A glimmer of hope?

[doodab]

BBC News - UK invests in graphene technology

£50 million to be spent on graphene research.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, in his speech at the Conservative Party conference said: "…We will fund a national research programme that will take this Nobel Prize-winning discovery from the British laboratory to the British factory floor.

"We've got to get Britain making things again.

That sounds like he's hoping to encourage hi tech manufacturing.

"Countries like Singapore, Korea, America are luring [researchers] with lucrative offers to move their research overseas," he added.

And I suspect that like OLED before it graphene will ultimately be commercialised elsewhere.

The funds for graphene R&D are in addition to £145 million "earmarked" for the establishment of more UK-based supercomputers, along with funding to support more computer-scientists and facilities to house them, the University and Science Minister David Willetts told BBC News.

Jobs for the geeks as well.

[MarillionFan]

A Glimmer of Hope. Wasn't that one of the Star Wars film titles they rejected?

[TimberWolf]

In 2010, it was the subject of about 3,000 research papers.

Which is a lot I assume.

According to the Nobel prize committee, a hypothetical one-metre-square hammock of perfect graphene could support a four-kilogram cat - the hammock would weigh 0.77 milligrams, less than a cat's whisker, and would be virtually invisible

BBC News - Is graphene a miracle material?


I'm reminded of shadow wire in Ringworld:

"Don't touch it," Louis called... a girl had lost some fingers trying to pick up shadow square wire.

Close up, it still looked like black smoke... You could see the black thread, if your eye was within an inch of it; but then your eye would water and the thread would disappear. The thread was that close to being invisibly thin.
Shadow Square Wire by Larry Niven from Ringworld