[Turambar]

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/06/hulc-exoskeleton.html

Eventually, someone's going to put 200 lbs of armor on one of those things and bam, space marines!

[Scotty]

  MUST HAVE!

[BloodEagle]

That article sure showed off the suit. 

I'll stick with the HAL set, thank-you-very-much.

[SpardaSon21]

Why use 200 lbs. of steel when 20 lbs. of carbon nano-tubes will do just as well?  Also, ditch the hydraulics and use, you guessed it, carbon nano-tubes.  Hell, just build the whole damn thing out of carbon nano-tubes.  They've got to be tougher than a Space Marine's ceramite plating.

[tinfoil]

Makes me want a Crysis Nanosuit even more.

[General Battuta]

Why use 200 lbs. of steel when 20 lbs. of carbon nano-tubes will do just as well?  Also, ditch the hydraulics and use, you guessed it, carbon nano-tubes.  Hell, just build the whole damn thing out of carbon nano-tubes.  They've got to be tougher than a Space Marine's ceramite plating.

I'll give you a hint, son. Do you know what happens when you breathe the stuff?

[Herra Tohtori]

Carbon nanotubes != carbon fibres.

It's a different can of material physics altogether. Carbon fibres are bad, yeah. But carbon nanotube structures are much stronger and don't splinter into tiny sharp pieces of dust quite as easily.


The obvious reason why not use carbon nanotubes is that we don't have really working tech to produce large, precisely shaped nanotube components. Much less large scale manufature of them. Same applies to carbon nanotube "muscles". As soon as they are industrially viable options, fine.

It's kinda getting annoying that every science magazine and their cousin's dog hails carbon nanotubes as the holy grail of all material physics and technological problems, when we can't really utilize them yet.

Except the USAF black planes of course, which are totally made of just one molecule of carbon and use a bottled part of the Holy Spirit to move around.

[General Battuta]

It's still not great for you or for the environment.

And yes, fabrication issues are gonna be thorny.

[NGTM-1R]

They've got to be tougher than a Space Marine's ceramite plating.

And you're so sure nanotubes aren't ceramite.

[Scotty]

they aren't.  Ceramics (and by relation, ceramite) are defined as "inorganic, non-metallic solids."  Anything with Carbon in it is technically organic.

[Herra Tohtori]

they aren't.  Ceramics (and by relation, ceramite) are defined as "inorganic, non-metallic solids."  Anything with Carbon in it is technically organic.

What are you talking about? Diamonds are hardly organic. Neither is graphite, or other forms of carbon as such.

Organic chemistry deals with substances that form around carbon chains, but that doesn't mean that carbon itself would be any more organic than, say, sulphur or silicon. In addition organic compounds pretty much always also have hydrogen in them, and oxygen and other stuff in the more complex ones.

Also, ceramite to me sounds like technobabble and we can only guess based on etymological reasons that it might be related to ceramics as we know them, but we don't really know for sure. It's all circumstantial evidence. For all we know it could indeed be single-molecule slabs of carbon nanotube or whatever.

Can you even make any connection between the terms of sci-fi tech and current terms that resemble them? Take the Dune/Star Wars "plasteel" for example, Is it plastic or steel? Steel that has plastic qualities? Plastic as durable as steel? And is "transparisteel" just transparent steel or some transparent substance that has material characteristics comparable to or better than steel?

Transparisteel was a hard and completely transparent metal alloy. This made it a commonly used material for starship viewports, and the windows of strongholds, and other buildings where security was a must. In starship viewports, transparisteel could be made photosensitive to become more opaque near bright explosions, while traveling through hyperspace, and such. A major component in the make-up of transparisteel was lommite.

Transparisteel was marginally less strong than its opaque counterpart durasteel.

Okay, technobabble checks out... except that transparent metal doesn't exist. The free electrons in any metallic substance tend to make it quite opaque, and that by definition is caused by the nature of metallic bonds so clearly transparisteel is not metal as we understand metal.

Similarly, ceramite might not have anything to do with ceramics as we know the term.

[Scotty]

Graphite may be considered the highest grade of coal,

If it is the highest grade of coal, it is organic.  Resoning:  Coal is organic, graphite is considered high grade coal, therefore, graphite is organic.

diamonds contain organic carbon from organic detritus that has been pushed down from the surface of the Earth's crust through subduction (see plate tectonics) before transforming into diamond

Diamonds are also organic.

I am inclined to take ceramite at face value.  If it were made of single-molecure slabs of carbon-nanotubes 1) it wouldn't be that heavy and 2) They would probably call it something simpler, like carbonite ()

except that transparent metal doesn't exist.

In this universe 

Metal Discovered To Become Transparent Under High Pressure

What's to stop that treatment from becoming permanent?

[General Battuta]

Graphite may be considered the highest grade of coal,

If it is the highest grade of coal, it is organic.  Resoning:  Coal is organic, graphite is considered high grade coal, therefore, graphite is organic.

diamonds contain organic carbon from organic detritus that has been pushed down from the surface of the Earth's crust through subduction (see plate tectonics) before transforming into diamond

Diamonds are also organic.

I am inclined to take ceramite at face value.  If it were made of single-molecure slabs of carbon-nanotubes 1) it wouldn't be that heavy and 2) They would probably call it something simpler, like carbonite ()

except that transparent metal doesn't exist.

In this universe 

Metal Discovered To Become Transparent Under High Pressure

What's to stop that treatment from becoming permanent?

Dude, I think Herra's right.

[Scotty]

Graphite may be considered the highest grade of coal,

If it is the highest grade of coal, it is organic.  Resoning:  Coal is organic, graphite is considered high grade coal, therefore, graphite is organic.

diamonds contain organic carbon from organic detritus that has been pushed down from the surface of the Earth's crust through subduction (see plate tectonics) before transforming into diamond

Diamonds are also organic.

I am inclined to take ceramite at face value.  If it were made of single-molecure slabs of carbon-nanotubes 1) it wouldn't be that heavy and 2) They would probably call it something simpler, like carbonite ()

except that transparent metal doesn't exist.

In this universe 

Metal Discovered To Become Transparent Under High Pressure

What's to stop that treatment from becoming permanent?

Dude, I think Herra's right.

I will not be denied!! 

[Herra Tohtori]

Graphite may be considered the highest grade of coal,^{[Citation needed]}

If it is the highest grade of coal, it is organic.  Resoning:  Coal is organic, graphite is considered high grade coal, therefore, graphite is organic.

Addendum in red. I'll also explain why this is an invalid deduction, read on.

diamonds contain organic carbon from organic detritus that has been pushed down from the surface of the Earth's crust through subduction (see plate tectonics) before transforming into diamond

Diamonds are also organic.

No. Carbon is not as such any more organic than any other element (like oxygen or hydrogen or zinc or magnesium). It just is. Obviously plants tend to enrich carbon out of air, and when they die they leave it there and it plays part in organic chemistry for a while, but that doesn't mean that the carbon itself stays "organic" forever. Saying that pure carbon is organic is just as silly as saying that Earth is a star or supernova remnant. It's technically accurate because all elements come from stars (and all elements heavier than iron come from supernovae) but it doesn't make any sense because quite obviously Earth is not a star, it's a planet. Even though the material did come from a star long gone.

Besides that, there is nothing organic involved in the procedure of making nanotubes. They are just fullerenes to the extreme, basically...

I am inclined to take ceramite at face value.  If it were made of single-molecure slabs of carbon-nanotubes 1) it wouldn't be that heavy and 2) They would probably call it something simpler, like carbonite ()

It's just terminology. I wouldn't expect much scientific accuracy from WH40k.

except that transparent metal doesn't exist.

In this universe 

Metal Discovered To Become Transparent Under High Pressure

What's to stop that treatment from becoming permanent?

So maybe ceramics in WH40k universe do not resemble our ceramics. Like clearly metals in Star Wars universe don't resemble the metals as we know them. Which kinda makes them something else than metals according to our definitions.

And the thing stopping sodium from becoming permanently transparent might be the 2 million atm pressure requirement...

I will not be denied!!

The power of science compels you!
The power of science compels you!

[Snail]

they aren't.  Ceramics (and by relation, ceramite) are defined as "inorganic, non-metallic solids."  Anything with Carbon in it is technically organic.

Carbonates aren't and they have Carbon in them.

[Rick James]

they aren't.  Ceramics (and by relation, ceramite) are defined as "inorganic, non-metallic solids."  Anything with Carbon in it is technically organic.

Carbonates aren't and they have Carbon in them.

or⋅gan⋅ic
   /ɔrˈgænɪk/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [awr-gan-ik]
–adjective
1.    noting or pertaining to a class of chemical compounds that formerly comprised only those existing in or derived from plants or animals, but that now includes all other compounds of carbon.
2.    characteristic of, pertaining to, or derived from living organisms: organic remains found in rocks.
3.    of or pertaining to an organ or the organs of an animal, plant, or fungus.
4.    of, pertaining to, or affecting living tissue: organic pathology.
5.    Psychology. caused by neurochemical, neuroendocrinologic, structural, or other physical impairment or change: organic disorder. Compare functional (def. 5).
6.    Philosophy. having an organization similar in its complexity to that of living things.
7.    characterized by the systematic arrangement of parts; organized; systematic: elements fitting together into a unified, organic whole.
8.    of or pertaining to the basic constitution or structure of a thing; constitutional; structural: The flaws in your writing are too organic to be easily remedied.
9.    developing in a manner analogous to the natural growth and evolution characteristic of living organisms; arising as a natural outgrowth.
10.    viewing or explaining something as having a growth and development analogous to that of living organisms: an organic theory of history.
11.    pertaining to, involving, or grown with fertilizers or pesticides of animal or vegetable origin, as distinguished from manufactured chemicals: organic farming; organic fruits.

[Snail]

Uh. OK. Don't see how 11 definitions of organic from a dictionary has anything to do with carbon... But OK...

[Rick James]

Uh. OK. Don't see how 11 definitions of organic from a dictionary has anything to do with carbon... But OK...

There was discussion on whether or not carbon by itself or carbon compounds are strictly organic.

[Mura]

should have snipped to it only, it was too long to read, so i skipped it