447 TB/cm² at zero retention energy – atomic-scale memory on fluorographane • Hacker News Board

Re: 447 TB/cm² at zero retention energy – atomic-scale memory on fluorographane

#161

Post by shiroiuma » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:33 AM UTC

atoav wrote: post #150

Keyframe wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

smoother ride, no need for wheels so no road friction and fewer parts that wear, no need for shock absorbers as well, no need for roads clean of snow and ice which would make them both more practical and safer.. if we're talking star trek hovering, not rotor blade / hovercraft noisy shit with rotating parts that waste a ton of energy.

Aha, and which of the fundamental forces in our universe would it work with?

That's a good question. When (if) we figure out how to practically travel at FTL speeds with a "warp drive", we might figure out the answer to this question too.

Re: 447 TB/cm² at zero retention energy – atomic-scale memory on fluorographane

#162

Post by mastermage » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 7:00 AM UTC

rcxdude wrote: post #124

mastermage wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you potentially get some smaller grants from each of the fields? Or is that too much paperwork. It always seems so much work to get those grants.

It's a near full-time job in and of itself, and the nature of them means that you really want to get a grant for something you've already done and use the scraps from it to fund the new stuff.

I knew it was a pain getting grants but not that its well that much of a pain.

Re: 447 TB/cm² at zero retention energy – atomic-scale memory on fluorographane

#163

Post by mastermage » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 7:02 AM UTC

atoav wrote: post #123

mastermage wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Street Infrastructure needeed to drive anywhere (kinda).

Ok, and where does the energy to consistently keep a weight in the air come from and is it really worth spending? I know flying cars are some sort of futuristic trope, yet I cringe at it every time I see it. They always assume magical infinite power. In the real the reason we do not have flying cars is the same why you don't use a drone as a coat hanger at home: It is just more practical to use a mechanical solution…

My entire answer exists in the context of a hpyothetical we were not discussing the realism of it.

It was in the context of if someone would invent this technology. To which then the question was what advantage does this have.

Now going and posing the question wheter this is realistic or feasible is making this argumentation circular.

Re: 447 TB/cm² at zero retention energy – atomic-scale memory on fluorographane

#164

Post by atoav » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 7:15 AM UTC

Keyframe wrote: post #151

atoav wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aha, and which of the fundamental forces in our universe would it work with?

You asked what advantage would it have over rolling rubber, not how would one do it (you wouldn't with current understanding of physics and energy density/portability). Any at advantage vehicle like that is still in the realm of scifi.

Yes but it collides with our understanding of physics as well. Floating anything with significant weight within an air atmosphere requires constant power, you will at least have to profuce an upwards force that is equivalent to the downwards force. Depending on how efficiently that force is transfered you may need much more. A wheel made of rubber or steel (trains are freakingly efficient!) does give you that much cheaper.

Now theoretically one could envision some energy form that is so abundant it doesn't matter anymore that you constantly fight gravity, sure. But what most people seem to imagine is some magical tech that decouples the vehicle from the force of gravity, while still coupling it to the planet (or whatever the next relevant relevant frame of reference is) somehow. This kind of magical tech makes sense in films or scifi books, but if we just collect together what it would need to be, it is hard to envision any actual potential mechanism short of "we live in a Matrix and we lesrn to control the program".

Re: 447 TB/cm² at zero retention energy – atomic-scale memory on fluorographane

#165

Post by atoav » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 7:28 AM UTC

shiroiuma wrote: post #161

atoav wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aha, and which of the fundamental forces in our universe would it work with?

That's a good question. When (if) we figure out how to practically travel at FTL speeds with a "warp drive", we might figure out the answer to this question too.

To be honest I think FTL is likelier than magical "sticks you to a fixed point in space relative to a rotating planet"-technology.

Sure you can do that with pushing air and a global positioning system, so if eventually we invent an eventual anti-gravity drive or something that may be used for the same thing. But wether such an entirely fictional device could be then made to (1) fit into a car sized vehicle and (2) be powered by whatever the most powerful mobile energy source is at that time and (3) become affordable to anyone outside of the 0.01% is another question.

Re: 447 TB/cm² at zero retention energy – atomic-scale memory on fluorographane

#166

Post by nine_k » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

bastawhiz wrote: post #157

nine_k wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took 15 if not 20 years to commercialize even such obvious, low-tech thing as radio telegraph, which can literally be built form common house supplies. It happened about 60 years after Maxwell predicted the electromagnetic waves theoretically. Red LEDs were invented / discovered in 1920s, became commercially successful as indicators in 1960s. Optical fibers were invented in 1920s or so, became a commercial success…

It's a good physical effect that doesn't obviously solve any real problems. Consider: 5D optical storage is thirty years old and SOTA transfer speed is about as many megabits per second. By the time it's fast enough to even approach a speed that's commercially useful, all of the other tech we have will have continued to progress. That's not to mention how fragile the quartz disks are. It's a real physical effect that…

> all of the other tech we have will have continued to progress

These other techs also came from somewhere, often brewing slowly for decades until the conditions align for a commercial success. This one may be, or may not be, one of these slow-brewing techs of the future, suddenly displacing the SOTA of the (future) day.

Hell, the steam turbine was in principle invented in like 300 AD, and first commercialized (or, rather, militarized) by the end of 19th century. Leonardo da Vinci invented the helicopter, the submarine, and the tank, in principle; it took about 500 years for them to become large commercial and military successes.

Re: 447 TB/cm² at zero retention energy – atomic-scale memory on fluorographane

#167

Post by shiroiuma » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 12:58 AM UTC

atoav wrote: post #165

shiroiuma wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question. When (if) we figure out how to practically travel at FTL speeds with a "warp drive", we might figure out the answer to this question too.

To be honest I think FTL is likelier than magical "sticks you to a fixed point in space relative to a rotating planet"-technology. Sure you can do that with pushing air and a global positioning system, so if eventually we invent an eventual anti-gravity drive or something that may be used for the same thing. But wether such an entirely fictional device could be then made to (1) fit into a car sized vehicle and (2) be…

>To be honest I think FTL is likelier than magical "sticks you to a fixed point in space relative to a rotating planet"-technology.

I disagree. I'm no physicist, but given how gravity seems to be related to the structure of spacetime according to Einsteinian physics, and a lot of FTL ideas seem to center on the idea of "warping" spacetime, I suspect the two are highly related, and if FTL is possible at all, it'll be also related to artificial gravity.

Re: 447 TB/cm² at zero retention energy – atomic-scale memory on fluorographane

#168

Post by shiroiuma » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 12:58 AM UTC

adrian_b wrote: post #126

cameldrv wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea if this is practical but I remember when flash memory was this suspicious semi-science fiction thing too. There are probably some people on this site that remember the same for DRAM. There have been loads of things in between that didn't make it. Some of them were semi-crackpot, some actually went into production like bubble memory and Optane. Few of them have met the sweet spot of the market in a way…

Most kinds of memory devices are based on old principles of making a memory device, which are applied to new materials. I do not think that any new memory device principles have been invented after WWII. Already by 1940, the inventor of DRAM, John Vincent Atanasoff, had enumerated almost all principles that can be used to make a memory device. The first DRAM of Atanasoff was made with discrete capacitors, then 5-year…

>Microsoft has worked for many years on their glass memory devices, which have much more important advantages, and they are still far from being able to sell such devices, mainly due to the cost of the required lasers, for which there is a chicken-and-egg problem

So what's the deal here? I've tried reading about these devices, but MS's web pages are a little sparse on info and nothing's changed much in years. I guess the lasers used in BluRay burners aren't powerful enough?

Re: 447 TB/cm² at zero retention energy – atomic-scale memory on fluorographane

#169

Post by ufocia » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #123

mastermage wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Street Infrastructure needeed to drive anywhere (kinda).

Ok, and where does the energy to consistently keep a weight in the air come from and is it really worth spending? I know flying cars are some sort of futuristic trope, yet I cringe at it every time I see it. They always assume magical infinite power. In the real the reason we do not have flying cars is the same why you don't use a drone as a coat hanger at home: It is just more practical to use a mechanical solution…

You're misunderstanding fundamental physics. Things staying in place do not require energy. The reverse is true, things falling give up the energy they already have. The aim is to prevent them from losing energy. We already do this, they're called geostationary satellites. Also, it's not weight, it's mass.