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A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

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Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#101

Post by ghaff »

cinntaile wrote: post #43
solardev wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not great for the environment though, with plastic microfibers washing into our oceans and DWR coatings being toxic and leaching into waterways. Compared to, say, what they climbed Everest with originally, yeah, our gear today is lighter, cheaper, more effective, but also more environmentally impactful and much less degradable. It's all just byproducts of the oil industry. We're a lot more comfortable now, b…

Most of the new gear also doesn't last nearly as long.

There's certainly a tradeoff in some cases. I've had things break/wear out in ways that wouldn't have happened with heavier/thicker gear in years past. Also, much as I love merino wool, it wears out/gets eaten by moths in ways that wouldn't have been nearly the issue with synthetics in years past.

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#103

Post by tim333 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #83
throwup238 wrote: post #4

> While composites might seem like a futuristic technology, in many ways, they hark back to millions of years of human and even pre-human material technology. Wood, after all, is the original composite material, as it’s composed of long and short fibers glued together by other substances—much like modern synthetic composites are often made up of carbon fiber held together by epoxy resins. Wood was a chief enabler of…

> and finally Romans developed something resembling concrete (I dont remember kYa). About 2 kYa, give or take a couple of centuries. And it was actual concrete, rather than something resembling concrete. In fact, better than the concrete we were making a hundred years ago, and better than most of our concrete fifty years ago. Roman aqueducts and bridges are still standing 2000 years later. Not sure I'd put money on t…

Yeah there was a theory discussed on HN a couple of years ago that superior qualities came from mixing in quicklime (CaO). I'm not sure if they've developed that and tested it against modern concretes. I guess it's hard to tell if they'll last 2000 years without waiting quite a while. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34280239)

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#104

Post by tim333 »

solardev wrote: post #40
ghaff wrote: post #14

As a hiker/outdoors person, materials evolution has been a fantastic improvement in so many ways. Even lightweight traveling.

Probably not great for the environment though, with plastic microfibers washing into our oceans and DWR coatings being toxic and leaching into waterways. Compared to, say, what they climbed Everest with originally, yeah, our gear today is lighter, cheaper, more effective, but also more environmentally impactful and much less degradable. It's all just byproducts of the oil industry. We're a lot more comfortable now, b…

Modern Everest climbing clothing is mostly goose down, although with a thin polyester like layer over the top, so still fairly natural.

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#105

Post by solardev »

tim333 wrote: post #104
solardev wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not great for the environment though, with plastic microfibers washing into our oceans and DWR coatings being toxic and leaching into waterways. Compared to, say, what they climbed Everest with originally, yeah, our gear today is lighter, cheaper, more effective, but also more environmentally impactful and much less degradable. It's all just byproducts of the oil industry. We're a lot more comfortable now, b…

Modern Everest climbing clothing is mostly goose down, although with a thin polyester like layer over the top, so still fairly natural.

Not just the clothes, but the tents, ropes, shoes, bags, gloves, etc have all improved (and gotten more plastic). There's a bunch of metal waste too (oxygen cans etc) from what I understand, but at least that's mostly metal. And lots and lots of frozen poop and corpses, I suppose. It'll be interesting when it all melts...

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#106

Post by solardev »

nmadden wrote: post #53
solardev wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not great for the environment though, with plastic microfibers washing into our oceans and DWR coatings being toxic and leaching into waterways. Compared to, say, what they climbed Everest with originally, yeah, our gear today is lighter, cheaper, more effective, but also more environmentally impactful and much less degradable. It's all just byproducts of the oil industry. We're a lot more comfortable now, b…

I agree with the thrust of your argument, but I just want to point out that wool is not environmentally neutral. Sheep are incredibly destructive and have historical caused a lot of degradation of habitats. https://www.monbiot.com/2013/05/30/sheepwrecked/

That's more a matter of scale, I think, than material? Whether it's wool or leather or plastic or cotton or hemp or flax, if you need millions or billions of units of something, it's going to incur large scale habitat loss somewhere in the world.

I guess then it's a question of land use (converting ecosystems into rangeland) vs pollution (from fossil fuels and plastics).

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#107

Post by ghaff »

solardev wrote: post #105
tim333 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern Everest climbing clothing is mostly goose down, although with a thin polyester like layer over the top, so still fairly natural.

Not just the clothes, but the tents, ropes, shoes, bags, gloves, etc have all improved (and gotten more plastic). There's a bunch of metal waste too (oxygen cans etc) from what I understand, but at least that's mostly metal. And lots and lots of frozen poop and corpses, I suppose. It'll be interesting when it all melts...

Real expedition mountaineering is definitely not a lightweight endeavor even if there's more high fill down and other better warmth/weight ratio clothing. It's more about trimming a few pounds off the weekend (or longer) hiker/camper's weight budget.

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#108

Post by solardev »

ghaff wrote: post #107
solardev wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just the clothes, but the tents, ropes, shoes, bags, gloves, etc have all improved (and gotten more plastic). There's a bunch of metal waste too (oxygen cans etc) from what I understand, but at least that's mostly metal. And lots and lots of frozen poop and corpses, I suppose. It'll be interesting when it all melts...

Real expedition mountaineering is definitely not a lightweight endeavor even if there's more high fill down and other better warmth/weight ratio clothing. It's more about trimming a few pounds off the weekend (or longer) hiker/camper's weight budget.

Don't they usually also have Sherpas pre-hauling a lot of equipment up, installing ropes and ladders, setting up base camps, etc.?

In some ways it seems more like a military operation than a sport (in terms of the logistical complexities).

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#109

Post by ghaff »

solardev wrote: post #108
ghaff wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real expedition mountaineering is definitely not a lightweight endeavor even if there's more high fill down and other better warmth/weight ratio clothing. It's more about trimming a few pounds off the weekend (or longer) hiker/camper's weight budget.

Don't they usually also have Sherpas pre-hauling a lot of equipment up, installing ropes and ladders, setting up base camps, etc.? In some ways it seems more like a military operation than a sport (in terms of the logistical complexities).

I've only done lower (6K meter) peaks. Yes. Sherpas/porters carry a lot up to base camp and beyond. But you're still carrying a lot of gear. There's a certain narrative that clients basically get carried up the mountain and it really isn't true.

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#110

Post by kjkjadksj »

adrian_b wrote: post #72
shiroiushi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Trees have to be big, strong, lightweight, and bendable. Homogeneous materials won't work for that application. Why wouldn't titanium work for that application? (Assume that somehow the plant can move nutrients and fluids around some other way.) Or even steel, as long as it's not solid? Obviously, nature can't produce hollow steel tubes, but lots of metals satisfy your requirement list here.

In any stellar system like ours, where oxygen is the most abundant element, except for the hydrogen and helium that are contained mostly in the star and in the big planets, almost all metals are completely oxidized (with the exception of the siderophile elements submerged into the cores of the planets, because of their great density) and the amount of metallic substances with a natural origin that can be found in the…

To be fair we are the only creatures to make much use of anything, metal or no. That being said the metals are used by other creatures. Some might eat metal rich mud for nutritional value for example.
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