Black Blacker Than Vantablack • Hacker News Board

Re: Black Blacker Than Vantablack

#91

Post by julienreszka » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 7:48 AM UTC

justinclift wrote: post #89

bdamm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pilots flying in "hard" instrument conditions also experience this. You can see the interior of the airplane, but everywhere you look outside is exactly the same shade of grey/black/white, and there's no usable data from your sense about the position of the airplane relative to the earth. Passengers who think about this might intellectually get it, but it's quite a different experience when you're looking out the fro…

When night diving, you can at least blow air into your hand then feel which way the bubbles travel. eg "which way is up?"

Unless you have a closed system like special forces usually do

Re: Black Blacker Than Vantablack

#92

Post by gandalfian » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 10:28 AM UTC

chongli wrote: post #18

I think it would be cool to walk into a room painted entirely with this material. I bet it would be so disorienting that people would fall down and get vertigo. So weird.

London's tate modern did a similar thing. At open ended black chamber. You blindly inched forwards to the back wall feeling as if you were about to trip over something. Then you turned around and realised with the light coming in the open end it actually wasn't that dark on the way out, its just there was nothing to pick up the light. https://www.studiointernational.com/images/articles/b/balka0...

Re: Black Blacker Than Vantablack

#93

Post by mraudiobook_com » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 10:46 AM UTC

chongli wrote: post #18

I think it would be cool to walk into a room painted entirely with this material. I bet it would be so disorienting that people would fall down and get vertigo. So weird.

You've never been in a room with the lights out?

Re: Black Blacker Than Vantablack

#94

Post by mraudiobook_com » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 10:49 AM UTC

justinclift wrote: post #89

bdamm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pilots flying in "hard" instrument conditions also experience this. You can see the interior of the airplane, but everywhere you look outside is exactly the same shade of grey/black/white, and there's no usable data from your sense about the position of the airplane relative to the earth. Passengers who think about this might intellectually get it, but it's quite a different experience when you're looking out the fro…

When night diving, you can at least blow air into your hand then feel which way the bubbles travel. eg "which way is up?"

Can people not submerged not feel gravity?

Re: Black Blacker Than Vantablack

#95

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 11:50 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #6

Jaygles wrote: post #2

Would these coatings be useful in solar panels? Does the energy trapped/absorbed by these CNTs turn into heat and does it transfer easily to the material its applied to?

Going from 99% black to 99.999% black turns out not to represent that much more efficiency. It's the difference between absorbing 99 of 100 joules of energy vs 99.999 of 100 joules of energy; unless the rest of your system is effectively 100% efficient, it may not even be a noticeable change. It is very likely that other engineering concerns, not least of which is price, is going to dominate this question.

[deleted]

Re: Black Blacker Than Vantablack

#96

Post by samstave » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

weberc2 wrote: post #40

axaxs wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about car/plane applications. At first thought, it's "that reflects no light that's a terrible idea". Thinking further, the absolute absence of anything itself stands out from a normal background, day or night. Would be a bit interesting to see.

These things have applications for stealth aircraft as they often absorb radar as well as visible light. But even for visible light, if you're looking at something painted vantablack in broad daylight, you only see a silhouette--much like WWI "Dazzle" camouflage, it's very difficult for the brain to process what you're looking at.

I asked this exact question last time we were talking about vanta - and several people more knowledgable on stealth than me, said that they would not...

Re: Black Blacker Than Vantablack

#97

Post by samstave » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 1:00 PM UTC

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #58

Scaevolus wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon nanotubes are similar to asbestos fibers, so it's not something that you'd want to put in a garment.

Rapidly moving lead will kill you faster than asbestos, there might be a few tactical uses for such a garment.

Likely better to put on txtical equipment, such as guns and boots?

Re: Black Blacker Than Vantablack

#98

Post by samstave » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 1:02 PM UTC

okcando wrote: post #27

chongli wrote: post #18

I think it would be cool to walk into a room painted entirely with this material. I bet it would be so disorienting that people would fall down and get vertigo. So weird.

An almost perfectly black and almost perfectly anechoic chamber with almost zero external sound. Peaceful or nightmarish?

With a sensory deprivation pod in the middle would be interesting

Re: Black Blacker Than Vantablack

#99

Post by anoncake » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #12

asdfman123 wrote: post #11

> Strebe has coated a $2 million (£1.6 million) 16.78-carat natural yellow diamond in the material Wouldn't it have been smarter to, say, make a glass replica, coat that, and pocket the $2 million diamond?

It's a piece of art - you could reduce the cost in many ways but it's subjective whether you'd be achieving the same thing as it doesn't have any intrinsic value except for how people appreciate it.

If the artist claims he did coat the actual diamond, it's still a piece of art, just a different one.

Re: Black Blacker Than Vantablack

#100

Post by rhizome » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 10:25 PM UTC

v64 wrote: post #67

rhizome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an old cartoon depicting a man standing outside of a Jeff Koons art show with a table full of inflatable animals and flowers for sale. A sign says "your friends will never know the difference!"

Banksy did something similar where he sold art in New York for $60 without indicating they were his work. [1] After this was revealed, some of those works that were sold that day went for six figures at auctions. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2013/oct/14/b...

That's kind of an opposite, where they bought something they thought was authentic but not famous, but I take your point.