h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Anyone following science news over recent weeks cannot fail to have read about the new wonder-material they call graphene.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20975580

It's one atom thick, apparently, and has the strength of diamond, the flexibility of rubber, and knocks the conductivity of copper into a cocked hat.

The race is on to find something useful we can do with it, but the best things they seem to have come up with so far are flexible touchscreens, wall lighting and batteries. Sounds pretty boring considering those amazing properties, don't you think?

I challenge the combined brains of h2g2 to come up with something a lot better...

In "Surface Detail" by Iain M Banks, one of the characters was given a skin-tight suit which could be controlled to change the colour of her skin and also acted as a bullet-proof vest and sword-proof armour. It sounds as if graphene could do this.

It looks as though it might be flexible enough to allow a bullet or blade to get deep into the body without having to puncture the graphene layer...

What's the difference between graphene and graphite? The pictures they show of graphene look like layers of graphite to me.

I don't think there is a difference, apart from the thickness. Chemically it's the same stuff.


Geggs

Yup, what Geggs said. It's just a monolayer of carbon - and by definition that is always going to be a layer of what would become graphite if it was extended into 3 dimensions.


There's a lot of excitement about this which as far as I can tell is akin to the excitement over Buckminsterfullerene about 15 years ago.

Wrap a sheet of graphene into a ball or tube and you have a fullerene.

The chemicals that really became exciting nobody talked about and the one they did talk about has quietly faded away.
Noone can predict which is going to be the wonder material of the future. Graphene *might* be it - but I think the Jury is still out.

I'm amazed people haven't heard of graphene.

You can make it at your desk witha pencil and sticky tape...which is essentially how it was discovered by accident and the scientist stopping and thinking for a second.

It's what 'real' science is all about; those chance discovers.

Just a shame research in the UK has for too long been funded based on 'dead-cert' research projects where you have to tell the funding body what your results will be before you get the money.

OK, given graphene's diamond/rubber properties I've just filed an outline patent for the combination engagement ring / eraser. Handy for those moments when your fiancee realises she's made a mistake on the pools coupon.

Actually, that's a point. Did you say it's just a sheet of graphite? Won't it rub itself out by definition? This material's clearly inherently unstable.

Condoms!

Didn't Ben Elton describe an aerosol condom that you just sprayed on before use and peeled off after? Maybe graphene could be manipulated this way?

Portable trampolines.

PP.

Loo roll that your fingers don't go through.

You wouldn't wipe your hindy with coal, would you? I wouldn't!

Maybe he's been caught short while he's first-footing?

I'm thinking about magicians, now. Think of the potential for magic tricks of a material incredibly strong, incredibly stretchy, yet can be so thin it's invisible...

Maybe we've discovered the 'transparent aluminium' they had to invent to save the whales in Star Trek IV.

I can't reconcile "strong" with "stretchy". Surely this material will bend but not stretch. I think we need to have a very clear idea what its behaviour is under stress before deciding what we can use it for.

Hmmm, quite right.

Why would it not stretch? I'm sure it would - you just get lots of flattened hexagons.