Researchers at a US laboratory claim to have created the darkest material ever; a carbon nanotube which is one atom thick and rolled into a cylinder. For an object to be completely black, it must absorb all the colors of light over every angle and wavelength while reflecting none back, and scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, may have just gotten one step closer. The team built an array of vertically aligned, low-density nanotubes -- rough on the surface to minimize reflections -- and then measured the optical properties. They discovered that the objects very good at absorbing light, while downright rotten at reflecting it, thus creating a new standard for "blackness." In practice, their nanotubes could form a super-black object, leading to the creation of more efficient solar panels or solar cells, or more importantly, a
Kuro display that goes
beyond absolute black. "They've made the blackest material known to science," Says Professor Sir John Pendry, though Shaft's representatives have called for a recount.
posted January 17th 2008 10:32AM
Oh god, no-one tell the emo's.
#000000h, that's cool!
JAY Z - The Black Album.
Jay-Z, the Carbon Nanotube Album
I'm going to use it for my band's new CD cover art.
SAY IT LOUD.
I'm BLACK AND I'm PROUD !
That's actually Spinal Tap: Smell the Glove.
as per the This is Spinal Tap DVD....."a pastel black"
Goth teens rejoice! Somebody find a goat!
"How much more black could it be?"
"...none..."
"Yeah... none more black."
Spinal Tap FTW!
What's wrong with being sexy?
Yo nanotube is sooooooo phat and soooooo black,
-that when it goes to night school, it getz marked absent!
-that when it goes skydiving, it turns day into night!
-that it goes to a funeral naked!
I actually heard one of the scientists on npr this morning... the interviewer asked if he had ever heard of Spinal Tap, he said no.
Thanks to youtube though, he now can be in on the joke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlynf--lsxA
At least I know why all the black guys are stealing our womens now.
On a darkness scale of 1 to 10, this one goes to 11.
Once you go carbon nanotube you never go back
Blacker than the blackest black, times infinity.
i kept waiting for a picture to load and then i realized you guys were showing us an example
FUNNY ENGADGET!!!!
yes I was going to comment about that too.
I like the camera angle though, very artistic!
Yeah the same thing happened to me when a friend sent me "pictures" of the New York Blackout a few years ago...I was on a 54k connection so i couldn't tell the difference
That should go up in the Tate Modern gallery :)
(Fun trivia fact: I live just behind the Tate Modern)
The angle might be fine but I'm unimpressed by your 8bit scan, even less by the lousy image compression choice. Could you please post a decent uncompressed tiff version asap?
You can see it if you have an OLED monitor.
Spinal Tap!
Best, picture, ever
shopped
Seriously, look at the edges! Nothing lines up at all. And scientists would never use an object that wide. Totally fake.
Yes , very nice, but does it come in any other colour?
Hmm .. Oh, is that a picture of it? It doesn't look all that dark.
Yeah, the highlights are ALL wrong. And the shadows dont go in the same direction.
I wonder how James Earl Jones feels about this.
Yawn. Guess now that you're done being a Mac marketing sheet, you can go back to reporting news from last week. Smashing.
Yawn. You came all the way here to tell us you don't like Engadget? Get lost clown!
You're complaining about Apple posting about Apple in a post where they're NOT talking about Apple?!???
Clever...
Whoops, brain fart, meant to say:
You're complaining about ENGADGET posting about Apple in a post where they're NOT talking about Apple?!???
Clever...
That picture is the cover of "Smell the Glove"
That," he said, "that ... is really bad for the eyes ..."
Ford looked. He too stood astonished.
It was a ship of classic, simple design, like a flattened salmon, twenty yards long, very clean, very sleek. There was just one remarkable thing about it.
"It’s so ... black!" said Ford Prefect, "you can hardly make out its shape ... light just seems to fall into it!"
Zaphod said nothing. He had simply fallen in love.
The blackness of it was so extreme that it was almost impossible to tell how close you were standing to it.
"Your eyes just slide off it ..." said Ford in wonder. It was an emotional moment. He bit his lip.
MAJOR PROPS for the Hitchhiker's reference! You beat me to it!!!
black is the new black
Really? You guys rate this comment Lowest but the identical one above him as Highest just because it was posted a minute before?
You guys are either very fickle with your humor or you must have been rating their elevation on the page.
black is the new black
I can't see it.
Once you go darkest material, you never go back.
Reminds me of Beverly Hills Ninja when Chris Farley was asked if he had a black belt:
"The blackness of my belt is like the inside of a dead man's coffin on a moonless night."
Chris Rock's reply? "That's pretty black."
Reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer steals the most sour lemon ball invented:
" Frink: As you can see, I have created a lemon ball so sour, it can only
be safely contained in a magnetic field. The candy, known as
77X42 is -- hey! [looks in case] Where the hell's the candy?
Homer: [face grossly contorted] I dunno..." (courtesy of SNPP.com)
just curious, what's the practical use of it ?
Super efficient solar panels, displays that can show pure black even in direct sunlight, goodness knows how many others. Theres a list in the read link
And also for Steve Jobs new wardrobe....awesome shirt dude!
Something darker than black for New Yorkers to wear??
If you had an iPod Touch, you'd love this stuff, despite being on 1.1.3, i still don't think it shows black properly