Wednesday, April 01, 2009

How much more black can it be?

Scientists have created the blackest material ever made [LINK]:
Scientists have fashioned what may be the blackest material in the universe: a sheet of carbon nanotubes that captures nearly every last photon of every wavelength of light.

The substance absorbs between 97 percent and 99 percent of wavelengths that can be directly measured or extrapolated. It's the closest that scientists have yet come to a black body, a theorized state of perfect absorption whose closest analogue is believed to be the opening of a deep hole.

"How much more black can it be?" - to quote Spinal Tap when first seeing their new album cover, which looks like the image above. The answer, by the way, is "None. None more black."

1 comment:

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

And here I thought the blackest thing around was Dick Cheney's heart.