Space Colonization Wiki

WARNING! This idea/possibility has been moved to the talk page in Manipulated spacetimes because it is unlikely and not really predicted by the theory it is based on. See manipulated spacetimes for a more probable idea/possibility.


Graphene is a nanomaterial made of one single layer of carbon atoms. It is impenetrable to atoms and have metal-like electrical properties due to its electron cloud. Since the Casimir effect has a great potential for better launches, artificial gravity and BTC travel, possibly FTL travel, and thus are important to space colonization, the workforce should test if it can be used to generate a Casimir effect and edit the test results into the manipulated spacetimes page, section Casimir effect under ideas and possibilities. Fortunately, the inventors of graphene have not commercially patented it (that is almost as altruistic as the anti-congestion argument argues that humans without overpopulation would be) so anyone can do the experiments (and publish the results) without being harassed by congestional-minded people in uniforms! But some silly fools on wikipedia keep deleting all information about the Casimir effect from their article about graphene!

One possibility to create the necessary graphene "sandwich" would be to expose carbon in zero gravity to a interference pattern of electromagnetic waves with the same wavelength as the diameter of a carbon atom, which means x-rays of a somewhat less energetic wavelength than in an ordinary x-ray scan. The constructive and destructive interference would then, due to the weightlessness, organize the carbon atoms into graphene layers spaced the width of one carbon atom apart, a perfect Casimir sandwich.