★★★ *FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE VIDEO / FACT UPDATES* ★★★ *Q1) Why did they need to have Transparent Aluminum?... Why didn't they just make the tanks out of Aluminum?* - Before I answer this, just know, it's an OBVIOUS answer if you stop and think about it. They did not need Transparent Aluminum, and they did not use Transparent Aluminum, they used the chemical formula of Transparent Aluminum as payment for the material they did need for the Whale tanks on the ship, and the reason they used Acrylic / Plexiglass and not Aluminium or Steel, is because it would not be very visual on screen if they had a big metal box, they needed to be able to show the whales in the tank. *Q2) It is spelt Aluminium & pronounced (Alu-Mini-um)* - I am well aware of this, I am from Australia and spell it and pronounce it that way, But I pronounce it (Aloo-min-um) in my videos as most of my viewers are American (27%) and they complain more if I pronounce it Alu-Mini-um. *My Viewer Locations From My Analytics - USA 27%, Canada 3.1% vs England 6.4%, Australia 2%* - English & Australians will complain about the pronunciation as well, but not as much as Americans. *Aluminum* and *Aluminium* are two names for element 13 on the periodic table. Although Americans and Canadians spell and pronounce the name aluminum, while the British (and most of the rest of the world) use the spelling and pronunciation of aluminium. LINK = www.thoughtco.com/aluminum-or-aluminium-3980635 ►PLUS it was pronounced *ALOO-MIN-UM* in the Star Trek Movie with Scotty when he made the Transparent Aluminum Molecule - LINK = ua-cam.com/video/LkqiDu1BQXY/v-deo.html ► *That being said, I have read all the comment advice and for now on I will say it the Australian way Alu-Mini-um.* ►► Another area I have to constantly think about is (cm's vs inches) and (klms vs miles) I am constantly having to re-write scripts so the majority will understand what I am talking about. *Q3) How do they fit new windows on the space station in space* - I would assume they would either shut the door to the module, vent the air and have an astronaut do a space walk to replace them, or NASA would send up a new module and swap them over. *Q4) why are they using a Macintosh Pro in the 23rd century?* - They're not, the Star trek crew went back in time to 1986, from slingshoting around the sun in a bird of prey. *Q5) You say "Light years ahead" A light year is a measure of distance/length, not of time!* - A light year is both a measure of "distance & time", but it's also can be used when describing a new technology, such as "ideas that are light-years ahead of the their time / This new technology puts the company light-years ahead of its competitors." ► LINK 1 - www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/light-years%20ahead, ► LINK 2 - www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/light+years+ahead.html
Wonder World To hell with my fellow (uneducated, unworldly, bigoted) Americans. Pronounce it like you do, and let them get educated and appreciate that other English-speakers pronounce things differently than we here in America do - and conversely we different than others. So please, let's hear "alu mini um"...
I say, don't sweat it. Ya know, "Don't sweat the small stuff". Said as Aluminum, or Aluminium, it doesn't matter. Anyone who is familiar with one of the spellings (pronunciations), will certainly be able to figure it out if the other version is used, and ought to do so without uttering a word about it. Of course they should be free to speak about it if they want, but they shouldn't want to because it's unimportant.
20 years ago when i was in elementary school i saw my dad watching a star trek episode every now and then. I remember him explaining the windows in the enterprise as being as strong as steel, but transparent like glass although he never knew they were transparent aluminum (Not a real trekie). I asked him once "Is it possible to make steel that you can see through?" he replied "I don't know, maybe you should learn as much as you can and someday, you could.". If only he were alive today...
@@kornpops1261 He doesnt sound like the father figure who calls his own blood a failure If a father calls his son a failure, it simply means that the father himself is a failure
@@danieldorn2927 But if the father tries his best to teach his child to learn on his own but the child is just simply a dumbass then I don't think the father is a failure.
He said it wrong. It is not only square inch but cube inch. As the tests required for bullet resistance were 1.25 inches wide makeing one inch worth 225 dollars per inch cube.
@@mrpotat680 That's still reasonable to make glasses out of. At least until the manufactures add the 999% markup like they do with the wire and glass or current frames.
@@mrpotat680 Jacking up the price is a bit of an understatement. I bought my first car for less than my first pair of glasses. But you are right, we NEED them so they can essentially charge whatever they want.
I always get a kick out of watching Scotty's two finger typing while never taking his eyes off the monitor. Really impressive for a 70 year old who grew up with voice input computer's and never seen a keyboard outside of a museum. 🖖
Scotty is the pen-ultimate engineer and master of understanding controls seen and unseen. Sharp enough to inflate his estimates with Kirk so as not to overwhelm his underlings with their own unworthiness... AKA allowing time for *others* to have to time to learn.
ALON is often associated with the fictitious material "transparent aluminum". This was first mentioned in the science fiction film Star Trek IV: Back to the Present by chief engineer Montgomery Scott and is used as window material in Starfleet spaceships. The patent for the ceramic material was filed in 1985 and the film was produced in 1986. The story of the journey through time also takes place in 1986.
Wow, I didn't know it was really invented around the same time! I wonder if the producers of the movie knew about it? I wonder if the company considered using them for saying it was stolen from the future lol... But the movie's subtitle was The Voyage Home, not Back to the Present.
So what you're saying is Scotty sold them a formula that had already been patented by somebody else and was thus worthless to them. That actually explains perfectly why it didn't alter the timeline in any significant way. Very sneaky!
Aluminium oxynitride having improved optical characteristics and method of manufacture TM Hartnett, RL Gentilman U.S. Patent 4,481,300, 1984 Process for producing polycrystalline cubic aluminium oxynitride JW McCauley U.S. Patent 4,241,000, 1980
@@EdKolis yes they did star trek ws imnown for using near teh for future tech. Many othe r items that were fancifuyl i durring r toss we see today were already in the works even the idea of warp in mtheory wa possible since relivity wa formulated. The few that weren't were beacuse they sp ome looked and asked hw di we make this
There was barely any footage available for this topic, regardless of that fact I still made the video, as who doesn't want to know that Transparent Aluminum from Star Trek now exists.
To be clear, in the bullet test, the conventional glass isn't 6 inches thick; it's 3.7 inches. Interesting video overall, though! Thanks for posting! :)
+Wonder World You do realize that naturally occurring transparent aluminum oxides are called corundums. Depending on impurities, they may be called rubies, sapphires and numerous other gem stones. Transparent aluminum is definitely not a product of science fiction except for the uninformed. What is new are methods of synthesizing such ceramcs, specifically synthetic sapphire for watches and mobile devices.
When you watch that bit in the movie, the woman with long hair was an extra & wasn't meant to say anything but she does, much to the surprise of Walter Koenig & Nichelle Nichols.
@@dannydadog1987 I mean diamond is just an element: carbon. The configuration of the elements in the molecule do make a big difference. I don't see anything wrong with Scotty's formula if the molecule was a specific configuration of just aluminum atoms.
IMO it was the single most "Star Trek" moment in any of the Star Trek movies. As a child watching that movie, I was awed. The very concept of a transparent metal had never occurred to me. And it is that awe that inspired so many engineers, scientists, and researchers to make real what they saw in Star Trek.
"Transparent aluminum" has existed since the dawn of time in the form of sapphire and ruby, which are crystalline forms of aluminum oxide, which has a Mohs hardness of 9 (diamond is 10). Synthetic sapphire has also been produced since the 60's. In fact, some UPC scanners at stores use clear sapphire as the "glass" on top since sapphire is so tough. This is simply a new method of production. Also, I'm sure that some writer at Paramount was aware of this when they wrote the idea into the movie, so this is not an example of sci fi inspiring real science.
Heck, most people have some in their pockets right now. The lens cover on your cellphone is typically synthetic sapphire, at least for flagship phones.
I always thought it would be better (but not as snappy) if Scotty had said "I know it's history, Captain. This is the fellow who invented it... this year." Plus... that would have fitted literary SciFi tropes better.
@@its1110 I think more like if you do it, then you have had done it. I mean, he didn't have done it until he did it, and then he had already done it. If he wouldn't do it, then he wouldn't have already been done it nor had to do.
@@Kratax Well... he already would have done it if was going to do it. But would he remember having done it if he not been born yet so as to be able to do it? What if his having done it would have prevented his birth? Meanwhile, in an alternate universe... ... ... :)
@@Roland5679 the "Why aren't you masked" line from the 80s doctor to kirk and bones in the operating room with Pavel had me going through covid mask flashback lol
@@alfamale9525 Yea but that was when all cars were made out of wood. I would also like to add that the four to six horse power wasn't under the hood. It was right out there where you could see it.
Well yes but actually no, it's more compact and stronger, so they want it; but it's expensive, so they likely would only use it in limited numbers. The cost to retrofit all the vehicles with this would be astronomically expensive. The military has a budget, just a really large one, get some things are still too expensive for even them
tihzho Well, just remember back then files weren’t very big, so they opened basically immediately. Edit, let me rephrase that: Files opened the same speed as a larger file would today.
@@brianfeuerman1732 Ehhh not really, the HDD if one was present, which it was not for a Macintosh Plus was painfully slow. Often time you're running off the floppy disk, as in the case of the Macintosh Plus was then a new 3.5 inch double-sided 800 KB floppy drive. Bottom line it WAS slow, not to mention what about the software Scotty? You can't just punch a bunch of keys in a computer. What would have been better is Scotty opening up a command line and typing in lines of code, then running it. My first computer was an IBM AT and it DID have a HDD and loading a program and loading a file was very slow.
There is also a process with alpha particle beams that also makes pure aluminum clear. It also works for titanium. The beam is steered magnetically and realigns the molecules of aluminum or titanium so that they pass light at optical frequencies. Still have to polish it.
Really? Have some evidence of that? No pure transparent metal exists except in nano thicknesses. Everything else is an oxide. In other words, not metal but a ceramic.
Flying cars are a really bad idea imagine a bunch of flying vehicles above your head in your neighborhood and how badly people drive, drunk driving, all that kind of thing yeah bad idea 💡!!!
The idea of flying cars IMHO are kind of stupid, at least in the traditional sense everyone sees the concept as. In reality, the closest you could get to a flying car is an eVTOL/manned multicopter, or a roadable airplane, the later of which there are a few companies testing designs and 2 companies, Terrefugia and PAL-V, are about to hit the market with their vehicles. PAL-V has started selling, and Terrafugia recently got a special LSA certificate from the FAA for their design. PAL-V is basically a folding gyrocopter mixed with a 3-wheeler, and Terrafugia is more of a roadable fixed-wing airplane. Both designs will require you to get training for a license, both will be much more expensive than a typical car, and both will also require a lot more extensive maintenance. Personally flying a vehicle/plane is a lot more involved than many realize. Before every flight, I always do a preflight that usually lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. And before that, I'm thinking about the weather and whether or not I should go because some days (especially in the PNW) the weather is just crap and isn't wise to take-off in. You can't just hop into vehicle that can fly like you can with a car. If something breaks, you can't pull over. And I'm 100% positive the regs will never let anyone take-off from a road with their PAL-V or Terrefugia. If you want to use that aspect of the vehicle, your going to have to drive to a dedicated airport or airstrip to take-off and land from, just like a regular airplane. So really neither of those designs are flying cars but more like roadable airplanes, which is still nice, but it doesn't follow the traditional flying car concept everyone knows and expects.
@Mister Turk Turkle It already existed and patented before the startreck movie came out.a lot of Futuristic things exist right now that you won’t see for another 20 years if you are alive.
@@Rumeel12708 too many concealable weapons in the world already, as cool as lightsabres would be. How about hard light holographics or personal shielding instead?
I worked at a parts store while I was starting my business. We had a guy come in wanting a transparent aluminum driver's side window for his car, argued about it and almost wouldn't leave. This was 2003.
You clerks are always hiding the good stuff. I just wanted a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range but was told "Hey, just what you see, pal." Jackasses
@@BillyBob-qu1fs But you got the Uzi 9 millimeter, the .45 longslide with laser sighting, and the 12 gauge autoloader, right? So, that's something, then
Thank you. Your video was not only entertaining but informative. It provided enough information to express the basic concept and be useful as a launch point for more research. For me personally, the most important bit of information is how science fiction and science fact are connected - each inspires the other. The ALON product/technology is very interesting in its own right as well, and has the potential to be a game changer for future needs. On another note: I noticed your "disclaimer" concerning Aluminum vs Aluminium. My question is why are there two ways of spelling/pronouncing the same word? Just curious.
The days of scratches and cracks in mobile phone screens are already long gone. Corning several years ago announced that they had developed a version of gorilla glass that is completely scratch resistant and crack proof. However, when asked a couple years after the announcement why screens still scratch and crack, Corning's spokesperson said that the device manufacturers didn't want that glass.
I've heard a lot of people claim that Plexicorp produced transparent aluminum for the whale tank however the line about 'years to figure out the dynamics' .. and the earlier line about having '6" plexiglass on hand' suggests Scotty merely traded the transparent aluminum knowledge for the primitive plexiglass the company had on hand (much faster than retooling a factory to make a completely foreign material).
Except for the "cashless" society. Then again, the time travel episode in Deep Space Nine had them going into a dystopic period of history where the unemployed were sent to ghetto neighborhoods so maybe it is all coming true.
Though computers have surpassed trek's as well as other inventions in that field.... we are still not doing enough headway when it comes to energy and power production. Also, medicine.Fusion reactors are nearing equivalent exchange, but thats it. No antimatter mumbo jumbo, still no theoretical way to surpass light speed.
@@cactusmann5542 Computers have gotten faster, smaller and have higher memory capacity but Star Trek showed computers doing things that we have only been able to crudely program as they are things we do not understand. Even the speech interaction with the ship's computer is generations ahead of what we now have with Siri, Alexis and Hey Google. Even our self learning programs perform inefficiently, what saves our self learning AI's is that they can go through countless billions of iterations and be exposed to enormous amount of data to perform their learning. The fact that it takes so many iterations and so much bulk data to train an AI shows that we have a poor understanding of the learning process. I would hardly call the computers of today comparable with the promises of Star Trek's computers. They could be on a hardware scale but certainly not in software. As to fusion. Fusion is over-rated and over marketed. The promise of fusion is to reproduce the stability and efficiency of energy production in our Sun's core. Well, the core of our Sun produces about 300 watts per cubic meter, about the energy production of a compost pile and that takes the gravity of at least 12 Jupiter masses to maintain the pressures needed. Yes, higher rates of energy production are possible as per the fusion bomb but with less stability. Fusion has always been just marketing to do more basic research. Now this research is well worth it but if it is safe nuclear energy that addresses the problem of nuclear waste then we could've had molten salt thorium breeder reactors for a fraction of the cost of fusion research. As to medicines and advancement in medicine. We are limited by corporate greed, by the pharmaceutical companies. You only have to look at Glybera, a genetic treatment where a single treatment completely cures a rare but debilitating disease, the research was initially at Canadian Universities funded by taxpayers, but the pharmaceuticals paid for the testing. However since a single shot is a complete cure and the disease is rare, they priced the drug at a million US a dose, only one patient was able to afford it so they discontinued the drug selling their stock of 30 doses at an euro a dose. There are still people out there with the condition but the drug is shelved and no competitors are allowed to produce it. Now Novartis is announcing the release of a genetic treatment at two million US a dose for similar reasons. Until we can get past the profit motive in our medical care, we can not ever reach the wonders promised by Star Trek. As to antimatter. I do not understand why people think it would be a marvelous energy source particularly for a spaceship. The concept of magnetic containment requires the antimatter to be charged and in truth production of antimatter other than charged subatomic particles has yet to be addressed. This means the entire concept of magnetic containment defeats any chance of storing antimatter in any densities other than a limited number of subatomic particles. Even if we manage to produce antimatter aluminium which would require stellar scale fusion in antimatter stars and then used magnetic eddy forces to contain the antimatter aluminium, a sudden acceleration to the storage containment as would be expected of spaceships could breach containment. The cost of producing antimatter can be addressed because cosmic rays are essentially near light speed subatomic particles si they produce antimatter when hitting molecules of air in our upper atmosphere and these particles get trapped albeit in low densities in the Van Allen belt due to Earth's magnetism so we could actually harvest narural antimatter without putting any energy into it's production. However the storage of antimatter is the problem even if we make advances in storage, antimatter of any usable amounts for energy production is just a bomb that could go off at any moment. As to faster than light travel. There are ideas such as the Alcubeire drive and wormholes but face it, FTL is a plot device. Star Trek would be a very different show if it took 10 to 1,000 years in suspended animation to reach the nearest star.
@@johnwang9914 The ships AI interaction is one thing(doesnt stem from computing , processors or coding, rather than auditory data analysis), but as the numbers, pads and everything else computer related(there was even something about data's number of cycles), have surpassed the "standards" of star trek, the next generation, and those of that era..... As for the energy, somehow thats a weird way of putting it. But i do remember the suns rays do have an output of 1,7 kw per square meter. Not sure why would you use 'per cubic meter", but the data seems off.
@@DUCKDUCKGOISMUCHBETTER "Transparent aluminum was invented in 1960 and was used by the US military for decades." Humans get very emotional over these things. A curious species.
@@LoganRogue1 Please keep in mind that availability of information wasn't nearly what it is now. In addition, scriptwriting and filming for the movie predated the patent. :-)
You'd probably want to stick with plexiglass, and just have a replaceable ALON laminant layer over it for scratch resistance. Keep in mind, this is essentially a very dense and heavy "pseudo-ceramic" material. And it's EXPENSIVE. A thin replaceable layer for the surface properties would be far preferable to a solid chunk of something that weighs more than compressed fired clay.
And smart phones now do that and more. Except to reach the ISS, you still have to have NASA Ground Control to patch you in. And maybe that's why you had to have Kirk's flip communicator. Bulky and single - purposed, but a lot better than the NASA patch - in.
Watching the podrace on a handheld screen did NOT seem ludicrous at that time, even if you had absolutely no imagination. In 1999 when that came out, we had already seen computers go from big clunky desktops to laptops--laptops with LCD screens that would do color. There were already Nintendo Game Boys with color screens. None of that was great stuff, but it was clear to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that it was the future--and the VERY NEAR future at that. So yeah, that was not ludicrous or amazing. At all.
I wish Scotty had gave us transporter technology instead, and then we wouldn’t have to listen to Greta Thunberg & the celebrities moan about saving the planet and not flying in planes BS.
Lower conduction and crack propagation tendencies. Sapphire was also considered for it being very hard and ultra clear but it also has lower conduction that glass and when the screen would crack, it would have vertical lines through the screen. This would mean the whole screen would be cracked instead of just a small area of it. Phones do use sapphire for the camera lenses though.
Apple and Samsung have already spent millions on lobbying against Right to Repair for their devices. They're not even denying it; they build their phones to survive the warranty period and not a minute sooner. My old roommate was a manager at a Verizon store. Ever wonder why the cases are 30-50% more expensive than Amazon? New buyers of warrantied phones get those cases for free or at massive discount: it's in the company's interest to avoid having to repair the thing. Anybody not buying a new warrantied phone pays full (unreasonable) price, because they're genuinely hoping you WON'T buy it and then you'll drop your phone and break it.
Tell me about it. My Z5 Premium is the last phone model to be sold with Dragontrail glass, which is vastly superior to any Gorilla glass. Manufacturers says it's too expensive to make the phones with that glass. Well, of course it is, when it's nigh unbreakable.
As a whiney snooty crybaby my way or the highway unintelligent bigot american who doesn't know the history of the naming of the element and wants to force the rest of the world, (British accent) Its bloody ALUMINIUM ya koont! All jokes aside, can it not be both? Also, the other conversations about the pronunciation are hilarious, and make me feel better about being American.
@@GlidingBoulder Back in the day when they used to actually used to teach history, not rewrite it, I learned that early Americans deliberately changed the spelling and pronunciation of words to separate themselves from England. This is part of the reason why things are the way they are.
Back in the day, Star Trek had people on staff called "science editors" and their job was to make sure certain things in the script were not too far fetched when it came to the plausibility factor. IOW, our science of the time had some of the puzzle pieces but we had no practical way to implement them. Eventually we got the hand held cell phone from their communicator and now the transparent aluminum. I'm sure there are other examples that just don't come to my mind at the moment.
@@gobymoby in that era a handheld computer has not been thought of yet, but I do recall several handheld devices to scan things for material composition, etc. What Dr McCoy used in sickbay is a prime example of a body scanner, which were actually salt & pepper shakers borrowed from the lunchroom. (yes, a low budget item)
We've had patents for this stuff since the 80's, check Wikipedia. I saw those Alon bullet videos a few years ago, not sure when they were filmed though but it was before 2019.
@@alexandriamaguire8224 Everything that Doc and Marty did in the past changed the Future. Even old Biff changed the past. When Marty did the reset... It does not tell what else changed from 1955 to 1985, which could have changed the future and therefore we never got JAWS 3D ... I mean flying cars !!
With drone technology we could make flying cars right now. But its too dangerous. Look at how many people crash each year with normal cars. With flying cars, even a slow crash can be lethal.
I saw the Star Trek movie featuring transparent aluminum back in the 1980's but never thought this technology would be reality in my lifetime. Amazing!
The problem is that transparent aluminum was invented BEFORE Star Trek IV. Not many people knew about it. But Star Trek got it from the real world. Not the other way around.
Fun fact: the display of the Apple Watch is the first consumer device to be made out of transparent aluminum. They call it sapphire though, because it's technically the same thing.
I just meant to be able to see the parts moving obviously you'd need iron sleeves, and there would be oil splashing everywhere, but would look good for a little while
Mobile phone producers have no interest in making screens that are ACTUALLY scratch and shatter-resistant as long as their business model is based on planned obsolescence.
@@smolder6366 my 2 yo kyocera phone has been dropped on it's sapphire screen hundreds of times, not even a scratch . i'm sure you can shatter it with enough force, even diamond has a breaking point, but it is significantly more robust.
It doesn't matter what they have an interest in. We want those phones. The more they "hold out," the higher the reward for whoever busts their balls and brings us what we want.
In a capitalist country, the consumer is king. We ain't exactly capitalist, but many people in the U.S. are libertarian/classical liberal, so we have a good potential for individual liberty. That is the basis of happiness and good economics.
Great observation, it would have saved a few $s on the fx budget too. I think it's partly down to quantum physics, the whale only exists while it is being observed.
- Why did the whales need transparent aluminum in the storage tanks, you ask? - Becaus no sensible whale is going to travel several hundred light years bottled up in Tourists Class. Would you? Nuff said!
It didn't need to be transparent. They just needed the material to make a holding tank, but had no money to buy it. Offering the plexiglass manufacturer the formula was what he used to pay for the materials needed.
Despite what Wonder World said, here science beat Star Trek by around 30 years. Boeing first patented the manufacturing process for ALON in the 1960s. Wonder World producers would have known this if they did some simple research rather than watching and copying other UA-cam videos, which are also incorrect, on the subject.
You can't say it's a ceramic and then claim it is a transparent metal. A metal is a pure element, like Al. Once you introduce other elements, like oxygen or nitrogen, you change the atomic electron energy configuration to permit optical transparency. In a pure metal, electrons exist in a "cloud". That quality permits light to be reflected, but not transmitted. That is a fundamental property of chemistry. That company made alumina, aluminum oxide. Throw in a few atoms of Cobalt (or was that Cr) and you get sapphire.
technically Bronze and steel are alloys, not metals. An alloy is a combination of metals and or other elements. Thus the OP is correct, it is not a transparent metal.
Chester Copperpot There was that guy who just flew across the English Channel on a hover set up. It can’t rightly be called a board and uses turbofans, but it’s close.
You weren't happy with the flip phones(communicators) and ipads(what ever jeanluc uses to read) Austin computers(transporters) or lasers (phasers)? Ps. Dillithium is radioactive.
We do have hover board... but it work only over copper surface. WE do have a hover bike. But it is dangerous as fuck to ride. Several people have made their own. It is essentially a quardcopter with ground effect.
Transparent aluminum oxides naturally exist, they're called corundums such as rubies and sapphires. They are very hard and brittle. What was implied by Star Trek was something with the ductility and malleability of aluminium while remaining transparent so it could be used in applications that we would normally use plexiglass for. That has yet to be invented.
Technically transparent aluminum has been.. or more precisely aluminum has been made transparent for a short 40 fentoseconds after exposure to strong X-ray pulses
Yeah, the Star Trek connection was the first thing to pop into my mind the first time I heard of this (a few years back) then I remembered good ol aluminum oxide is perfectly transparent, been around almost as long as the Earth and the industrial stuff is sold in 50# bags.
@@lEGOBOT2565 well, the first 10 episodes were alright, maybe even the first series. But after that, its actually been a repeat of the same episode, 500 times, if you break them down objectively. Much like the 3 avengers movies, have been the exact same move, same circumstances happening in the movie, etc,etc.
@RavenPrecept you're wrong about a few things. Crystals are not always transparent and it is not because they are insulators. Not all metals are malleable. Tungsten, depleted Uranium, and Titanium are definitely not malleable. I'd also like to point out that metals exhibit Crystalline structures, that's what gives them strength. Just because something is crystalline doesn't mean it's hard and incapable of flexing under stress.
What people tend to forget is that a lot of the technology in the early Star Trek series was actually based on real technology and technological theories. Would not shock me that they actually asked about Transparent aluminum while writing the script for Star Trek IV. The used to always want their technology in the shows, movies to have some grounding in real technological feasibility.
All things being entwined… Sapphire is aluminum oxides, and other precious gems are contaminated with all manner of things that give them their distinctive colors. So, making aluminum “glass” really isn’t too far from that. The military has used sapphire lenses in the noses of smart and laser guided bombs for a long time. The sapphire won’t even get a scratch if it falls through a sandstorm!
@@dangeary2134 corundum is second only to diamonds in terms of hardness among gemstones it is also inherently transparent and as you said Aluminum Oxide. Rubies/Sapphires quite literally are Transparent Aluminum.
Exactly! The military has been using grown crystals of sapphire for the nose of smart bombs for years. They won’t abrade, even in a sandstorm! I would think it would be beyond prohibitively expensive to “grow” crystals large enough to be used as windows!
@@The1stDukeDroklar Sapphire isn't brittle compared to Quartz. Al2O3 an upgrade from SiO2 (Glass) with stronger bonds, and a Mohs hardness increasing from 7 to 9. They're both hexagonal crystals with 0 or 1 plane of cleavage, which makes them inherently less brittle than Diamond or Zircon which are cubic and have 3 planes. Amorphous glasses of either are even tougher. Sapphires will round off with wear over time, where diamonds will chip. The trick is making components out of amorphous or non-crystalline sapphire, or cutting them from single crystals, because they easily break away from other crystals, but not internally.
Super computers can simulate Many different scenarios, formulas, mixtures, contemplated ideas. Wait till they can also hypothesis situations, like the one in episode mirror mirror.
The name tells you what it's made of. Alon - Aluminum, Oxygen and Nitrogen. Cermet in Boston has 14 years left on their patent. The aluminum is actually a ceramic material, aluminum silicate. The fact that they can polish it to make it optically clear is tres cool.
@@Mgl1206 Unless you can create wormholes that will take you where you want to go, better stick with warp drives. You don't want to end up lost in the Delta Quadrant somewhere.
Corzero, "That's what they do in this century, you MUST swear every other word in a sentence"! ERGO RAP MUSIC! It's not verbatim what I tried to quote..... Y'all NIGGAz understand though. I
Flamingdarkrider Can we get a reminder in 10 years to see if this 10,000 price tag guess has good foresight? Or are you just word vomiting to get some attention?
The symbol used on this video should have been that of Engineering instead of the Command Symbol. Looks like Kirk steals yet another scene from Scotty... LLAP!
Unfortunately transparent metal is most likely impossible. The problem is, that the exact same thing that even makes it a metal (the way the electrons can move through the crystal lattice) also makes it impossible to see through. As soon as you make it transparent it also loses the properties that made it a metal in the first place which leaves us with this. Transparent ceramics.
Obviously its impossible. You cant just amke something see through without changing the chemical composition and guess what happens then. Its not aluminum anymore.
Yes and no. As long as we cant change the grid structure, which is the only way to change it without any other elements (not heat ofc) there wont be any see through metal.
Amazing. Star Trek IV is my favorite Star Trek movie. It seems that if a human can imagine something like transparent Al, then it is just a matter of time before some smart person figures out how to do it. I am hoping for Faster Than Light Travel in my lifetime. It could happen. Maybe a young Zephram Cochrane is alive today.
@비니보이 An alloy is multiple metals to my understanding. Alon: aluminum, oxygen, and nitrogen bonded through heat and pressure, then polished. So I don't think it can be classified as an alloy. It's classification is in its name, AlON (aluminum, oxygen, nitrogen) Would really like to see that molecular structure.
Hey, thanks for this! This video is very educational, informative, and entertaining! I look forward to seeing more of your videos! You just earned a new subscriber! :)
The optician in me is now curious to know the refractive index and abbe value of ALON. Weight would be the next point of contention for glasses wearers as well. Scratch resistance of the material is all well and good (consider crown glass for instance) but if its heavy, and the coatings on the lenses are prone to scratching the advantages become less appealing to the consumer.
What about contact lenses instead of glasses. IS there a limit they can work too? Can your eye sight be too bad that you would require glasses and not be able to use contact lenses?
@@rianmacdonald9454 the limit for contact lenses is more so the oxygen permeability (Dk value) of the lens material. After that, one has to consider fit and comfort. There is a reason that soft silicone hydrogels have taken over. Where prescription is concerned, extended range and custom lenses exist to fill the high Rx gap.
Mother Nature has had a "form" of transparent Aluminum for years, though she prefers the red tint. They're called Rubies. Gorilla Glass also contains Aluminum in its composition.
★★★ *FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE VIDEO / FACT UPDATES* ★★★
*Q1) Why did they need to have Transparent Aluminum?... Why didn't they just make the tanks out of Aluminum?* - Before I answer this, just know, it's an OBVIOUS answer if you stop and think about it. They did not need Transparent Aluminum, and they did not use Transparent Aluminum, they used the chemical formula of Transparent Aluminum as payment for the material they did need for the Whale tanks on the ship, and the reason they used Acrylic / Plexiglass and not Aluminium or Steel, is because it would not be very visual on screen if they had a big metal box, they needed to be able to show the whales in the tank.
*Q2) It is spelt Aluminium & pronounced (Alu-Mini-um)* - I am well aware of this, I am from Australia and spell it and pronounce it that way, But I pronounce it (Aloo-min-um) in my videos as most of my viewers are American (27%) and they complain more if I pronounce it Alu-Mini-um.
*My Viewer Locations From My Analytics - USA 27%, Canada 3.1% vs England 6.4%, Australia 2%* - English & Australians will complain about the pronunciation as well, but not as much as Americans.
*Aluminum* and *Aluminium* are two names for element 13 on the periodic table. Although Americans and Canadians spell and pronounce the name aluminum, while the British (and most of the rest of the world) use the spelling and pronunciation of aluminium. LINK = www.thoughtco.com/aluminum-or-aluminium-3980635
►PLUS it was pronounced *ALOO-MIN-UM* in the Star Trek Movie with Scotty when he made the Transparent Aluminum Molecule - LINK = ua-cam.com/video/LkqiDu1BQXY/v-deo.html
► *That being said, I have read all the comment advice and for now on I will say it the Australian way Alu-Mini-um.*
►► Another area I have to constantly think about is (cm's vs inches) and (klms vs miles) I am constantly having to re-write scripts so the majority will understand what I am talking about.
*Q3) How do they fit new windows on the space station in space* - I would assume they would either shut the door to the module, vent the air and have an astronaut do a space walk to replace them, or NASA would send up a new module and swap them over.
*Q4) why are they using a Macintosh Pro in the 23rd century?* - They're not, the Star trek crew went back in time to 1986, from slingshoting around the sun in a bird of prey.
*Q5) You say "Light years ahead" A light year is a measure of distance/length, not of time!* - A light year is both a measure of "distance & time", but it's also can be used when describing a new technology, such as "ideas that are light-years ahead of the their time / This new technology puts the company light-years ahead of its competitors."
► LINK 1 - www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/light-years%20ahead,
► LINK 2 - www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/light+years+ahead.html
spelt
Wonder World To hell with my fellow (uneducated, unworldly, bigoted) Americans. Pronounce it like you do, and let them get educated and appreciate that other English-speakers pronounce things differently than we here in America do - and conversely we different than others.
So please, let's hear "alu mini um"...
I say, don't sweat it. Ya know, "Don't sweat the small stuff".
Said as Aluminum, or Aluminium, it doesn't matter. Anyone who is familiar with one of the spellings (pronunciations), will certainly be able to figure it out if the other version is used, and ought to do so without uttering a word about it. Of course they should be free to speak about it if they want, but they shouldn't want to because it's unimportant.
Don't please the uneducated. People need to learn, they are already kept dumb by most media.
Wonder World i
20 years ago when i was in elementary school i saw my dad watching a star trek episode every now and then. I remember him explaining the windows in the enterprise as being as strong as steel, but transparent like glass although he never knew they were transparent aluminum (Not a real trekie). I asked him once "Is it possible to make steel that you can see through?" he replied "I don't know, maybe you should learn as much as you can and someday, you could.". If only he were alive today...
The real question is. Did you go to school and invent this? Or would he call you a failure?
@@kornpops1261 He doesnt sound like the father figure who calls his own blood a failure
If a father calls his son a failure, it simply means that the father himself is a failure
@@danieldorn2927 But if the father tries his best to teach his child to learn on his own but the child is just simply a dumbass then I don't think the father is a failure.
Yes but somehow glass tables shattered into 1 million pieces at the slightest touch.
@@redactedrider7606 exactly! NOT Aluminum, and not new.
15$ per square inch, that isn’t prohibitively expensive for glasses, I want a pair
or phone screens. i dont think those numbers are right otherwise it would be everywhere
He said it wrong. It is not only square inch but cube inch. As the tests required for bullet resistance were 1.25 inches wide makeing one inch worth 225 dollars per inch cube.
@@mrpotat680 That's still reasonable to make glasses out of. At least until the manufactures add the 999% markup like they do with the wire and glass or current frames.
@@BillyBob-qu1fs Yeah it will be supply and demand. Since people need glasses they jack up prices; just like hospitals.
@@mrpotat680 Jacking up the price is a bit of an understatement. I bought my first car for less than my first pair of glasses. But you are right, we NEED them so they can essentially charge whatever they want.
I always get a kick out of watching Scotty's two finger typing while never taking his eyes off the monitor. Really impressive for a 70 year old who grew up with voice input computer's and never seen a keyboard outside of a museum. 🖖
Scotty is the pen-ultimate engineer and master of understanding controls seen and unseen. Sharp enough to inflate his estimates with Kirk so as not to overwhelm his underlings with their own unworthiness... AKA allowing time for *others* to have to time to learn.
@@duanephillips4082penultimate means next to last.
ALON is often associated with the fictitious material "transparent aluminum". This was first mentioned in the science fiction film Star Trek IV: Back to the Present by chief engineer Montgomery Scott and is used as window material in Starfleet spaceships. The patent for the ceramic material was filed in 1985 and the film was produced in 1986. The story of the journey through time also takes place in 1986.
Wow, I didn't know it was really invented around the same time! I wonder if the producers of the movie knew about it? I wonder if the company considered using them for saying it was stolen from the future lol... But the movie's subtitle was The Voyage Home, not Back to the Present.
So what you're saying is Scotty sold them a formula that had already been patented by somebody else and was thus worthless to them. That actually explains perfectly why it didn't alter the timeline in any significant way. Very sneaky!
Aluminium oxynitride having improved optical characteristics and method of manufacture TM Hartnett, RL Gentilman U.S. Patent 4,481,300, 1984
Process for producing polycrystalline cubic aluminium oxynitride JW McCauley U.S. Patent 4,241,000, 1980
@@EdKolis yes they did star trek ws imnown for using near teh for future tech. Many othe r items that were fancifuyl i durring r toss we see today were already in the works even the idea of warp in mtheory wa possible since relivity wa formulated. The few that weren't were beacuse they sp ome looked and asked hw di we make this
There was barely any footage available for this topic, regardless of that fact I still made the video, as who doesn't want to know that Transparent Aluminum from Star Trek now exists.
To be clear, in the bullet test, the conventional glass isn't 6 inches thick; it's 3.7 inches. Interesting video overall, though! Thanks for posting! :)
yes I noticed that afterwards but I got that info somewhere and it did not line up with the video.
No problem, buddy! Just throwing that up to clarify! You know, because people usually check messages for information. Right? heheheh ;) :P Peace! :)
+Wonder World You do realize that naturally occurring transparent aluminum oxides are called corundums. Depending on impurities, they may be called rubies, sapphires and numerous other gem stones. Transparent aluminum is definitely not a product of science fiction except for the uninformed. What is new are methods of synthesizing such ceramcs, specifically synthetic sapphire for watches and mobile devices.
this is going on fail blog. transparent aluminum has been around sine the 90s
Excuse me I'm looking for the nuclear wessels
Well, how do we know HE didn't invent it?
Yeah and he said this to a cop in San Francisco, during the Cold War and he had a Russian accent. 🤣😂😃
Nuclear Weasels - The new teenage mutant stick!
When you watch that bit in the movie, the woman with long hair was an extra & wasn't meant to say anything but she does, much to the surprise of Walter Koenig & Nichelle Nichols.
@@CaptainNemo1701 On film words mean money!
Of course we now have transparent aluminum. Scotty did give the formula. Nothing to see here... move along.
Exept aluminium is an element, not a molecule. Sapphire on other hand has really be known, befor that element. Misleading dumb
@@dannydadog1987 You do know I was being sarcastic... right?
@@dannydadog1987 I mean diamond is just an element: carbon. The configuration of the elements in the molecule do make a big difference. I don't see anything wrong with Scotty's formula if the molecule was a specific configuration of just aluminum atoms.
Danny Dadog r/woosh
Danny Dadog While it is true that aluminium is an element, it is also true that ‘transparent aluminium’ is not.
What a breakthrough! When transparent aluminum foil is made, I’ll never wonder what’s in my freezer!
Honestly, the Transparent Aluminum scene was one of my most favorite in that movie.
IMO it was the single most "Star Trek" moment in any of the Star Trek movies.
As a child watching that movie, I was awed. The very concept of a transparent metal had never occurred to me.
And it is that awe that inspired so many engineers, scientists, and researchers to make real what they saw in Star Trek.
Helloh computar!
"Transparent aluminum" has existed since the dawn of time in the form of sapphire and ruby, which are crystalline forms of aluminum oxide, which has a Mohs hardness of 9 (diamond is 10). Synthetic sapphire has also been produced since the 60's. In fact, some UPC scanners at stores use clear sapphire as the "glass" on top since sapphire is so tough.
This is simply a new method of production.
Also, I'm sure that some writer at Paramount was aware of this when they wrote the idea into the movie, so this is not an example of sci fi inspiring real science.
As envisioned in the movie, it has existed since 1974
Heck, most people have some in their pockets right now. The lens cover on your cellphone is typically synthetic sapphire, at least for flagship phones.
the ZTE Axon 9 Pro uses saphhire as glas instead of Gorilla 4 - for better color quality at the expense of not being able to flex as good
A few years older then the 1960's as the process for making ruby was first done back in 1902 and sapphire in 1911
Very good point... Thank You!
"Scottie, you're violating the Prime Directive!"
"How do you know he didn't invent the thing?"
"Oh....yeah. Right."
I always thought it would be better (but not as snappy) if Scotty had said "I know it's history, Captain. This is the fellow who invented it... this year."
Plus... that would have fitted literary SciFi tropes better.
@@its1110 Well after the introduction Scotty actually could have remembered it from history, as timeline changed.
@@Kratax
Yep! That's the classic literary SF trope. Intentional Paradox. You have to do it 'cause you've already done it.
@@its1110 I think more like if you do it, then you have had done it. I mean, he didn't have done it until he did it, and then he had already done it. If he wouldn't do it, then he wouldn't have already been done it nor had to do.
@@Kratax
Well... he already would have done it if was going to do it. But would he remember having done it if he not been born yet so as to be able to do it? What if his having done it would have prevented his birth?
Meanwhile, in an alternate universe... ... ...
:)
Scotty: “Computer”.
Company engineer: “you need to use this”
Scotty picks up mouse and speaks into it: “Hello, Computer”
That movie just gets better with age :)
A Keyboard. How quaint.
Doc gave Scotty the mouse in the scene...without a word...the company dude said: "Just use the keyboard!"
It was the doctor who gave the mouse to Scatty not the company man. Company man said "Just use the keyboard.""
@@Roland5679 the "Why aren't you masked" line from the 80s doctor to kirk and bones in the operating room with Pavel had me going through covid mask flashback lol
So it's true, then. They _did_ come back in time!
So you're saying Scotty really did travel back in time and give us this technology. Cool.
Remember in the movie he said it would that decades to work out the details. 40 years later, and.... LOL
Okay, this is weird; but, I'm still not believing in time travel.
Mike Thomas You say that now....
But wait till you come back from the future to inform yoirself that time travel is real
yes, and now that guy is rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
Mike Thomas
Look at it like this. If traveling into the past ever becomes possible, then by definition, time travel is possible now.
So all my glass windows are now "transparent silicon"?
if you like looking out of windows the silicone should be?
Silice Oxid 98% float ....
YUP........
Or you could go back to thin, scraped, oiled deerskin like my Texas Forefathers.
@@alfamale9525 Yea but that was when all cars were made out of wood.
I would also like to add that the four to six horse power wasn't under the hood. It was right out there where you could see it.
I thought exactly the same XD
If it’s expensive, you know the military wants it.
Well yes but actually no, it's more compact and stronger, so they want it; but it's expensive, so they likely would only use it in limited numbers. The cost to retrofit all the vehicles with this would be astronomically expensive. The military has a budget, just a really large one, get some things are still too expensive for even them
To protect the elite families and enslave the masses further.
@@sbaxter4207 whatever you say wacko
@Marina Simmons Why is your comment the exact same word for word comment as "Agent K" from 11 months ago?
@@joepromedio probably just a copy and paste
“Hello computer!”
“Just use the keyboard.”
“Ah, a keyboard. How quaint!”
And somehow the computer is lightning fast just by bashing the keyboard.
tihzho Well, just remember back then files weren’t very big, so they opened basically immediately.
Edit, let me rephrase that: Files opened the same speed as a larger file would today.
@@brianfeuerman1732 Ehhh not really, the HDD if one was present, which it was not for a Macintosh Plus was painfully slow. Often time you're running off the floppy disk, as in the case of the Macintosh Plus was then a new 3.5 inch double-sided 800 KB floppy drive. Bottom line it WAS slow, not to mention what about the software Scotty? You can't just punch a bunch of keys in a computer. What would have been better is Scotty opening up a command line and typing in lines of code, then running it.
My first computer was an IBM AT and it DID have a HDD and loading a program and loading a file was very slow.
"Keyboard? How quaint."
@@PoxyBear
"How do we know he didn't invent the stoof?" ...McCoy grins...
There is also a process with alpha particle beams that also makes pure aluminum clear. It also works for titanium. The beam is steered magnetically and realigns the molecules of aluminum or titanium so that they pass light at optical frequencies. Still have to polish it.
Really? Have some evidence of that? No pure transparent metal exists except in nano thicknesses. Everything else is an oxide. In other words, not metal but a ceramic.
That’s how I do it.
I love seeing Star Trek ideas turning into real things ,more star trek please.
Yeah. Except it didn't happen that way. Transparent aluminum was invented BEFORE Star Trek IV.
But it has to be Gene Roddenberry's version, not the new crap they are putting out.
@@ThatBoomerDude56 least the communicator was created first on Star Trek as a mobile phone!!!!!
I've heard that the original 3.5" Sony floppy disks were modelled on the "memory modules" in the Enterprise's computer.
@@michaelparanormal Walkie Talkies have been around for a long time. Since 1937 at least.
I'm sure they will use this product in the flying cars they promised we would all have back in the 1950s. Any day now.....
Flying cars are a really bad idea imagine a bunch of flying vehicles above your head in your neighborhood and how badly people drive, drunk driving, all that kind of thing yeah bad idea 💡!!!
Once the price comes down they should start using it for front windows in regular cars.
seattlebeard: What makes you think I don't have a flying car right now?
We have flying cars... they are called Helicopters
The idea of flying cars IMHO are kind of stupid, at least in the traditional sense everyone sees the concept as. In reality, the closest you could get to a flying car is an eVTOL/manned multicopter, or a roadable airplane, the later of which there are a few companies testing designs and 2 companies, Terrefugia and PAL-V, are about to hit the market with their vehicles. PAL-V has started selling, and Terrafugia recently got a special LSA certificate from the FAA for their design. PAL-V is basically a folding gyrocopter mixed with a 3-wheeler, and Terrafugia is more of a roadable fixed-wing airplane. Both designs will require you to get training for a license, both will be much more expensive than a typical car, and both will also require a lot more extensive maintenance. Personally flying a vehicle/plane is a lot more involved than many realize. Before every flight, I always do a preflight that usually lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. And before that, I'm thinking about the weather and whether or not I should go because some days (especially in the PNW) the weather is just crap and isn't wise to take-off in. You can't just hop into vehicle that can fly like you can with a car. If something breaks, you can't pull over. And I'm 100% positive the regs will never let anyone take-off from a road with their PAL-V or Terrefugia. If you want to use that aspect of the vehicle, your going to have to drive to a dedicated airport or airstrip to take-off and land from, just like a regular airplane. So really neither of those designs are flying cars but more like roadable airplanes, which is still nice, but it doesn't follow the traditional flying car concept everyone knows and expects.
Sci fi movie: makes up something
Scientists at the time: pfff thats not a real thing
Child sci fi nerds: i will go to college and _make_ it real
@Mister Turk Turkle
It already existed and patented before the startreck movie came out.a lot of Futuristic things exist right now that you won’t see for another 20 years if you are alive.
@@dotgreenery yes thats why i said sci fi and not star trek. A lot of the "trek tech" was from nerds trying to make stuff from buck rogers etc real
Lets make lightsabers!!!!!
@@Rumeel12708 too many concealable weapons in the world already, as cool as lightsabres would be.
How about hard light holographics or personal shielding instead?
@@misterturkturkle Too implausible. Why not something more practical and plausible, like warp drives or personal QE comm devices?
I worked at a parts store while I was starting my business.
We had a guy come in wanting a transparent aluminum driver's side window for his car, argued about it and almost wouldn't leave.
This was 2003.
Dude was probably a time traveller from 2175
You clerks are always hiding the good stuff. I just wanted a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range but was told "Hey, just what you see, pal." Jackasses
@@BillyBob-qu1fs Classic :)
@@BillyBob-qu1fs But you got the Uzi 9 millimeter, the .45 longslide with laser sighting, and the 12 gauge autoloader, right?
So, that's something, then
You can call to let him know you might get him his window but are not sure yet.
So if some whales go missing we will know who desgined the glass.
Scotty 2019. Time Traveler. Humanitys hero. Champion.
Actually, ALON has been around since the 80's. It's just that it was really expensive compared to now.
Thank you. Your video was not only entertaining but informative. It provided enough information to express the basic concept and be useful as a launch point for more research. For me personally, the most important bit of information is how science fiction and science fact are connected - each inspires the other. The ALON product/technology is very interesting in its own right as well, and has the potential to be a game changer for future needs.
On another note: I noticed your "disclaimer" concerning Aluminum vs Aluminium. My question is why are there two ways of spelling/pronouncing the same word? Just curious.
(Raise of eyebrow) Fascinating!!
Damn! I was going to say that. :-)
Very interesting
::Picks up mouse:: "Hello Computer."
priceless ^^
“Just use the keyboard.”
“The keyboard? How quaint.”
That was the funniest part of this scene !
So how did Scotty know how to type if he's never done it?
@@kentonkirkpatrick5225
Clearly Scotty knew how to type he just had not done it in a long time.
Transparent Aluminum?
"That's the ticket laddie"
NOT NOW GRACIE!
@@GeneralG1810 Madeline*
"How do we know he didn't invent the stoof?" ...McCoy grins...
Or should I just hit delete...
@juggliar yes but the british changed it in the early days so technically we are saying it right
The days of scratches and cracks in mobile phone screens are already long gone. Corning several years ago announced that they had developed a version of gorilla glass that is completely scratch resistant and crack proof. However, when asked a couple years after the announcement why screens still scratch and crack, Corning's spokesperson said that the device manufacturers didn't want that glass.
Well, Nichols of Plexicorp said "It would take years to figure out the dynamics of this matrix", and it did, and now it's real... :)
Now waiting for the starship Enterprise to be built.
Oh that'll be a long way off, long after we're all wormfood I'm sure... :P
I've heard a lot of people claim that Plexicorp produced transparent aluminum for the whale tank however the line about 'years to figure out the dynamics' .. and the earlier line about having '6" plexiglass on hand' suggests Scotty merely traded the transparent aluminum knowledge for the primitive plexiglass the company had on hand (much faster than retooling a factory to make a completely foreign material).
yes... you can even see it on the bird of prey - its definitely not 1 inch material...
Agreed. Not to mention the video said it takes several days of high pressure, high temperature cooking to go from powder to transparent solid.
So much of Star Trek is coming true! I'm a Trekkie and love it.
Except for the "cashless" society. Then again, the time travel episode in Deep Space Nine had them going into a dystopic period of history where the unemployed were sent to ghetto neighborhoods so maybe it is all coming true.
Though computers have surpassed trek's as well as other inventions in that field.... we are still not doing enough headway when it comes to energy and power production. Also, medicine.Fusion reactors are nearing equivalent exchange, but thats it. No antimatter mumbo jumbo, still no theoretical way to surpass light speed.
@@cactusmann5542 Computers have gotten faster, smaller and have higher memory capacity but Star Trek showed computers doing things that we have only been able to crudely program as they are things we do not understand. Even the speech interaction with the ship's computer is generations ahead of what we now have with Siri, Alexis and Hey Google. Even our self learning programs perform inefficiently, what saves our self learning AI's is that they can go through countless billions of iterations and be exposed to enormous amount of data to perform their learning. The fact that it takes so many iterations and so much bulk data to train an AI shows that we have a poor understanding of the learning process. I would hardly call the computers of today comparable with the promises of Star Trek's computers. They could be on a hardware scale but certainly not in software.
As to fusion. Fusion is over-rated and over marketed. The promise of fusion is to reproduce the stability and efficiency of energy production in our Sun's core. Well, the core of our Sun produces about 300 watts per cubic meter, about the energy production of a compost pile and that takes the gravity of at least 12 Jupiter masses to maintain the pressures needed. Yes, higher rates of energy production are possible as per the fusion bomb but with less stability. Fusion has always been just marketing to do more basic research. Now this research is well worth it but if it is safe nuclear energy that addresses the problem of nuclear waste then we could've had molten salt thorium breeder reactors for a fraction of the cost of fusion research.
As to medicines and advancement in medicine. We are limited by corporate greed, by the pharmaceutical companies. You only have to look at Glybera, a genetic treatment where a single treatment completely cures a rare but debilitating disease, the research was initially at Canadian Universities funded by taxpayers, but the pharmaceuticals paid for the testing. However since a single shot is a complete cure and the disease is rare, they priced the drug at a million US a dose, only one patient was able to afford it so they discontinued the drug selling their stock of 30 doses at an euro a dose. There are still people out there with the condition but the drug is shelved and no competitors are allowed to produce it. Now Novartis is announcing the release of a genetic treatment at two million US a dose for similar reasons. Until we can get past the profit motive in our medical care, we can not ever reach the wonders promised by Star Trek.
As to antimatter. I do not understand why people think it would be a marvelous energy source particularly for a spaceship. The concept of magnetic containment requires the antimatter to be charged and in truth production of antimatter other than charged subatomic particles has yet to be addressed. This means the entire concept of magnetic containment defeats any chance of storing antimatter in any densities other than a limited number of subatomic particles. Even if we manage to produce antimatter aluminium which would require stellar scale fusion in antimatter stars and then used magnetic eddy forces to contain the antimatter aluminium, a sudden acceleration to the storage containment as would be expected of spaceships could breach containment. The cost of producing antimatter can be addressed because cosmic rays are essentially near light speed subatomic particles si they produce antimatter when hitting molecules of air in our upper atmosphere and these particles get trapped albeit in low densities in the Van Allen belt due to Earth's magnetism so we could actually harvest narural antimatter without putting any energy into it's production. However the storage of antimatter is the problem even if we make advances in storage, antimatter of any usable amounts for energy production is just a bomb that could go off at any moment.
As to faster than light travel. There are ideas such as the Alcubeire drive and wormholes but face it, FTL is a plot device. Star Trek would be a very different show if it took 10 to 1,000 years in suspended animation to reach the nearest star.
@@johnwang9914 The ships AI interaction is one thing(doesnt stem from computing , processors or coding, rather than auditory data analysis), but as the numbers, pads and everything else computer related(there was even something about data's number of cycles), have surpassed the "standards" of star trek, the next generation, and those of that era.....
As for the energy, somehow thats a weird way of putting it. But i do remember the suns rays do have an output of 1,7 kw per square meter. Not sure why would you use 'per cubic meter", but the data seems off.
Thank you, Mr. Scott, for your contribution to the sciences.
As a chemical engineer, I would never get away with calling this 'transparent aluminum' when it's an oxide (as expected).
Sure but publicity and sales.
@@garethrobinson2275 WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE MARKETING
Transparent... rusty aluminum? 😁
I wonder what is ALON's electrical conductivity
I assumed the star trek stuff was amorphous metal.
Thanks again for all the great ideas Gene, RIP you magnificent bastard.
@Steve I'm sure you're right, I was more paying an overarching homage to the idea of Star Trek and and the cool things that came about because of it.
Transparent aluminum was invented in 1960 and was used by the US military for decades.
@@DUCKDUCKGOISMUCHBETTER "Transparent aluminum was invented in 1960 and was used by the US military for decades."
Humans get very emotional over these things. A curious species.
Some kid watching Star Trek 4 in 1980's: ALUM is so cool.
Dad: It's not real, this is science fiction
Kid: Hold my juice cup.
😄😄
It was real. The filmmakers didn't made it up the patent dates back to 1985 and the movie is from 1986.
This is actually how science work: their job is to make science fiction real. That's what they seek.
@@LoganRogue1 Please keep in mind that availability of information wasn't nearly what it is now.
In addition, scriptwriting and filming for the movie predated the patent. :-)
@@shadibeidas1 I know, I love the film. Vader's comment was funny that's all.
This would make aircraft windscreens way better to take care of. The plexiglass we use scratch’s sooooo easy
You'd probably want to stick with plexiglass, and just have a replaceable ALON laminant layer over it for scratch resistance.
Keep in mind, this is essentially a very dense and heavy "pseudo-ceramic" material.
And it's EXPENSIVE.
A thin replaceable layer for the surface properties would be far preferable to a solid chunk of something that weighs more than compressed fired clay.
It's probably not plexiglass but tuffac, a bullet proof plastic. Most plastics are not good for impacts.
Why not just make the whole plane out of it?
Imagine these in videogames : " oh hey , a glass wall , lets make it a door"
"Did my hammer just Shattered on impact?"
Roddenbury was a visionary. Kirk had flip phones in the 1960s
Flip satellite/cell phones. LOL
And smart phones now do that and more. Except to reach the ISS, you still have to have NASA Ground Control to patch you in.
And maybe that's why you had to have Kirk's flip communicator. Bulky and single - purposed, but a lot better than the NASA patch - in.
Life imitates SFF.
Watching the podrace on a handheld screen did NOT seem ludicrous at that time, even if you had absolutely no imagination.
In 1999 when that came out, we had already seen computers go from big clunky desktops to laptops--laptops with LCD screens that would do color. There were already Nintendo Game Boys with color screens. None of that was great stuff, but it was clear to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that it was the future--and the VERY NEAR future at that.
So yeah, that was not ludicrous or amazing. At all.
Roddenberry didn't actually come up with this stuff. He just oversaw the people who did.
Thanks to Montgomery Scott Chief Engineer of USS ENTERPRISE NCC-1701 A
I think you mean thanks to Montgomery Scott Chief Engineer of the H.M.S Bounty.
@@McShave He may be talking posthumously.
One in the same. Also refered to in DS9
Thank God, at least he was not charged by the temporal agents with temporal prime directive
I wish Scotty had gave us transporter technology instead, and then we wouldn’t have to listen to Greta Thunberg & the celebrities moan about saving the planet and not flying in planes BS.
1.2k Romulans disliked this video.
bhec7715 ROFLMAO
Lol
Great now we have pesky Romulians engaging in "voting interference"
1.4K as of 11-19
Actually, it was the Klingons they were fighting with in Star Trek 4.
Phones are designed to age quickly, broken screens are a major influence to upgrading. Why would they use something as good as this
Lower conduction and crack propagation tendencies. Sapphire was also considered for it being very hard and ultra clear but it also has lower conduction that glass and when the screen would crack, it would have vertical lines through the screen. This would mean the whole screen would be cracked instead of just a small area of it. Phones do use sapphire for the camera lenses though.
@@johnsnitzer9287 the material shown in this video basically IS saphire (Al2O3). Just artificially created.
Nokia is 100% going to use this, if not they need to fire their pr team. Being tough as hell is literally part of their brand image.
Apple and Samsung have already spent millions on lobbying against Right to Repair for their devices. They're not even denying it; they build their phones to survive the warranty period and not a minute sooner.
My old roommate was a manager at a Verizon store. Ever wonder why the cases are 30-50% more expensive than Amazon? New buyers of warrantied phones get those cases for free or at massive discount: it's in the company's interest to avoid having to repair the thing. Anybody not buying a new warrantied phone pays full (unreasonable) price, because they're genuinely hoping you WON'T buy it and then you'll drop your phone and break it.
Tell me about it. My Z5 Premium is the last phone model to be sold with Dragontrail glass, which is vastly superior to any Gorilla glass. Manufacturers says it's too expensive to make the phones with that glass. Well, of course it is, when it's nigh unbreakable.
I'm looking forward to the next big step, transparent aluminum foil!
Ya, you may be holding your breath for a very, very long time on that one.
that would be cool. let you wrap up food to cook an still see it not needing to partially unwrap it to see how well it is cooked
Yes, I don't want aliens see my tinfoil hat!
As a whiney snooty crybaby my way or the highway unintelligent bigot american who doesn't know the history of the naming of the element and wants to force the rest of the world, (British accent) Its bloody ALUMINIUM ya koont!
All jokes aside, can it not be both?
Also, the other conversations about the pronunciation are hilarious, and make me feel better about being American.
@@GlidingBoulder Back in the day when they used to actually used to teach history, not rewrite it, I learned that early Americans deliberately changed the spelling and pronunciation of words to separate themselves from England. This is part of the reason why things are the way they are.
Back in the day, Star Trek had people on staff called "science editors" and their job was to make sure certain things in the script were not too far fetched when it came to the plausibility factor. IOW, our science of the time had some of the puzzle pieces but we had no practical way to implement them. Eventually we got the hand held cell phone from their communicator and now the transparent aluminum. I'm sure there are other examples that just don't come to my mind at the moment.
Various computer tablets would be an excellent example. Shown on ST before they were a reality.
@@gobymoby in that era a handheld computer has not been thought of yet, but I do recall several handheld devices to scan things for material composition, etc. What Dr McCoy used in sickbay is a prime example of a body scanner, which were actually salt & pepper shakers borrowed from the lunchroom. (yes, a low budget item)
1980’s : I bet there will be a flying car in the future!
2019 : transparent aluminum
1980’s : close enough
We've had patents for this stuff since the 80's, check Wikipedia. I saw those Alon bullet videos a few years ago, not sure when they were filmed though but it was before 2019.
Yeah! We we're supposed to have flying cars in 2015.... Are we in an alternate timeline that changed that?!
@@alexandriamaguire8224 Everything that Doc and Marty did in the past changed the Future. Even old Biff changed the past. When Marty did the reset... It does not tell what else changed from 1955 to 1985, which could have changed the future and therefore we never got JAWS 3D ... I mean flying cars !!
Also, Elon musk dumped a car into space...so, free-falling car? Close enough for orbital works!
With drone technology we could make flying cars right now. But its too dangerous. Look at how many people crash each year with normal cars. With flying cars, even a slow crash can be lethal.
So, what you're telling me is that Scotty really did visit the 1980s, and we are missing two humpback whales by the names of George and Gracie?
missing and missing....they will be back...
Forget what I said about it just being a TV show. It's all real
I KNEW IT!
Nothing to see here, move along...
Long live and prosper, Scotty. You are a hero.
Its "Live long and prosper"
Doesn't matter. Scotty is dead anyway.
Discord or trixxie are awesome..that is all..lol
frankstrawnation: Nah, he's just stuck in a transporter buffer somewhere.
RIP Chekov
They need to rename it scott’s glass
It is...it is...It is green.
sigh! Scotty was one of my favourite colleagues! #JamesDoohan
Yup, considering Scotty's would probably earn wrath of certain tissue paper manufacturer :-p
good idea
Scotty's glass would be more apt.
I saw the Star Trek movie featuring transparent aluminum back in the 1980's but never thought this technology would be reality in my lifetime.
Amazing!
The problem is that transparent aluminum was invented BEFORE Star Trek IV.
Not many people knew about it. But Star Trek got it from the real world. Not the other way around.
cant wait to see the view from alon window on starship
Pretty darn cool stuff. If only James Doohan was still alive to see his line become real.
see what you did there and im impressed :P
I'm pretty sure he wouldn't give two squirts a piss.
He was. The stuff has been around since the 80s.
he did. it's been around since the 90s and reported in an article from then in popular mechanics. i still have the artifice i clipped,
Hudson Ball it's been real for decades. It's now public knowledge
As Mr Spock would say, " Fascinating."
"Gone are the days of scratched or cracked glass"? Apple is immediately not interested.
Fun fact: the display of the Apple Watch is the first consumer device to be made out of transparent aluminum. They call it sapphire though, because it's technically the same thing.
Fuck Apple
@@4DCResinSmoker Hey! That's what I used to call my ex-wife!
@@DPortainit's not really sapphire though, since it's not at 9 on the mohs hardness scale: ua-cam.com/video/9EBgaxFfDA0/v-deo.html
I can imagine the scream of fear fron Tim Cook who will try hard to remove this product out of existence.
No broken item, no sales.
I remember watching that movie when it was released, and wondering whether something like that would some day be possible. Well, here we are!
That’s the ticket, laddie.
Did a couple of whales happen to disappear suddenly and with no explanation?
Yes, they did
UncleFester84 was one of them "very" pregnant?
That's the ticket Laddie...
Cool. That engineer finally figured out Scotty’s formula
I'm thinking transparent aluminium rims on my car😀
Semi truck windows.
Amazing
A transparent engine block would be cool
@@67Spectre Not so... if more reliable yes, if not just a far from cheap thing, but in games would be nice
I just meant to be able to see the parts moving obviously you'd need iron sleeves, and there would be oil splashing everywhere, but would look good for a little while
Hello computer
Steve Wohlford
"hey Google, tell them about aluminium oxynitride"....😀
Just use the keyboard.....
Ach! A keyboard... how quaint.
We could be altering the future!
Why? How do we know he didn't invent the thing?
Steve Wohlford
COMPUTER!
Cheers for sharing that mate. What an incredible product!
We have Scotty to thank for this invention.
“It will take years to figure out this matrix.”
“Yes, but you’ll be rich beyond the dreams of avarice”
andrew blackwell but it did take years to figure it out aye? Lol
You living in it right now! Which pill did you take again, was it the red or the blue?
So that's what Wonder Woman's jet is made of.
It's probably an aluminum alloy that uses 20% transparent aluminum and 80% invisible aluminum.
I wish her clothes were made of it.
ua-cam.com/video/7YXxI-aeiaA/v-deo.html
Col. Angus somehow I just can’t see that, that’s the material...
+macnuth check out Lynda Carter's rock and roll fantasy TV special. She wears a see through body suit and dances to KISS.
Mobile phone producers have no interest in making screens that are ACTUALLY scratch and shatter-resistant as long as their business model is based on planned obsolescence.
then why there is a saphire glass?
@@jskratnyarlathotep8411 shatters the same way, seen it in one of those channels that like to break phones
@@smolder6366 my 2 yo kyocera phone has been dropped on it's sapphire screen hundreds of times, not even a scratch . i'm sure you can shatter it with enough force, even diamond has a breaking point, but it is significantly more robust.
It doesn't matter what they have an interest in. We want those phones. The more they "hold out," the higher the reward for whoever busts their balls and brings us what we want.
In a capitalist country, the consumer is king. We ain't exactly capitalist, but many people in the U.S. are libertarian/classical liberal, so we have a good potential for individual liberty. That is the basis of happiness and good economics.
When I first watched that movie, I always wondered why it had to be transparent to put the whale in it.
Whales dislike sensory deprivation.
No I don't actually know if this is true or not, but at least the writers could have thrown us a bone eh?
Great observation, it would have saved a few $s on the fx budget too. I think it's partly down to quantum physics, the whale only exists while it is being observed.
@@mediapc4747 Underrated!
- Why did the whales need transparent aluminum in the storage tanks, you ask?
- Becaus no sensible whale is going to travel several hundred light years bottled up in Tourists Class. Would you? Nuff said!
It didn't need to be transparent. They just needed the material to make a holding tank, but had no money to buy it. Offering the plexiglass manufacturer the formula was what he used to pay for the materials needed.
Hell yeah..... my hole childhood waiting for this moment. ..thanks science.
Aluminum transparent hell yeah. ..=.)
check your English.
He actually means the childhood of his hole...whichever hole it is.
Except it's not transparent aluminium. It's aluminium oxynitride.
Despite what Wonder World said, here science beat Star Trek by around 30 years. Boeing first patented the manufacturing process for ALON in the 1960s. Wonder World producers would have known this if they did some simple research rather than watching and copying other UA-cam videos, which are also incorrect, on the subject.
if it makes you feel any better, we've had this for thousands of years, its just big sheets of sapphire
You can't say it's a ceramic and then claim it is a transparent metal. A metal is a pure element, like Al. Once you introduce other elements, like oxygen or nitrogen, you change the atomic electron energy configuration to permit optical transparency. In a pure metal, electrons exist in a "cloud". That quality permits light to be reflected, but not transmitted. That is a fundamental property of chemistry. That company made alumina, aluminum oxide. Throw in a few atoms of Cobalt (or was that Cr) and you get sapphire.
bearacuda Bronze is metal but isn't pure. It's more than one element. I guess the bronze age needs to be renamed the more than one element age?
technically Bronze and steel are alloys, not metals. An alloy is a combination of metals and or other elements. Thus the OP is correct, it is not a transparent metal.
That settles it, James Doohan invented it. LOL!!!
Should have called it Doohinium.
Why not. He wrote the Klingon Language.
@twopairsofaces You have no right to speak if the concept of irony eludes you.
Love that scene. Love saying 'is it worth something to you laddy?'
Dennis Richards How about “Scotinium”?
Thanks for coming back to share the formula Scotty and Kirk - lets hope transparent aluminium will last long, and make the manufacturers prosper!
Once again, we get our Star Fleet gear b'fore we get the hoverboard - when can I pre-order Dilithium crystals?
I mean pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2012/CP/c2cp41195d#!divAbstract
Chester Copperpot
There was that guy who just flew across the English Channel on a hover set up. It can’t rightly be called a board and uses turbofans, but it’s close.
You weren't happy with the flip phones(communicators) and ipads(what ever jeanluc uses to read) Austin computers(transporters) or lasers (phasers)?
Ps. Dillithium is radioactive.
Latnium
We do have hover board... but it work only over copper surface. WE do have a hover bike. But it is dangerous as fuck to ride. Several people have made their own. It is essentially a quardcopter with ground effect.
The price of this will drop to pennies ... as soon as we can produce it in matter replicators.
It's literally what your phone screen is made of
@@shizukaryujoukai2465 Um ... no.
But then we have to wait for replicators to become cheap.
@@shizukaryujoukai2465 is that so Einstein? Throw your phone on the pavement without it being in a protective case and see how it works out for you.
@@thegodofalldragons I was hoping you wouldn't catch on to that.
Transparent aluminum oxides naturally exist, they're called corundums such as rubies and sapphires. They are very hard and brittle. What was implied by Star Trek was something with the ductility and malleability of aluminium while remaining transparent so it could be used in applications that we would normally use plexiglass for. That has yet to be invented.
Technically transparent aluminum has been.. or more precisely aluminum has been made transparent for a short 40 fentoseconds after exposure to strong X-ray pulses
Yeah, the Star Trek connection was the first thing to pop into my mind the first time I heard of this (a few years back) then I remembered good ol aluminum oxide is perfectly transparent, been around almost as long as the Earth and the industrial stuff is sold in 50# bags.
@ why do you say that?
@@lEGOBOT2565 well, the first 10 episodes were alright, maybe even the first series. But after that, its actually been a repeat of the same episode, 500 times, if you break them down objectively. Much like the 3 avengers movies, have been the exact same move, same circumstances happening in the movie, etc,etc.
@RavenPrecept you're wrong about a few things. Crystals are not always transparent and it is not because they are insulators. Not all metals are malleable. Tungsten, depleted Uranium, and Titanium are definitely not malleable. I'd also like to point out that metals exhibit Crystalline structures, that's what gives them strength. Just because something is crystalline doesn't mean it's hard and incapable of flexing under stress.
What people tend to forget is that a lot of the technology in the early Star Trek series was actually based on real technology and technological theories. Would not shock me that they actually asked about Transparent aluminum while writing the script for Star Trek IV. The used to always want their technology in the shows, movies to have some grounding in real technological feasibility.
All things being entwined…
Sapphire is aluminum oxides, and other precious gems are contaminated with all manner of things that give them their distinctive colors.
So, making aluminum “glass” really isn’t too far from that.
The military has used sapphire lenses in the noses of smart and laser guided bombs for a long time.
The sapphire won’t even get a scratch if it falls through a sandstorm!
@@dangeary2134 corundum is second only to diamonds in terms of hardness among gemstones it is also inherently transparent and as you said Aluminum Oxide.
Rubies/Sapphires quite literally are Transparent Aluminum.
Exactly!
The military has been using grown crystals of sapphire for the nose of smart bombs for years.
They won’t abrade, even in a sandstorm!
I would think it would be beyond prohibitively expensive to “grow” crystals large enough to be used as windows!
"Transparent Aluminum - Star Trek Technology is now Real"
Sapphire would like to have a word with you.
Not even close to transparent aluminum (yeah suckit). Brittle and hardness does not equal strength
@@The1stDukeDroklar nope. No measure of strength has AlON equal to sapphire. Not even close.
@@The1stDukeDroklar Sapphire isn't brittle compared to Quartz. Al2O3 an upgrade from SiO2 (Glass) with stronger bonds, and a Mohs hardness increasing from 7 to 9. They're both hexagonal crystals with 0 or 1 plane of cleavage, which makes them inherently less brittle than Diamond or Zircon which are cubic and have 3 planes. Amorphous glasses of either are even tougher. Sapphires will round off with wear over time, where diamonds will chip. The trick is making components out of amorphous or non-crystalline sapphire, or cutting them from single crystals, because they easily break away from other crystals, but not internally.
@@Roadiedave I stand by my statement. Saphire is not as tough as transparent aluminum
@@The1stDukeDroklar you're making a distinction without a difference.
"It would take years to figure out the dynamics of this matrix.."
Aye
heh
Super computers can simulate Many different scenarios, formulas, mixtures, contemplated ideas. Wait till they can also hypothesis situations, like the one in episode mirror mirror.
"Yes but you would be rich beyond the dreams of avarice."
The name tells you what it's made of. Alon - Aluminum, Oxygen and Nitrogen. Cermet in Boston has 14 years left on their patent. The aluminum is actually a ceramic material, aluminum silicate. The fact that they can polish it to make it optically clear is tres cool.
Scientists be like: "I knew watching Star Trek will be useful one day"
They need to get busy on that warp drive. I want to go to Mars, but I don't want to take a year. An hour would be fine.
Howard Smith warp drives can be very dangerous. I’m looking more for Wormholes
@@Mgl1206 Unless you can create wormholes that will take you where you want to go, better stick with warp drives. You don't want to end up lost in the Delta Quadrant somewhere.
@@howardsmith9342 Encounter a race of aliens that will take your body parts
Wow!!!!
Thank you for so interesting information!!
Liked and subscribed!!
That’s really cool! Thank you for sharing!
Spock where the hells that power you promised me
One damn minute admiral
In going to have to get this movie for my collection! If all the Star Trek movies (and I love them all) this is my favorite. (RIP Spock/Nimoy)
CORZER0 Captain, I CANT CHANGE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS!! I need 30 minutes!!
One of the most entertaining lines in all of Trekdom!
Corzero, "That's what they do in this century, you MUST swear every other word in a sentence"! ERGO RAP MUSIC! It's not verbatim what I tried to quote..... Y'all NIGGAz understand though. I
Kirk: Are you sure you won't change your mind?
Spock: Is there anything wrong with the one I have?
Can’t wait till they put this on devices.
its layered with glass on the outsides and an aluminum glass mixture on the inside layer. they just showed it in the video.
like the guy above said its really not aluminum. it just contains some aluminum.
I think they already do
Flamingdarkrider for 32gb model 😂
Flamingdarkrider Can we get a reminder in 10 years to see if this 10,000 price tag guess has good foresight?
Or are you just word vomiting to get some attention?
“Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” is the only movie that I saw twice in the theater.
I really got a kick out of that flick.
The symbol used on this video should have been that of Engineering instead of the Command Symbol. Looks like Kirk steals yet another scene from Scotty...
LLAP!
Paul Simmons Nice catch!
Paul Simmons STO?
Command symbol? That's a generic Federation symbol.
TheReaverOfDarkness try the game Star Trek Online. That is for command. Eng and Sci have different center symbols.
TheReaverOfDarkness - Nope! Command, science, and engineering all had their own symbols and the one that is pictured here is the command symbol.
Could replace Gorilla Glass for smart phones as well with this technology. ALON!
I would like to see an under water city built with this material
(Bioshock vibes start to intensify.)
This is awesome. I would love to see a whole vehicle made out of this!
Read the Diamond Age
Unfortunately transparent metal is most likely impossible.
The problem is, that the exact same thing that even makes it a metal (the way the electrons can move through the crystal lattice) also makes it impossible to see through. As soon as you make it transparent it also loses the properties that made it a metal in the first place which leaves us with this. Transparent ceramics.
Obviously its impossible. You cant just amke something see through without changing the chemical composition and guess what happens then. Its not aluminum anymore.
Its not THAT easy to declare something impossible. Mettalurgy is full of ways to change the properties of a metal without touching chemistry at all.
Yes and no. As long as we cant change the grid structure, which is the only way to change it without any other elements (not heat ofc) there wont be any see through metal.
It retains the same heat expansion characteristics of aluminum. Can you guess what happens when it's heated unevenly.
It's the reason why I'm graduating in Materials Engineer at Federal University of São Paulo... I love manipulate materials 💙💚💛
You'll be rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
"No appointment!? I've traveled MILLIONS of miles to get here". 🤣
All I've ever wanted is to work in the belly of a starship with Scotty.
Amazing. Star Trek IV is my favorite Star Trek movie. It seems that if a human can imagine something like transparent Al, then it is just a matter of time before some smart person figures out how to do it. I am hoping for Faster Than Light Travel in my lifetime. It could happen. Maybe a young Zephram Cochrane is alive today.
"transparent aluminum" -doubt
"its actually transparent ceramic"
oh thats actually pretty cool
minus point for clickbait
The thing is that this material is going to be pretty cool if it can get mass-produced.
Precisely! It's actually a transparent ceramic.
ehhhh but there's aluminum in it sooooo
@비니보이 An alloy is multiple metals to my understanding. Alon: aluminum, oxygen, and nitrogen bonded through heat and pressure, then polished.
So I don't think it can be classified as an alloy.
It's classification is in its name, AlON (aluminum, oxygen, nitrogen)
Would really like to see that molecular structure.
@@DW-vl2wi you should look it up in Wikipedia. It has a cubic spinel structure.
Hey, thanks for this! This video is very educational, informative, and entertaining! I look forward to seeing more of your videos! You just earned a new subscriber! :)
The optician in me is now curious to know the refractive index and abbe value of ALON. Weight would be the next point of contention for glasses wearers as well. Scratch resistance of the material is all well and good (consider crown glass for instance) but if its heavy, and the coatings on the lenses are prone to scratching the advantages become less appealing to the consumer.
1,78891
@@АлександрАлександер-ь5ш A reply both timely and cogent.
What about contact lenses instead of glasses. IS there a limit they can work too? Can your eye sight be too bad that you would require glasses and not be able to use contact lenses?
@@rianmacdonald9454 the limit for contact lenses is more so the oxygen permeability (Dk value) of the lens material. After that, one has to consider fit and comfort. There is a reason that soft silicone hydrogels have taken over. Where prescription is concerned, extended range and custom lenses exist to fill the high Rx gap.
@@АлександрАлександер-ь5ш and 58.20 for abbe. Sounds wonderful. Unfortunately density is 3700 vs 2500 kg/m3 for glass. And 1200 for polycarbonate.
Technically transparent aluminum has always been around just in the form of corrundum
Finally someone intelligent in the comment section.
Script writers for Star Trek IV knew of ALON as it was announced about six months before shooting began.
That's because IV is a documentary to cover up the filming :P lol
This would explain the laughter at polymers since this is crystalline based.
Transparent aluminium, also known as "sapphire", has been a thing for very long time but haven't been in use because it's very expensive.
Aluminum
durt
Not sure why the downvotes. This is a great video. Informative and not too long. Bonus thumbs up for the Star Trek references. 😁👍👍
Mother Nature has had a "form" of transparent Aluminum for years, though she prefers the red tint. They're called Rubies. Gorilla Glass also contains Aluminum in its composition.
I didn't know that rubies were made of aluminium. Those things are so pretty.
Any word about the energy conductivity of this material?
Gonna make a guess and say that there is none. Might be a great insulator, though.
WOW! To quote Scotty, "There be whales here!"