Unsinkable metal

[LittleLebowski]

Worth reading, really cool.

https://newatlas.com/materials/unsinkable-metal-superhydrophobic/

44529

[OlongJohnson]

I'd be interested in seeing how it interacts with corrosion and corrosion countermeasures, cradle to grave.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

I'm interested in seeing how marine growth interacts with this surface.

I kept my boat in the water for most of this year because I was using it every day...those of you with boats will no doubt know that unless you coat the bottom with harsh toxic paint, you end up with barnacles all over everything. We had a big barnacle spawn this summer and even though I have bottom paint on my boat, it's old and less toxic now, and I ended up scraping about six or eight pounds of barnacles off a month after the spawn.

So for anything that stays in the water, your surface treatment is really critical. But then maybe this would inhibit marine growth automatically - who knows what the characteristics will be?

At any rate I think there are going to be a bunch of useful incremental gains like this and maybe the Sharrow prop which don't have dramatic shocking effects where navy river boats can't sink anymore...but do have really useful large scale improvements on the world by cutting the fuel needed to ship goods by three percent or something. Pretty cool. I'm convinced that in the long run we're going to innovate our way out of most of our pressing concerns long before we can restrict our way out of them.

[Yung]

Could we make gun parts out of it? Would it still work with lubrication?

[OlongJohnson]

What happens with a surfactant? Soap, alcohol, a spritz of Windex?

[awp_101]

Maybe global warming will take out the icebergs before Titanic II sets sail...

[blues]

The Unsinkable Molly Brown Bolt...

[Clusterfrack]

Another great application of the Lotus Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_effect). Very cool.

[BehindBlueI's]

I can't be the only one thinking "best practical joke submarine ever" here...

[Clusterfrack]

I can't be the only one thinking "best practical joke submarine ever" here...

Totally. Except the sub would have to be really small.