Aerogel - Frozen Smoke

Aerogel is the lightest solid material in the world, it's actually so light it's pratically air (0.003 g/cm³, only three times that of air) and it's basically a gel but the liquid is replaced with gas through something called supercritical drying.

So what can we use it for, beside holding a block of it on a couple of pretty creepy fingernails?
Aerogel has some particular characteristics among which is a very good heat insulator so we use it in windows and spacesuits. As it weighs so little it doesn't bulk you down like a couple of tartan blankies would. They are also notoriously bad in windows due to their lack of transparency.





Can you believe this little piece of heaven (more literal than usually) was invented after a bet?

That's right, back in 1931 Steven Kistler made a bet with his fellow nerd scientist Charles Learned over who could replace the liquid in jelly with gas without causing shrinkage. I know it sounds dirty but it's really not.

Aerogel did however play quite an anonymous role due to the difficulty and expense of manufacturing it. But in the seventies the French (believe it or not) needed a way to store rocketfuel in porous materials and a univerity in Lyon discovered the application of sol-gel chemistry to silica aerogel preparation. This process replaced the sodium silicate used by Kistler with an alkoxysilane, (tetramethyorthosilicate, TMOS)

After that it has, among other things, been used to detect Cherenkov Radiaton in Cern (with Aerogel prepared in Sweden, yay!) and NASA used it to absorb space dust (which is cooler than normal dust cause it has the word "space" in it)
Future uses may include absorbing kinetic energy, as in computers, cars or even bulletproof vests.

Is there anything jam can't do? Save a peanut butter sandwich, pimp a porridge, feature in erotic fantasies, inspire scientists to create frozen smoke. Jam is awesome!
And also Aerogel....

A 2,5kg brick supported by 2 grams of Aerogel

Links
EETD
Aerogel FAQ