Exploring the Fascinating World of Material Science! Hey everyone! Let's dive into an intriguing experiment carried out by comrades from Sandia National Laboratories and Texas A&M University! During their working hours, they decided to have some fun with a tiny 40-nanometer piece of platinum, levitating it in a vacuum and stretching it in various directions with a frequency of 200 vibrations per second.
Now, here comes the exciting part! Instead of the expected microscopic fractures and cracks due to "fatigue stress," something extraordinary happened - the cracks started to heal themselves!
Isn't that incredible? The secret lies in the metal atoms' ability to interact and bond when they are in close proximity to each other, a phenomenon unhindered by air molecules in the vacuum.
This discovery could lead us to rethink aircraft construction. Imagine airplanes made from metals, rather than composites, with special vacuum barocamera treatment to combat structural fatigue!
The world of science never fails to amaze us! Let's keep exploring, learning, and pushing the boundaries of knowledge!
@science
