It's also quite heat resistant. It's too bad he didn't take a blowtorch to it. Too bad it's so fragile.

There's a nifty picture floating around of a blowtorch being applied directly to a thin layer of aerogel that crayons are resting on.

So what the hell is he going to do with that $159 piece of Aerogel?

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/photo/aerogel.html

Hey, he's a geek with too much money. But given a choice between $158 worth of gold, or $158 worth of aerogel, I'd go with the latter. It's very neat stuff. The reason it looks blue is Rayleigh scattering (same reason the sky is blue). Stephen Steiner, a high school student at the time, invented a revolutionary way to make this stuff, taking it from something that would take days, to something that could be done in seconds. Fast enough that, once he entered college, he build a machine to make this in zero-G, and has made a number of trips on the Vomit Comet to test it. Made in weightlessness, it has much less of a blue tint. The goal is to make one completely transparent that can be sandwiched between two panes of glass as the ultimate window. Imagine a window that someone could be heating with a blowtorch on one side, while on the other side someone could have their face pressed up against the glass, and be completely comfortable.

This is revolutionary stuff.

What an IMMENSE waste of friggen money.

It may have wonderful properties, but as far as what his $159 has given him it's:
* A bit of stuff that looks like ice
* Something you can't play with because if you squeeze it too hard it'll shatter into a million tiny pieces.
* It doesn't 'do' anything... having friends over and show it to them and they'd be like 'meh'... and you're not going to hand it to them to feel just how 'super amazingly light' it is because you're afraid they might squeeze it a tiny bit and result in item one up there.

Stupid, stupid purchase.

nice
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http://www.insurance-center.us/

You gotta remember, the price is relative. If you're filthy rich, $150 is nothing.

$150 is the price of dinner (without wine) at a moderately expensive restaurant like Ruth's Chris. At the end of that, you've got nothing.

Aerogel is also used by NASA to capture particles coming off comets for analysis as far as I recall.

Yes, that is another application.
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/tech/aerogel.html

k8_fan wrote: $150 is the price of dinner (without wine) at a moderately expensive restaurant like Ruth's Chris. At the end of that, you've got nothing.



You maybe... me, after that kind of dinner I woulda gotten laid.

Sho 'nuff

And then you'd still have nothing.

I'm far from rich and I'd pay $159 for this.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Also far from rich, and I'd pay some money just to play with it for a bit. Very cool stuff.

I think there's a market for Aero-gel jewelry.

nice sift

I want a shield made out of this, as a wicked-cool defence against Dragons and othe fire breathing adversaries.

"I want a shield made out of this, as a wicked-cool defence against Dragons and othe fire breathing adversaries."
PotD.

Wicked window idea! Wow!

PS: After you have that $159 dollar meal, I'm gonna steal your date, because I'm the one who made it worth $159 in the first place.

I'd never pay $159 for it, but I would be a gigolo to the female scientists who could flip me a little aerogel on the side every few days.

I couldn't buy one, because as soon as my wife saw this vid she said, "I'd have to squeeze it and smash it into a 1000 pieces."

"I'm far from rich and I'd pay $159 for this."

And what exactly would you DO with it?

You have to treat it very carefully apparently else it shatters, you can but look at it, and as far as that's concerned it's kinda boring. The extent of what you can do with it is shown in this video.

Biiiiig snore.

Why would I have to DO anything with it? I've got plants I don't DO anything with either. And vases and swords, carvings, pictures on the wall, a couple big-ass candles and various other nicknacks and paddywhacks that I don't DO anything with either. So what? You live in a fuckin' refrigerator box or something?

Whoa... calm down, Fletch. Let's just bring'er down a few notches.

And what do you mean you don't do anything with your swords?? I would trim the hedges with them.

Calm down? I am calm. Wasn't one (!) in my whole comment.

"Why would I have to DO anything with it? I've got plants I don't DO anything with either. And vases and swords, carvings, pictures on the wall, a couple big-ass candles and various other nicknacks and paddywhacks that I don't DO anything with either. So what? You live in a fuckin' refrigerator box or something?"

Ahh, but those things you have are nice to look at... this is a little 'eh' to look at, there are far cheaper things that look better than this to look at. So, you know... unless you can DO something with it, then it's a little cruddy as a visual piece to my mind.

*dead

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