3 ms·
When someone talks about 'light' metal, I assume they incorrectly refer to the weight of a solid cube (cm^3) of the metal, that is, the density. A wireframe, to
by Kenji 10y ago
When someone talks about 'light' metal, I assume they incorrectly refer to the weight of a solid cube (cm^3) of the metal, that is, the density. A wireframe, to me, is not a metal. It consists of metal but its structure, including air, is not a metal. I don't say my cupboard is made out of the lightest wood in existence because if I divide its volume (including the air inside!) by its weight, it's lighter than any cube of wood.
- VLM 10y agoIronically, balsa wood, pine, and oak are all just boring same ole cellulose and lignin composite surrounded by varying amounts of nothing. Used to be surrounded by water when the tree was alive. Yes yes there are trivial details in that pine is 1% pine tar and oak has 1% whatever dyes and stuff to make it darker color, but to one sig fig or to 10% accuracy, its all the same.
- harperlee 10y agoYou make a very good point, but we can amend (http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html) the GP's argument to say that such macroscopic holes are not very impressive. Now if they were as small as those in balsa, and invisible to the eye... then on a macroscopic level it would appear to be superlight metal. It could also help that the holes are sufficiently small as to not percolate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percolation_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percolation_theory).
- Kenji 10y agoWhen I was writing the post, I thought about balsa but I was too lazy to adjust my metaphor. I could have just said "gun safe" and made the point about metal again.