Deformable Liquid Mirrors

[Octane (Humayun)]

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25342/

Came across this. Sounds interesting.

H

[renormalised (Carl)]

Very interesting, but a little impractical at present and it will be quite some time yet before anything like this trickles down to amateur ranks. What they should be working towards is a metalloid that can deform under plastic flow when a charge is applied and maintain/retain its shape through molecular memory...much like the metal the T1000 out of Terminator is made of. It could be made to have an almost perfectly reflective surface.

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

I think they have one of these up and running in Vancouver. As the article points out, it can only point straight up so its of limited use really. One would think that the cost of upkeep would offset any initial savings, and anyway, thanks to the weather, I haven't seen the stars for weeks, so any kind of mirror is purely bloody academic!

[g__day (Matthew)]

Shame they can't snap freeze these things! Make a 1 metre diameter mirror out of silver in say 3 minutes, then cool it to 1-2 degrees above its phase change to solid - then snap freeze the thing down 5 degrees without loosing form - wouldn't that be cool!

[White Rabbit]

"...much like the metal the T1000 out of Terminator is made of." That was just a movie... you know that, right?

[robz (Robert)]

octane : check out this link. More on my thread on ''MYLAR VACUUM MIRROR'' in the diy forum

http://www.cfree.com.au/lightweight-mirrors

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by White Rabbit

"...much like the metal the T1000 out of Terminator is made of." That was just a movie... you know that, right?

You've obviously never met my ex...