2 ms·

> Thin out the middle and leave thick edges to avoid pain. Ok but if you do that then what is the point of the exercise? I thought fancy flatware was thin beca

> Thin out the middle and leave thick edges to avoid pain. Ok but if you do that then what is the point of the exercise? I thought fancy flatware was thin because of the appearance. If the edges are thick doesn't that defeat the purpose? The equivalent thickness being something like 5x stronger is of course the benefit here. I don't think price is an issue for high end home use items. Rich people buy far weirder and more expensive things.

kragen 2y ago
I was thinking the edge could have a radius of about 350μm (like 21-gauge wire) while the main body might be 200μm thick. Price is always an issue. Maybe you're willing to pay €100 a spoon, or €1000, or even €10000, but nobody is going to pay €1000000000 per spoon. If there's a good chance the price will drop by a factor of 10 in the next year, many rich people might be unwilling to pay even €100. The process described sounds like it would currently be able to produce a spoon for a cost on the order of €100k: four PhDs working for a month is maybe €50k, but they're also tying up a lot of rather expensive lab space, and I think they're using analytical-grade fine chemicals rather than metallurgical-grade copper and tantalum. And in this study they made roughly enough for half a spoon. The second spoon would probably cost closer to €1000.
- fc417fc802 2y ago
  I'm just not clear what the aesthetic advantage of making the body thinner than the edge is. At least not once you're already down under a millimeter. In an adjacent exchange it seemed we both expected the price to be far lower. 10x or even 50x the material cost of a piece of stainless steel flatware seems well within budget for a rich customer.
  - kragen 2y ago
    Sure, silver silverware already costs that much (and is antibacterial, and requires scrubbing tarnish off, though only for aesthetic reasons). It'll be interesting to see what shakes out.

kragen 2y ago

I was thinking the edge could have a radius of about 350μm (like 21-gauge wire) while the main body might be 200μm thick. Price is always an issue. Maybe you're willing to pay €100 a spoon, or €1000, or even €10000, but nobody is going to pay €1000000000 per spoon. If there's a good chance the price will drop by a factor of 10 in the next year, many rich people might be unwilling to pay even €100. The process described sounds like it would currently be able to produce a spoon for a cost on the order of €100k: four PhDs working for a month is maybe €50k, but they're also tying up a lot of rather expensive lab space, and I think they're using analytical-grade fine chemicals rather than metallurgical-grade copper and tantalum. And in this study they made roughly enough for half a spoon. The second spoon would probably cost closer to €1000.

fc417fc802 2y ago
I'm just not clear what the aesthetic advantage of making the body thinner than the edge is. At least not once you're already down under a millimeter. In an adjacent exchange it seemed we both expected the price to be far lower. 10x or even 50x the material cost of a piece of stainless steel flatware seems well within budget for a rich customer.
- kragen 2y ago
  Sure, silver silverware already costs that much (and is antibacterial, and requires scrubbing tarnish off, though only for aesthetic reasons). It'll be interesting to see what shakes out.