
A self-healing, transparent, highly stretchable material - manojr
http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/8634.html
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daveguy
And very importantly -- it can contract and expand with electric current. It
can be used as an artificial "muscle" and if it is cut in half it will re-
attach and be usable within 5 minutes and almost fully re-connected in 24
hours.

~~~
michaelchisari
Am I crazy (or naive) for immediately thinking about the robotics potential?

~~~
daveguy
Not at all crazy or naive. That is one of the applications listed in the
subtitle of the article. Efficiency and longevity of the properties are going
to make a big difference in that area. E.g. muscle wire -- cool but very
inefficient. Also, does it maintain these properties for a long period of time
or will the properties (self-healing and current response) wane after a year
or so.

~~~
Someone
Another important dimension of longevity is how well it behaves in real life.
What happens when it gets hot, cold, dry or wet, when it gets exposed to UV
from the sun, etc?

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jayajay
This link might be better for you.

[http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v8/n6/full/nchem.2492.ht...](http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v8/n6/full/nchem.2492.html)

This professor's research looks pretty fucking cool
[http://www.chaowanggroup.com/publications.html](http://www.chaowanggroup.com/publications.html).

We can dream of a future where our computers' processors are biological or
organic, where the distinction between life and machine dwindles.

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jcoffland
This says nothing about the durability or strength of the material. How much
force can it impart when retracted?

~~~
jayajay
This might help you:

[http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v8/n6/full/nchem.2492.ht...](http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v8/n6/full/nchem.2492.html)

Also this:

[http://www.chaowanggroup.com/publications.html](http://www.chaowanggroup.com/publications.html)

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Karliss
I wonder how self healing properties affect maintaining original shape. Would
it form a blob after being folded and compressed? Does it stretch out if it
self heals while stretched?

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HillaryBriss
self healing properties would be a labor savor in outside-facing building
materials (e.g. roof and stucco patching compounds, window sealants,
elastomeric paints, wood putty)

probably too expensive for such mundane uses though.

maybe this stuff can extend the working lifetime of the equipment on NASA
space probes

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slacka
I've been reading about these "self-healing" materials for years. They have
always been overhyped and never made it out of the lab. The only way to have
truly a "self-healing" material, it to make it with nano technology that has
self-organizing, swarm properties. All these other "breakthroughs” are just
gimmicks with limited use potential.

~~~
jayajay
> As a result, the iron–ligand bonds can readily break and re-form while the
> iron centres still remain attached to the ligands through the stronger
> interaction with the pyridyl ring, which enables reversible unfolding and
> refolding of the chains.

"Self-organizing" and "swarm" are buzzwords in your usage. Do you consider a
proton and an electron self-organizing because there exists a bound state?
What do those words _even mean_?

~~~
slacka
Self-organizing has a very clear definition. Wikipedia has an entire article
on it. I suggest you look it up. None of the many self-healing claims of the
past, including this one have ever been self-organizing. As a result, have no
programmable group memory. The amount of damage that can be repaired, stress
fractures that can be repaired, etc is an incredible small range compared to
any biological system. This is no different.

As far a swarm being a meaningless buzz word, again I beg to differ. From
biological to robotic swarms, very simple instructions can achieve amazingly
complex results. I have a high confidence that when we actually do have a real
self-healing technology, swarm will be an apt description of its nano tech.

~~~
jayajay
> Self-organizing has a very clear definition.

Not true. The "definition" in Wikipedia is essentially saying that a complex
system exhibits self-organization if there is order observed at various
scales. I didn't read the paper -- but based on the abstract, it looks like
there is some sort of structural phase transition at T_c = 253K (please
correct me if this is wrong) which allows these molecules to energetically
favor reassembly. This would classify, according to Wikipedia, as self-
organization at a microscopic scale. Self-organization can be evident at some
scales (but not others) in systems which are not self-similar, but you already
know this, since you read the Wikipedia article.

> From biological to robotic swarms, very simple instructions can achieve
> amazingly complex results.

No one is denying the beauty of complex systems. That said, the versatility of
the word "swarm" word is _precisely_ what makes it trivial! One can only beg
for more words. What kind of swarm? At what scale? A physicist will find
behavior that can be poetically described as "swarm" in one place, and a
chemist will find it in another place, and a biologist will find it in still
another place, _and_ at a different scale!

> I have a high confidence that when we actually do have a real self-healing
> technology, swarm will be an apt description of its nano tech.

This is meaningless! It's trivially true. Let me try it: "I have high
confidence that when we actually do have a real self-healing technology,
sinusoidal will be an apt description of its nano tech." You can't use those
terms to describe what self-healing "should look like" since those terms are
vague and non-mathematical (self-organization could be defined more
mathematically).

In reality, I think _you_ have an idea or imagination or intuition of what you
think "real" self-healing technology should be, and you just aren't satisfied
with what we're at right now. This -- I can accept, and I might even agree
with you. But don't go around hand-waving buzzwords about what technology
should look like, because there's no content there.

~~~
jayajay
I think a really good example of this is boson gasses versus fully connected
neural networks (phase only). A cold enough boson gas will undergo a phase
transition where each particle falls into the ground state. A fully-connected
strongly coupled random phase network will lead to each neuron having the same
phase (i.e. same state). You would readily call a neuron matrix "self-
organizing" or "swarmy", since it leads the EEG signals we measure, but how is
that any more self-organizing or swarmy than the Bose-Einstein condensate if
the math is the same?

The premise is that it isn't. That's why it seems silly to claim that this
paper's statistical system is not self-organizingy or swarmy enough, and that
"real" self-healing systems are "more" self-organizingy and swarmy.

~~~
slacka
The way biological neurons self-organize into a neural network could correctly
be described as swarm behavior. In fact there is quite a bit of research into
this and it's amazing how during development you can move a neuron from one
part of the brain into another area, and it will self-correct and take up the
proper role in the new region. There are complex emergent properties here,
which your Bose-Einstein condensate lacks. Which is also why it has not
practical use beyond theoretical research.

I subscribe to the cellular automaton interpretation of quantum mechanics,
that our most fundamental laws work like the game of life. A basic part of
their program is to increase entropy. This results in homogenous and lack of
complexity. These is where your counter point falls apart. Your Bose-Einstein
condensate is less complex. Unless we could change the laws of our universe,
we have no way to program its behavior and is therefore not useful. So if you
must, I will quality my original assertion that it will be a programmable
swarm-like behavior. Although whether it be from computer code or DNA, this is
a characteristic than any traditional swarm behavior possesses.

~~~
jayajay
Honestly mate, I appreciate the conversation and your response, but this is
starting to reek of quantum spirituality, which is fine, but you're presenting
ideas which I can't argue against.

Regarding interpretations of quantum mechanics, the interpretation is
unimportant -- the math is the same is the same is the same. If you want to
think about particles as being controlled by fairies who are locked up in
hidden dimensions, that's kinky and totally fine -- as long as we use the same
math, I don't really care.

If your fairies end up predicting new phenomenon that exist, which are not
predicted by the Born/Copenhagen interpretations, sign me up -- I'll go to
wonderland. Until then, let's leave interpretations out of our conversation.

My point in bringing up boson gasses and neural networks was to show that two
vastly different systems at different scales can both exhibit self-
organization described by similar mathematics. I am not saying those systems
are equivalent, but I am saying that self-organization is a very versatile
term and that throwing it around with no context warrants more content.

~~~
slacka
> reek of quantum spirituality... particles as being controlled by fairies who
> are locked up in hidden dimensions

With the cellular automaton interpretation everything could be calculated and
is deterministic. More importantly, there are no silly paradoxes like cat's
being both alive and dead at the same time until it is observed. The universe
at its most fundamental level are bits of information, or automaton. The speed
of light is the speed of causality. It's the clock-rate of our reality. No
need for fairies, multiple worlds, or collapsing probability waves that lead
to paradoxes.

> that self-organization is a very versatile term and that throwing it around
> with no context warrants more content.

No argument that you could "cheat" by going low enough to claim anything is a
result of self-organization. But it's not cheating if the actual mechanism is.
For example, saying that cells in a neural network are self-organizing is not
cheating. Say that a neural network is self-organizing because of some
fundamental laws of physics that’s many layers down is cheating.

> how that two vastly different systems at different scales can both exhibit
> self-organization described by similar mathematics.

That is the unreasonable beauty of mathematics

Finally, yes a hammer is not very useful if you have no way to control its
behavior. While your magical hammer might provide a plethora of data for
people who study it. You need to control what the hammer hits to use it do
useful work.

There might be some use from this self-healing tech or any of the past claims.
It's the hype that I object to. Then again, I also object to people calling
Telsa's cars "self-driving".

