Subject: I could see these being very, very annoying...
Author:
Posted on: 2014-08-18 14:09:00 UTC
Considering that Dark Black is black enough to actually obscure the details of what's painted in it, trying to navigate, say, a Dark Black hallway or fire a Stu's "dark black tactical rifle" could result in substantial navigational problems.
Also, all the uses that article mentioned went right over my head. Anybody wanna translate them for me?
Vantablack doesn't allow light to escape, so the energy eventually becomes heat. So the solar applications are probably very efficient.
For cameras and telescopes, it cuts down on reflections inside the lens assembly by trapping the unwanted light. I assume that with long exposures, you get strange effects if you don't limit it as much as possible.
We can't charge for "Dark Black" as a Suvian color anymore. It defaults to Vantablack.
However, we can charge for Dark Black in specific textures (like "fuzzy"), or picking out textures like " crumpled" in Dark Black without feeling it. Remember, this color relys on a specific material (carbon nanotubes) to be produced, and you can't see textures in it.
Can you touch vantablack without damaging it? Or is it impossible to scratch?
Vantablack is described here as " It withstands launch shock, staging and long-term vibration, and is suitable for coating internal components, such as apertures, baffles, cold shields and Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) –type optical sensors."
Sounds pretty durable to me. I mean, it is made of carbon nanotubes.
As for general structure, it's described here. Not as complex as once thought.
Just put some kind of hard resin or other coating over it. That'll diminish its properties somewhat because no coating is 100% transparent, but it'll still be extremely black.
The light that would beabsorbed by the first coating of Vantablack would be reflected by the second coating of resin. No transparent material is completely nonreflective, there's always glare or reflections. Besides, any damage to the second coating of resin, like scratches, would simply have the same effect as damage to the Vantablack coating itself.
Although we're getting increasingly far away from my actual feild, I think that so long as the resin was transparent it wouldn't do too much to affect the transition between the nanotubes and the outside world- vantablack looks Dark Black from all angles, so it's unlikely refraction would make a difference.
I also wonder, on those scales, whether the resin molecues would even fit in between the nanotubes to any appreciable degree. I could be off on several orders of magnitude with that estimate, though.
Carbon nanotubes are a pretty strong material, and potential applications include military camouflage, so it's probably pretty strong.
However, you have to remember that it's a coating. You can't have something made out of Dark Black, but you can have something coated in it.
There are plenty of times that we could still charge for Dark Black.
As you've said, it uses a specially arranged matrix of carbon nanotubes to achieve the effect - now a canon like Star Wars probably has access to that kind of technology. Things like Lord of the Rings...? I'm gonna go with 'unlikely'.
Wow. That's really awesome. I want some.
-Aila
(But yeah, it will probably make life five times more difficult for the agents.)
...I'm just not sure if ninjas would buy from me or steal their own.
There's a group of neurologists who, while unable to create a surface "painted" in the colors, have developed methods of making people see "bluish yellow" and "reddish green".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_colors
You know, in case you need to spork your own eyes out. Alternatively, have some Bleeprin - I hear it's just as effective, but without the awkward side effects.
And yes, it is very black. The only thing I can think of that would be blacker is an actual black hole, but I think they might be slightly impractical to use a colouring.
...the wisdom of the lyrics "got to be good looking cause he's so hard to see"? Maybe this is a really good looking color?
Also, perhaps this is the color of a plothole. It would make sense, to me.
-Phobos
I've always imagined the naturally occurring plotholes, as opposed to the ones intentionally generated by the PPC for navigation, look like shimmery (possibly even sparkly if they're bad enough), highly concentrated heat hazes. So they'll visually distort whatever is behind them, and although you can see that there is something there, you can't tell what it actually is.
I suppose something in vantablack would also have a similar effect. And there's nothing to say that all plotholes have to identical. So yeah, that makes sense to me too.
I always imagined plotholes letting everything through, including light, hence HQ being able to snake through them and nobody noticing until they realize how confusing the halls are.
I've always thought plotholes are just that - holes in the fabric of reality, so to speak. And a hole does not have substance in and of itself - it's an absence of something. (That's why 'black hole' is a bit of a misnomer, 'cause it ain't no hole, it's just something way too heavy for its own good.)
Considering that Dark Black is black enough to actually obscure the details of what's painted in it, trying to navigate, say, a Dark Black hallway or fire a Stu's "dark black tactical rifle" could result in substantial navigational problems.
Personally, I was expecting something a little more damaging to the eyes when I read the headline, but this works too.