sunday December 01, 2019 @01:52PM (#21677112)

Because then you wouldn't get to see the whales.

It's just a movie. :-)

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