Monday, September 14, 2009

New to Me: Aerogel



A few facts about my recent FABULOUS discovery (which I made here) . . .

Aerogel (shown above) is the lightest solid known to exist. It weighs only three times as much as air.

It's also called frozen smoke because of its hazy blue appearance.

It holds 15 entries in the Guinness Book of World Records.

When handled, Aerogel feels like styrofoam.

It's chemically similar to glass, and shatters like glass, yet is incredibly strong and can support thousands of times its own weight.

Aerogel is awesome.


22 comments:

Meganito said...

Woah! This, like, just showed up! No way! Sorry, I haven't read it yet, I was just looking through all the pages and when I looked on this one again, this one just popped up!

Kiwi said...

Cool! Where can you get it??!!??

Cassie said...

Oh, wow! What is it used for?

vendetta-zla said...

ooh should i add that 2 my christmas list????? what would i do with it???

Lioness said...

I love how the hand has rreealy long nails.

Nellie said...

"Aerogel is awesome."

Oh, ya think? :-)

Gnat said...

it looks realy pretty. i wander if they could make jewelry ouit of it.

serena said...

it looks like jelly to me

brave chickens said...

Science! :)

whoot said...

here's one that's even lighter than air...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoCAxS4vqwQ

Peacey said...

OMG!!! Think of how much we could do if we could only get our hands on some aerogel! I mean, we could ...

I don't actually know. Huh. Well, I'm adding this to my wishlist of stuff I've seen here, just like mini pigs and the shocking jacket (remember those?).

gymnast20 said...

omg this is soo cool!i want some! idk wat i wod use it for but still it is just amazing

geekchick said...

Wasn't that in Popsci magazine a while back?

Olivia said...

I know about this!!!
I found it after random searching on the internet.
Later on, after I requested, we learnt about it in our school's science club.
(not as 'geeky' as it sounds, we blow stuff up mainly) :)

dangerous said...

I remember reading about this somewhere a few months ago, it might have been under one of your posts that had a youtube link. Under "related videos". huh.

UU said...

I love how you have the list of facts, and then Aregol (sp) is awesome.

quiverteam said...

If you are interested in this stuff, have a look at www.quiverblog.com. aerogel will change the world.

Forrester said...

lioness:
they discovered something that is almostt as light as air,can be held and is SUPER cool, and all you can think about is nails?!?!?
awesome.

Anonymous said...

Science is totaly awesome!

Luz said...

yeah its awesome! who woulden't like that???

CA said...

steal some from the tech museme in san jose.

Mahro said...

cool picture!