Re:Wikipedia is getting a new look
by anyfoo on Thursday September 24, 2020 @12:20AM
(#24575218)
I admit I'm not in any field that deals with materials a lot, but OP said "Kohlefaserverstärkter Kunststoff" (which I likely wrongly called "carbon fiber" in English), is "Kohlefaser" really the same? Maybe it is and I'm just ignorant about that.
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Depends. (As everything always does.) “Carbon fiber” literally means just the black threads, in English as in any language. When you say “This bicycle / fishing rod / automobile part is made of carbon fiber”, what you _actually mean_ is that it's made from carbon fiber- reinforced polymer (=“plastic”). Stuff isn't built from _just_ the fibers; the plastic needs to be there to keep them together / they're just there to reinforce the plastic (or both).
The GP (G-G-G...P?) post seemed to be using the shorter expression, but as a shorthand for the longer (as most people do) in English but not in German, which may have caused some confusion.
But it's the same in both (all) languages: The shorter expression technically means just the reinforcing fibers; the actual material used to make stuff is technically called the longer expression; but in ordinary usage most people use the shorter expression to mean the longer one.
My German-as-second-language understanding is:
Kohlenstofffaserverstärkter Kunststoff == Kohlen (literally coal but understood more broadly as any carbon) stoff (material) faser (thread) verstärkter (reinforced) Kunststoff (plastic).