Nano Flashcards
Look around your home
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Everything is made out of something.
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Each of these somethings is perfect for a different job.
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Scientists call them materials.
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This book is made from paper
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Stone would be too heavy and glass would be too delicate.
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Imagine a book made of chocolate…it would melt!
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But what makes different materials light, heavy, strong, or flexible?
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To find out, you need to study them very closely.
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In fact you need to look right inside them.
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If you did, you would discover that the world is made from tiny building blocks called atoms.
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Every single thing won this plant is made from atoms.
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Stop: read that last sentence again.
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It’s a gigantic idea to get your head around, but it’s too important to skip over.
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Tiny doesn’t just mean little - it means more than a quintillion times smaller than a grain of sand.
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Atoms join one another to form molecules.
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Some things are made from just one type of element…but most are made from several mixed together.
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Coins are often made from nickel.
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The way they are mixed together affects how they look and feel - whether they’re strong or flexible, light or heavy.
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Carbon is a very important element.
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There’s carbon all over the world, in every living thing - from daisies to oak trees, beetles to blue whales.
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You probably have graphite in your schoolbag - it’s used to make the lead in your pencils.
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Scientists discovered that they could take one layer away from graph to create a brand-new material, which they called graphene.
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Graphene is so thin that it’s see-through, but it’s more flexible than rubber and stronger than steel.
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In fact, it’s the strongest material known to human beings.
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IF you made a tightrope out of graphene, an elephant could walk along it without breaking it.
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We’re already using graphene to make: stronger lighter airplanes that need less fuel to stay in the sky - which makes less air pollution in the air…
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windowpanes that was themselves using only sunlight…
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thinner, lighter phones with brighter colors…
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and medicines that doctors can steer through your body so that they end up in exactly the right place.
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There’s plenty more in store.
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These super-sieves could make seawater safe to drink - which could help millions of people in need of clean water
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The glasses would send the person pictures of the world around them
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But it takes years of testing to find out if new materials are safe to use- to be certain they won’t hurt us or our planet.
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Scientists all over the world are helping to speed that process along by sharing advice and new ideas.
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There are so many secrets left for scientist to unlock
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And who knows: the person with the key might just be…YOU!
