So we have this breathless headline:
MIT scientists filed two patents on a new, 2D material that’s stronger than steel
Ummm… I always thought that two dimensions (length and width) mean that in mathematical and scientific terms the figure has no thickness — no matter how thin, the third dimension must exist for the figure to have substance — otherwise, it’s just a drawing.
And the explanation in the article doesn’t help:
“Instead of making a spaghetti-like molecule, we can make a sheet-like molecular plane, where we get molecules to hook themselves together in two dimensions,” said Strano, in the MIT blog post. “This mechanism happens spontaneously in solution, and after we synthesize the material, we can easily spin-coat thin films that are extraordinarily strong.”
It doesn’t matter if the third dimension (of the “thin film”) is only a trillionth of a micron thick, or the thickness of a molecule, it’s still >0.
Is this some kind of new math, or did somebody send out a memo redefining the dimensions?
I’m relying on a Reader Of Greater Brain than I to explain this to me.