The Strongest Material in the World

Graphene is an atom-thick lattice of carbon atoms

Job 40:18
"His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron."

Graphene may be the most unusual material that will ever be discovered. It has already revolutionized the world of physics and won the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics for physicist Andre Geim and his colleague, Kostya Novoselow.

What's so unusual about graphene? Geim told CNN Tech, "It's the thinnest material you can get – it's only one atom thick. It's the strongest material we are aware of because you can't slice it any further. You can't get any material that is thinner than one atom, or it wouldn't count as a material anymore."

Geim went on to say, "Graphene is stronger than diamond; it shows extraordinary heat conductance; it conducts electricity a thousand times better than copper – the list goes on. Another surprise is that you can just about see it with the naked eye, even though it's only one atom thick!"

Geim added, "We live in a 3-dimensional world. My physics intuition, developed over the last thirty years, told me that this material shouldn't exist. And if you had asked 99.9% of scientists around the world, they would have said the idea of a 2D material was rubbish and that graphene shouldn't exist."

How true that is! Scientists have been mistaken about a number of things, even when 99.9% of them were in agreement. Vestigial organs in humans, for example. Cosmic ether, for another. Then there's the fire-like element called phlogiston and the mistaken notion of epicycles. But the biggest mistake that scientists continue to make is evolution.

Notes: www.cnn.com/2013/10/02/tech/innovation/graphene-quest-for-first-ever-2d-material/.
Photo: Courtesy of AlexanderAlUS. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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