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Molecular Velcro
A material made of similarly shaped particles that stick to eachother by hooking similar parts of their shapes | |
The idea would be that a material made out of lots of little
particles with similar shapes that could link into fastened
structures would have interesting properties -- it would act
like a liquid under a certain amount of presure from a solid
object, but "freeze" and hold its shape as the presure
from
that object was lessened.
Maybe the shape of each particle could be like a cube with
each corner twisted into a widening corkscrew hook -- or
maybe a cube with lots of little corkscrew hooks on its surface
would work better.
H
http://www.straight...lassics/a1_033.html
[Laughs Last, Jan 29 2005]
Gecko Feet?
http://www.post-gaz...0707gecko0707p2.asp
Microscopic Velcro [Giblet, Feb 01 2005]
A bigger version, but same principle.
http://www.gothaila...hp?page=people8.htm
[Ling, Feb 01 2005]
Artificial Gecko Feet
http://www.nytimes....science/30geck.html
200 times more powerful, apparently. [DrCurry, Aug 30 2005]
[link]
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What does the H stand for? |
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It's to remind you that in Spanish it's pronounced 'Haysoose'. |
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This sounds like the glue on 3M's Post-It notes. |
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A related material: micro paperclips. Shaking a mass of them causes them to cross-link, forming a gel. |
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"it would act like a liquid under a certain amount of presure from a solid object, but "freeze" and hold its shape as the presure from that object was lessened." kind of sounds like clay. |
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Molecules that bind with other molecules due to matching shapes are used every day - that's how our body fights germs. |
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But on the whole, molecular bonds are extraordinarily difficult to part - that is why most solids stay that way, rather than collapsing into piles of dust. So when you manage to stick two molecules together, they will likely stay stuck. |
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You might very well find molecules that will bind and unbind in your magic chemistry set, but I suspect do will do so under different conditions than the ones you specify. I think your best bet would be an applied electric field. |
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Otherwise, stick with Blutak. Or, per Detly, Post-Its. |
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"A gecko's foot contains millions of minuscule hairs, or setae, with tiny pads at their tips. Because they are only 200-billionths of a meter wide, the tips get close enough to any surface to be pulled by the surface's weak molecular forces. The combined strength of all the setae on a single gecko, Dr. Autumn found, is enough to lift an offensive lineman, about 280 pounds." |
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This 'van der Waal' weak force will keep the moleclules bound but not chemically, so removing them is a matter of peeling them off like a suction cup. |
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"I'm not a scientist, I'm just drawn that way." |
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Ferro-fluid might be of interest. It normally flows like liquid until a magnetic field is applied, then it solidifies. Good for halfbaking. |
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As is a bottle or two of wine. What were we talking about again? |
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I was thinking, allbeit not so eloquently, that the
individual particles could be any size, say the size of golf
balls. |
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"the individual particles could be any size, say the size of golf balls" |
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So this is a new kind of velcro on a larger scale than regular velcro? |
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You might want to change the name of the invention then. |
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Or on the same scale as regular velcro, just not only
micro level. Maybe Modular Velcro minimal units, velcro
particles, Velcro
individuals, Velcro balls? |
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//it would act like a liquid under a certain amount of presure from a solid object, but "freeze" and hold its shape as the presure from that object was lessened." kind of sounds like clay// Sounds more like....anti-custard! |
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See link: when things are that small, you don't need hooks and loops - things just stick to eachother anyway. |
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Hey, I'm a Word Warrior. Hmph, figures. |
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