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Short Stuff: Vantablack · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck out over there, and Jerry's hanging around somewhere,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and this is short stuff about Vanta Black, which is
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. It is uh and it's funny. I never
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: really thought about variations of black until a couple of
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: years ago, when we finally were able to professionally renovate
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: our house and not just to have me do it poorly,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: because I wanted my upstairs office to be black because
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: it's got lots of windows and tons of light, and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: so it wouldn't have that, you know, dungeon like feel
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: even if it were black. And I didn't know how
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: many blacks there were to choose from until I started looking.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: It was really interesting. Yeah, there's a ton and actually, um,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: if you wanted to go super duper black Chuck, it
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: would it cost you a pretty penny had you been like,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna paint this whole thing in Vanta black, because
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: that's some expensive stuff. I'm think you can buy it,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: can't you. I don't know. I think there is something
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: called v b X two, which is a bit of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: a paint, like an actual paint that you could spray
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: on but I yeah, I don't get the impression that
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: that you could buy it. And as a matter of fact,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I guess if you would buy it or tried to
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: buy it, you would be running a foul of a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: license held by an artist name nich kapoor Um, who
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: supposedly is the only person legally allowed to buy Vanta Black.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So who knows in this crazy world. But a lot
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of people are probably like, what are you guys talking about?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: What was so great about this Vana Black that it
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: would it would war in its own short stuff episode?
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: And I say to those people, kick back and listen up,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: because Vanta Black is pretty interesting stuff, that's right. Uh.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: If you would be interested in having a really, really
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: really deep black, oh, let's say one that absorbs I
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: don't know, Pot nine six of light, then Vanta Black
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: is for you. It was I remember when US came out,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I think it's about six or seven years ago from
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Surrey Nanosystems. Uh. They very much were proud of the
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: fact that they set a world record for their vertically
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: aligned nanotube array black, which is what it stands for
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: as being the blackest black of all time, right, and
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: it's called vertically aligned nanotube array black because uh it's
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: actually made up of nanotubes UM. I was looking into
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, how how would that create a black pigment?
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: And it's pretty interesting. These these tubes are super super
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: tall UM and they're so they're vertically oriented, so they're
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: standing up on end and apparently the ratio between their width,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: their diameter, and their length is like one to one million,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So for say every nanometer that they are around, there
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a million nanometers tall, and they're really tightly crowded together,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: so there's like a billion nanotubes per square centimeter of
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever's painted van of black, and they actually
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: capture light. The light goes into these nanotubes and can't
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: find its way out and eventually just dissipates his heat,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: which means that the reflective uh nous of anything painted
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: in vanta black or with nanocarbon nano um carbon tubes
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: UM like that, like you just don't see anything. There's
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: no ridges, there's no um depth, there's no anything. It's
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: just basically like you're looking at a void and all
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: you can see is the silhouette of that thing that's
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: painted van of black, which makes it pretty awesome. All right,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: how about we take a break. That's a great cliffhanger,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk a little bit about why anyone cares
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: because it is kind of cool. Right after this m
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: did you ever see spinal Tap? I think you did, right, Yes.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Do you remember the none more Black joke? No, it's
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: when they came out with their black album and they
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: said look at the cover, how black is that or
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: something like that, and he goes, it could be none
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: more black. And there's a very subtle joke in that
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: scene which I didn't pick up on until about my
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: thirtieth viewing, which is they have a record store release
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: signing for their black album and they're sitting there holding
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: black sharpiets, but they don't gave attention to it. That's great.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Those are usually the best kinds of jokes where you
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: know it's you just have to pick up on it.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: You know it's pretty great. Um, So we teached you
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: with why would anyone care about having something that black?
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: And the original purpose of vanti Black was for space
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: travel or maybe an application on something to improve visibility
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: of something very in the very far distance. So I think, like, uh,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: like if you have a telescope or something coding the
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: inside and maybe even outside of that. With Vanti black,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: it would absorb all of that light coming in. That
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: really just takes away any glare that you could think of,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: right exactly. So there's like a lot of scientific applications
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: to it. But if you say, like the black is black,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: that doesn't really let light escape. It tends to also
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: um capture the attention of artists and designs and designers
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: of course, and designers qualify as artists, but you know,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: we like to separate them out here there, and I
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: just did. And in fact, some car designers from BMW said, hey,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: we want to use Vanto black to basically paint a
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: BMW x x um so that we can like look
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: at the silhouettes and not have to worry about, you know,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: any kind of glare or anything like that. They basically
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: used it. I think they really did it as a
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: publicity stunt. They ostensibly did it so that they could
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: study the shapes of the cars without being distracted by
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: glare or reflection in there. And if you look at this,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: this BMW X six, it is pretty cool to look at.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: It's awesome. And I'm not even a card guy, but
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: I looked at that, and I was like, that's pretty sweet. Yeah,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: because again, when you look at something like this head on,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: it's letting such a little amount of light escape that
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: there's there's no there's no perspective or or any angles
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: or anything in it. It's just the silhouette of it. Ideally. Um,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: so it is pretty cool to look at. But I
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: saw a watch by H. Moser and Company. Um, they
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: released a seventy five thousand dollar Vanta black watch and
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the the the minute and our hands are just hovering
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: in the middle of this chasm, this void. That's the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: watch face which has been painted vana black. It's it's
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: it's very cool to see as a matter of fact.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: So it's really hard to come by, but every once
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: in a while people use it to a pretty great effect. Um,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I'll spring for a slide whistle for you. You're not
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: getting that watch, okay, all right for now, give it,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: give us a few more years, hopefully. But I did
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: research and get you the best slide whistle there is.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: It's a good slide whistle. And I will eventually break now,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: I know, I know we're gonna hear it. This is
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I like building the suspense. Yeah, yeah, that's where Showman
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: if anything for that BMW though they couldn't use the
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: original vant To black. They had to use different arrangements
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: of the carbon nanotubes to even get something that you
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: could apply as like a car paint, so they had
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: to kind of rearrange things a little bit. They eventually, um,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and also something that doesn't have to be grown in
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: a CBD reactor, which is problematic if you want to
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: paint a car. Uh. They eventually did come up with that,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: and like you said, the thing looks really nice. Um,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of like you should when you get
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: a safe place to look this thing up. You really
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: need to put your eyes on it to kind of
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: see what you mean. But it is interesting to see
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: a car. I mean, obviously you see a car. They
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: use words like it disappears and it's invisible and it's
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: not invisible, but the details are a bit invisible. Yeah, um.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And I mean I don't know if we've said it
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: or not, but the original Vanto Black was clocked in
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: at UM absorbing ninety nine point nine six five percent
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: of visible light. Yea, that oh we did. Okay, I'm
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: sorry I didn't catch that. But the the so that
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: was kind of like the the trend that was there,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the benchmark that was set. But apparently some other people
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: have said, we can do better than that. And I
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: guess in September of two thousand nineteen, Chuck, a group
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: from M I T did just that. They came up
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: with a type of black that's actually blacker than Vanto black.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: And it uses the same technology of carbon nanotubes UM
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and it is it captures point nine nine five percent
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of visible light, which makes it officially blacker than Vanto black.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And like I was saying, this kind of stuff captures
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the attention of artists and designers. UM. And there was
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: a an artist named, oh what was her name? She's
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: a German artist named DeMott stribe s t r e
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: b e Is. Did I say that correctly? M hmmm.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I might say Streba, but I don't know this way better. Um.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: She took a diamond, a two million dollar diamond, and
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: had it coated with this new black or black, so
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: it's like a void, a diamond void. It It's just
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: amazing stuff to see this. It just takes over this
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: thing and and and basically plunges it into a black hole.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: No matter what you coated with Yeah. And if you
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: are redoing your house and you want to have a
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: black office like me, Um, I chose one that you know,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: now that I look at it, it definitely looks black,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: but you could argue that there's a little bit of
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: gray to it. Um. If you do want something super black, though,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: there's an artist named Stuart Simple s E. M P
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: l E. That made to Matt black acrylic paints black
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: two point oh and black three point oh, which are
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: apparently really really black. Yeah they are, and so so
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier the artist A Niche Kapoor. Well, A
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Niche Kapoor and Stuart Simple are in an art war,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a good old fashioned art showdown, because Stuart Simple is
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: not very happy that a Niche Kapoor has the market
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: cornered legally on vanta black. So Stuart Simple makes his
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: own pigments and sells them. And if you go by them,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: you mean went and bought a tube of this, uh
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: this black three dotto today and yeah, and in it
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: when you're buying it, you have to say, I affirm
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that I'm not a Niche Kapoor, that I'm not an
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: associate of a Niche Kapoor. This is not going to
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: get into the hands of a Niche Kapoor. I'm not
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: buying it for him. Um. You have to like click
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: that box that says all that before you can actually
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: purchase the stuff. Um, which is pretty great. And I
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: was like, a Niche Kapoor sounds kind of familiar. And
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: it turns out we've actually seen his work. Um you
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: mean I don't think you and I have ever seen
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: his work together. Um at the Hirshworm Museum in d C.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: And he has these like giant eggs and the inside
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: is painted vanta black. And it's one of the coolest
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: things I've ever seen in my life because it really
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: is like you're looking into a black hole. Like if
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: you stuck your hand in, it would just keep going
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: into another dimension, is what it looks like it really is.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I think that the Stewart's simple a Niche Kapoor feud,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: we should warn its own short stuff one day and
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: let's hope it doesn't end in bloodshed. Yes, let's hope. Uh.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: And well, since we hoped against bloodshed, I think that
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: means we've reached the end of short stuff, don't you chuck?
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Does that mean we're out short Stuff at m H.
• 12:04
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• 12:12
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