You are mostly water, and the planet’s surface on which you live is covered mostly by water. Water being. Water world. Aren’t you glad humans discovered certain shapes and certain substances float? Eureka! Thank you, Archimedes for the principle of buoyancy. And now comes a new discovery: Floating metal foam developed by Deep Springs Technology and the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering has a density of only 0.92 grams per cubic centimeter (see Harish Anantharaman, Vasanth Chakravarthy Shunmugasamy, Oliver M. Strbik, Nikhil Gupta, Kyu Cho. Dynamic properties of silicon carbide hollow particle filled magnesium alloy (AZ91D) matrix syntactic foams. International Journal of Impact Engineering, 2015; DOI: 10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2015.04.008).
Ho-hum. Not another one of those tech stories that means little to the average person. Not another “popular science” story. Yawn.
But just a minute. This new metal foam stuff is really strong and durable. And think of the consequences of having a boat made from such a metal. “Go ahead! Put a hole in the bottom. It ain’t going to sink.” On a water world, a guarantee of floating is a pretty good thing.
Okay, I know you’re going to say you will never have need of a boat. You don’t plan to go sailing, cruising, speed racing, or floating on a river, lake, or ocean. Unsinkable is meaningless to you. But the idea of an unsinkable boat is not totally irrelevant to your life.
A good deal of who you are is a sea of feeling, a fluid set of emotions, and, if it is judged by all the road rage, inflamed arguing, and even riots, the society in which you live is also liquid. You are afloat in an ocean of emotions, some good and healthful and some bad and unhealthful. At times you are inundated by emotions: yours and those of others; you fear capsizing.
You have a need to float, and that need becomes more significant when emotions are strong. Having an unsinkable boat would be quite beneficial, wouldn’t it? Now, all you need to do is to get the inventors to make such a vessel. Or, you need to invent one for your personal use. Just you and the alloy that is buoyant enough to stay on top of the stuff that dominates your world. With such a boat you would never drown in sorrow or sink in depression.
Ho-hum. Not another one of those tech stories that means little to the average person. Not another “popular science” story. Yawn.
But just a minute. This new metal foam stuff is really strong and durable. And think of the consequences of having a boat made from such a metal. “Go ahead! Put a hole in the bottom. It ain’t going to sink.” On a water world, a guarantee of floating is a pretty good thing.
Okay, I know you’re going to say you will never have need of a boat. You don’t plan to go sailing, cruising, speed racing, or floating on a river, lake, or ocean. Unsinkable is meaningless to you. But the idea of an unsinkable boat is not totally irrelevant to your life.
A good deal of who you are is a sea of feeling, a fluid set of emotions, and, if it is judged by all the road rage, inflamed arguing, and even riots, the society in which you live is also liquid. You are afloat in an ocean of emotions, some good and healthful and some bad and unhealthful. At times you are inundated by emotions: yours and those of others; you fear capsizing.
You have a need to float, and that need becomes more significant when emotions are strong. Having an unsinkable boat would be quite beneficial, wouldn’t it? Now, all you need to do is to get the inventors to make such a vessel. Or, you need to invent one for your personal use. Just you and the alloy that is buoyant enough to stay on top of the stuff that dominates your world. With such a boat you would never drown in sorrow or sink in depression.
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