61–70 of 91 posts
Can we remove the "shames scientists" bit from the headline? This guy is a scientist by definition if he has any experimental validation, and I didn't see a citation for anyone being shamed.
Yes he used the scientific method, so by definition is a scientist. However, I'm sure the title is using the popular definition of scientist (a professional researcher) in contrast to an amateur hobbyist.
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Second this. Don't understand why a sensationalist headline should translate as is to HN.
Because it feels like there’s a strong distaste for amateur scientists (those without degrees, not those who don’t know the scientific method) coming from both professional engineers and PhDs, anyone that has academic accreditation. The sensationalist title appeals to the autodidact that learned how to earn 100k+ without college through programming.
In spite of our understanding of chemistry, metallurgy still has quite a few mysteries in store for us. Some of them go back thousands of years. For instance we still have not been able to come up with a convincing reproduction of Damascus steel, the prized material that middle eastern swords were built of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel . Another supposedly related and "lost" steel is wootz steel. http:/…
The interesting thing about steel is that the tiny grains that make it up are immensely strong, far stronger than any other material we have. But we have no known method of making steel out of just those grains, it's always mixed with other weaker parts. That's why spider silk is so incredibly strong - it's manufactured (essentially) one atom at a time. If we could manufacture steel in the same way it would be far st…
e.g. Pearlite, which you mention, consists of two phases, cementite and ferrite. And these phases can form at the edges of grains, or within grains, depending on growth conditions.
But this isn't the important thing. The important thing is that it's meaningless to talk about how strong "single grains" can be, and how wonderful it would be if we could make large single crystals. And it's meaningless for two reasons: firstly, there are always trade-offs. If you make a large single crystal (i.e. a single grain) you'll sacrifice toughness, because cracks will be able to easily propagate straight through the crystal, without any grain boundaries to stop them. And secondly, you have entropy. Whenever you try and make a large version of something small, entropy dictates you will always have defects. This is why, for example, carbon nanotubes will never scale (which is not to say they won't be useful, they will be!) but if you try and make a centimetre long nanotube it'll be full of defects and will never, ever, be as good as a single microscopic nanotube which is almost perfect.
Anyway, the point is, there's no perfect material. No "good parts" and "bad parts," there's always a trade-off. Sometimes the "bad" parts can do very useful things. As an example, if you make a very strong steel, good luck trying to shape it into anything useful! Imagine if you have a lump of the "best" material in the world, if you can't find a chisel to carve it into something, then it's not going to do anyone any good...
And claims like those given in the parent article are always a little dubious. It's hard for people to imagine the scale of the steel industry, and I personally know of processes that are great in the lab for both steel and other metals which have wonderful efficiencies but just can't be scaled. A kg of steel should cost about the same to make as a bottle of water. If the equipment/size/energy-to-run-equipment investment is just a little too high per kg, it's not going to be useful for anyone at the kinds of scales it needs to be...
That said, despite the difficulties there has been huge progress made in the last few decades, and this might be one of them! Without more information I couldn't say (and it's not my area of expertise anyway), so I wish them luck.
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The problem is that as it stands now, someone like Intellectual Ventures will have a patent like "cooling metal with water", and either force him to sell for a few hundred bucks or just interfere with anyone else who actually tries to do this. It'll be 20 years before anyone figures out a way through all of the legal mess and starts production. Even then, it will cost more, not less thanks to this.
Well no, because nobody does or legally could possibly have a patent on cooling metal with water. So I'm not sure what your point is. It strikes me that many of the folks who most stridently object to patent law don't actually know much about it.
Rearden Metal, anyone?
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How would you suggest society repay the guy who invented the material? I can't think of any way except a temporary monopoly on its use.
There's no way to value the contribution or potential contribution of a technology to society, nor the damage done by granting a monopoly. Not by an eminent scientist or humanist, and certainly not by a clark in a patent office. You used the word repay - there's no way to be confident that a temporary monopoly will come within an order of magnitude of repayment. Further we need to consider the destructive side-effect…
One of the biggest reasons for patents was the public disclosure. If they are trade secrets instead, the inventor does not get any legal defense once the secrets are reverse engineered.
So I think it's a tough problem and society should err on the side of benefits for the inventor.
Software patents should be limited to 1 year :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The interesting thing about steel is that the tiny grains that make it up are immensely strong, far stronger than any other material we have. But we have no known method of making steel out of just those grains, it's always mixed with other weaker parts. That's why spider silk is so incredibly strong - it's manufactured (essentially) one atom at a time. If we could manufacture steel in the same way it would be far st…
This is partly misleading. It's accurate that steel is made up of grains, analogous to grains of sand, but the things you mentioned are more correctly phases, several of which can exist within a grain. e.g. Pearlite, which you mention, consists of two phases, cementite and ferrite. And these phases can form at the edges of grains, or within grains, depending on growth conditions. But this isn't the important thing. T…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes he used the scientific method, so by definition is a scientist. However, I'm sure the title is using the popular definition of scientist (a professional researcher) in contrast to an amateur hobbyist.
If he starts a company on this, he's a professional.
Wow amateur metallurgist sounds like a hardcore hobby.
A friend of mine is 'bio hacker'; he works with different microbiological organisms to learn about them and build better ones with specific traits. This article describes it better than I can: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101006/full/467650a.html