A Still More Glorious Dawn Awaits

hamburgerjack:

thegoddamazon:

hamburgerjack:

Also known as frozen smoke, Aerogel is the world’s lowest density solid, clocking in at 96% air. It’s basically just a gel made from silicon, except all the liquid has been taken out and replaced with gas instead. If you hold a small piece in your hand, it’s practically impossible to either see or feel, but if you poke it, it’s like styrofoam.

Aerogel isn’t just neat, it’s useful. It supports up to 4,000 times its own weight and can apparently withstand a direct blast from two pounds of dynamite. It’s also the best insulator in existence, which is why we don’t have Aerogel jackets: it works so well that people were complaining about overheating on Mt. Everest.

Well that means we should have them in jackets and in blankets. Not for people who want to “adventure” on a damn mountain somewhere, but for people who freeze and die in winters without the right things to wear or to insulate homes.

COME ON SCIENCE. Let’s do this shit.

Definitely. But you know the corporations that fund these studies only want to see how they’ll profit from this, not about helping people.

Yeah I know.

Better to give that shit to a millionaire climbing mountains than people who can use it.