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AZUZ (voice-over): Ten-second trivia: Which element of the Periodic Table forms more compounds than any other? Hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, or oxygen? When it comes to forming compounds, no element comes close to carbon, which comes from a Latin word for coal. AZUZ: Vantablack is made from carbon. Scientists say there are about one billion carbon nanotubes in a square centimeter of Vantablack. It`s one of the darkest manmade substances in existence. And though it was originally designed to help with space engineering, it found other uses, from proving a bottomless looking background on a $95,000 watch, to cloaking a building in South Korea`s 2018 Winter Olympic park. Vantablack absorbs 99.96 percent of the light that hits it. It makes 3D objects look flat. So, how is it possible that Vantablack could eventually help us see things we can`t see now? KASSIA ST. CLAIR, AUTHOR & DESIGN JOURNALIST: It is so black, it looks like a mistake. REPORTER: All these things might look black and we might even call them black, but they`re not actually true black. But this, this is closer to true black and it`s revolutionizing everything, from space exploration to architecture. ST. CLAIR: It`s very hard to comprehend that black is black in the world. I mean, you hear it, it makes sense, you think you can conceptualize it, but seeing it is something very, very different. SUBTITLE: The material absorbs 99.98 percent of all light. BEN JENSEN, CTO, SURREY NANOSYSTEMS: So black that it changes the dimensionality of an object. It`s not a color. It`s the absence of color. So, it`s what happens when you have no light reflected back to the viewer. You see nothing. So, your brain paints it as black. REPORTER: It might look like paint, but it`s actually made up of microscopic carbon nanotubes, which are grown in a lab just outside of London. SUBTITLE: Vantablack is more expensive per weight than diamonds or gold. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s made from individual carbon nanotubes and those carbon nanotubes are like very, very long blades of grass. And you imagine if you were a human walking around in grass a thousand feet tall, how little light get down to you. It`s kind of like that, but on a very, very tiny scale. ST. CLAIR: It`s pretty much like a black hole. REPORTER: That`s an interesting comparison, because this material is helping scientists peer deeper into the heavens than ever before. Acting a bit like a lens for a camera, Vantablack basically prevents lens glass in powerful telescope, reducing that stray light allows us to see some of the faintest, and most distant objects in the universe. So, the closer we get to achieving absolute black, the more we are able to explore the blackness above. But space isn`t the only frontier. Artists, designers and musicians want to get their hands on Vantablack. Asif Khan is covering a building in Vantablack for the 2018 Olympics. ASIF KHAN, ARCHITECT: When people look at this building, they will see a sort of schism in space. It will be like you`re looking into the night sky. In fact, we create kind of star field within its blackness. It will look like the Milky Way, but you`ll be seeing it in broad daylight. ST. CLAIR: The ability of Vantablack is to really make us think more about the light that we have access to. It`s got the ability to make us realize what a precious resource it is. element（化学）元素 Periodic Table 元素周期表 compound化合物 / `kɑm,paʊnd / Hydrogen 氢 carbon碳 nitrogen 氮 Vantablack--垂直排列纳米管阵列，Vertically Aligned NanoTube Arrays，英国发明的最黑材料 nanotube--/'nænəutju:b/纳米管，碳纳米管作为一维纳米材料,重量轻,六边形结构连接完美,具有许多异常的力学、电学和化学性能。 square centimeter平方厘米 bottomless looking看似深不可测的 cloak（好像）用斗篷掩盖或隐藏 3D object三维物体 revolutionize给…带来革命 conceptualize 概念化 dimensionality 维度 [daɪmɛnʃə'næləti] microscopic用显微镜可见的[,maɪkrə'skɑpɪk] blade叶片 black hole黑洞 peer--[pɪə]凝视 lens〔照相机的〕镜头 [lɛnz] stray light[光] 杂散光 faint不清楚的，模糊的 frontier--极限（尤指有关某事物的知识的） get one's hands on占有；得到 schism ['skɪzəm] star field-- a set of stars visible in an arbitrarily-sized field of view星场，星空 Milky Way--银河 in broad daylight在大白天 |
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