Blue Smoke

Last summer my kids and I helped staff at Cub camp. I've been the camp director for both Catalina Council camps and Spanish Trails District camps, but this time I was just a staffer. It was out at the Pima Air and Space Museum.

After the day was over we got to go tour the facility. I've been there before, but not since they added things like my new favorite substance. My old favorite substance used to be Bucky Balls (It's still number two. I mean...those things are handy little critters).

But now they've got Blue Smoke, Frozen Smoke or Aerogel!

As I was looking at the displays, I noticed a chunk of what looked like cloud sitting there in a display case. At first I thought it was some kind of hologram. That was cool. But then I started reading about it, and BANG! New favorite.

Here's why:

By definition, an aerogel is a network of interconnected nanostructures which is at least 50% porous. It is an extremely low density solid matrix material (or foam) in which the liquid part of a gel (most often a silicone/oxygen gel) is replaced by a gas.

In other words, they dessicate the liquid out and fill the gel with air (thus the name aerogel). In fact, in a silicon-based aerogel, it's content is about 99.5% air and .5% silicon. This makes it look like a chunk of cloud Jell-o and feel like styrofoam. Its desiccating qualities can dry out the skin.

An aerogel can hold up to 2,000 to 4,000 times its weight if that weight is added carefully. Otherwise, it's extremely friable, meaning if you poke it too hard, or bend it, the gel (a misnomer as it's actually a solid) will shatter. It does, however, bounce!

They are extremely low in density--usually about 15 times heavier than air. In fact, all the lowest density substances man has yet produced have been aerogels. Some silicate aerogels, at 99.98% air, are only three times heavier than air and can even be lighter than air if the air is evacuated from the matrix.

If you stacked up 150 normal brick-sized bricks of aerogel, they would only weigh as much as a gallon of water. An aerogel statue of David would only weigh about four pounds.

Silicate aerogel is amazing stuff! It is the most commonly-manufactured of the aerogels so far. It's a fantastic thermal insulator (it can provide the same insulation value as fifteen panes of glass), absorbs infrared rays, but it can also allow light through, making it a great thing to use in windows. They used silicate aerogels in the Sojourner Mars rover in 1997 because of their insulation values.

NASA, in its Stardust Spacecraft mission (and others) used aerogels 'doped' with Gadolinium and Terbium to capture hypervelocity particles coming off of the Wild 2 comet. Particles shoot off of the comet at roughly six times the speed of a speeding bullet. As they hit the aerogel, the particles are slowed down and leave a florescent trail, making it easier to spot the tiny sand-sized particles.

Aerogels can be made out of other substances as well as silicon. Carbon aerogel makes a great supercapacitor and is now being used in solar collectors.

Alumina aerogels using aluminum oxide are being used in tandem with other metals as catalysts.

They're testing aerogels for use in insulating jackets and blankets, thermal diving suits, and as drug delivery systems. They're using it to absorb pollutants, and as flexible insulation in buildings--which won't age, mold, or mildew.

And, duh duh duh da...they've combined it with my second favorite substance (carbon nanotubes) to make carbon aerogels--a material so elastic that it might be used in chemical and pressure sensors. Carbon nanotubes can be grown in an aerogel, and they can also be used to strengthen the aerogel itself.

Samuel Stephens Kistler of the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California, created the first aerogel in 1931. He won a bet with his frhere.iend Charles Learned that he could replace the liquid in a gel with gas without making the gel shrink.

So sometime soon we'll be looking out of our aerogel-filled windows as we put on our aerogel-filled jackets. We'll walk out of our aerogel-insulated homes and then the possibilities will be wide open!

Sources:
http://www.Aerogel.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel
http://www.aerogel.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHnen2nSmDY
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/tech/aerogel.html
http://thermablok.com/
http://www.tonyboon.co.uk/aerogel/aerogel.htm

Tender Mercies and Easter Eggs

As my youngest and I walk to school together we talk about a wide variety of subjects. Today we were discussing God. My son has a friend who, at the tender age of 12, has decided that he is an atheist. I told my son that to decide that without any proof is absurd.

God shows me that He is there and He cares about me on a daily basis. I look for those tender mercies. It is always evident to me that it wasn't a coincidence--ever. One can look anywhere and see something which man cannot make, and coincidence cannot explain.

Sure there is evidence to support the Big Bang. There is also evidence to support the Big Crunch and String Theory. So what. Is God probably sitting in some tiny workshop somewhere putting things together like Legos? Probably not. Who is to say what processes he uses? Who is to say what chain reactions he sets into play and how far back in history?

So today I found that I really had to go to the bathroom. It was getting to be a pressing situation. I had already dropped off the boy and started back and I was wondering how I was ever going to make it home intact. So I had a little chat with God. I asked him to help me make it home in one piece.
He said, "Why don't you turn around and go at school?"
"'Cause it's back there and I'm already on the way home."
"Then go at the CPA's office."
"But I've never been in there. How do I even know it's open? Why would they let a stranger come in and use their potty?"
"Have faith."

So I did. The office was not only open, but the nicest receptionist on the planet showed the way to the Room of Comfort and Great Relief. When I came out, ready to be human again, I told her she was my new best friend; she commiserated with me about the woes of walking.

As I was leaving the office, I put my headphones back on. I never use them on the way to school, so I can talk to my children. On the way home, however, I use them to set a good pace. I have a fairly wide variety of music on my MP3 player--anywhere from Drop-kick Murphys to hymns to Skillet. I turned on my MP3 and just as if God were speaking to me through my headphones, I heard the Leahys sing, "I am yours and you are mine." The song went on to say that He loved me and considered me His follower. I tell you that I felt it with the force of a gale in my soul. As I trudged through the desert, tears were streaming down my cheeks with the knowledge that He loves me enough to consider me His follower. He loves me enough to answer the prayers over silly little things that might not matter to other people.

Then, when I had calmed down a little, a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young song came on. "I am yours. You are mine. You are what you are." So just in case I missed it the first time, there was another message nearly identical to the first, done by completely different bands.

It reminded me of a Dr. Who episode called, "Weeping Angels' in which the Doctor leaves Sally Sparrow 'easter eggs' (embedded messages one must search for) on a bunch of the DVD's she owns. The whole concept is delicious. I love that episode. My MP3 song thing is just like the Easter eggs left for Sally Sparrow. It's another of the millions of ways God can use simple things to bring across His messages.

I am in awe that God can and does manage such magnificent weaving of myriad time lines, even though we all have our free agency to choose what we will do or not do. Still He accomplishes His works. The scope of it boggles the mind! Each little sparrow knows the touch of His hand as it fills the measure of its creation. Each spider, as it weaves its web; each dolphin as it sports in the waves; all follow His pattern. Each water molecule and graphite nanotube has a pattern and a course to follow.

How can I not?