Sister blog of Physicists of the Caribbean in which I babble about non-astronomy stuff, because everyone needs a hobby

Wednesday, 30 May 2018

Sculpting with vantablack

Always fun to see. The sculpture mentioned in the video can be seen here :
https://www.sciencealert.com/vantablack-hyundai-pavilion-pyeongchang-winter-olympics-asif-khan

Then Surrey NanoSystems invented a sprayable version that blocks only visible light, laying down the nanotubes in a random configuration; and the VBx paints, that don't use nanotubes at all, but can be used for commercial applications. This latter product is what has been sprayed on the Hyundai pavilion.

When in shadow, the three-dimensionality of the walls of the pavilion seems to disappear. It's bristling with rods, the ends of which are lit to appear like stars against the extreme blackness.

"From a distance the structure has the appearance of a window looking into the depths of outer space," Khan said in a statement. "As you approach it, this impression grows to fill your entire field of view. So on entering the building, it feels as though you are being absorbed into a cloud of blackness."

Inside the building, the interior is the opposite - pure glossy white, made from Corian, a surface material more commonly seen in kitchen benchtops. The entire room is a water installation, with 25,000 water drops per minute flowing across the hydrophobic surfaces. Haptic sensors allow visitors to interact with the installation, changing the rhythm of the droplets as they collide and flow towards a central lake, which drains, and reappears, and drains again.

It sounds cool, and it is cool, but I felt that more could have been done with this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI7tLclZyrE

1 comment:

  1. Makes no sense...why was the very first thing they made not a rectangular monolith with dimensions 1:4:9? "It's full of stars!" indeed.

    The mind boggles.

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