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Material That Self-Destructs (Decomposes) On Command After Use

EnolaGaia

I knew the job was dangerous when I took it ...
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There's an old murder mystery trope about using an icicle as a stabbing weapon. Kill the victim, melt the weapon - no trace left behind.

Here's the sci-fi material science analogue - a rigid polymer that can be triggered to instantly decompose once you're done with it ...

I can foresee this stuff providing the basis for a lot of future Fortean reports ...

Disappearing act: Device vanishes on command after military missions

A polymer that self-destructs? While once a fictional idea, new polymers now exist that are rugged enough to ferry packages or sensors into hostile territory and vaporize immediately upon a military mission's completion. The material has been made into a rigid-winged glider and a nylon-like parachute fabric for airborne delivery across distances of a hundred miles or more. It could also be used someday in building materials or environmental sensors.

The researchers will present their results today at the American Chemical Society (ACS) Fall 2019 National Meeting & Exposition.

"This is not the kind of thing that slowly degrades over a year, like the biodegradable plastics that consumers might be familiar with," says Paul Kohl, Ph.D., whose team developed the material. "This polymer disappears in an instant when you push a button to trigger an internal mechanism or the sun hits it." The disappearing polymers were developed for the Department of Defense, which is interested in deploying electronic sensors and delivery vehicles that leave no trace of their existence after use, thus avoiding discovery and alleviating the need for device recovery.

The key to making a polymer disappear, or break apart, is "ceiling temperature." Below the ceiling temperature, a polymer configuration is favored, but above that temperature, the polymer will break apart into its component monomers. Common polymers, like polystyrene, have a ceiling temperature above ambient temperature and are very stable. And even when they are warmed above their ceiling temperature, some of these materials can take a long time to decompose. For example, thousands of chemical bonds link all of the monomers together in polystyrene, and all of these bonds must be broken for the materials to decompose. But with low ceiling-temperature polymers, such as the cyclic ones Kohl is using, only one bond needs to break, and then all of the other bonds come apart, so the depolymerization happens quickly. The process can be initiated by a temperature spike from an outside or embedded source, or by a light-sensitive catalyst. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190826092302.htm
 
This is one of the most exciting things I have read in ages. Scientists have created a material that can vanish into thin air on command. Without leaving residue or a pile of goo. WOW!
 
This is one of the most exciting things I have read in ages. Scientists have created a material that can vanish into thin air on command. Without leaving residue or a pile of goo. WOW!

I thought of you (Ringo) and stage performances when I first saw the news item, because ...

It struck me that this material might benefit, but just as probably undermine, stage magicians.

Once such a material becomes well known, will audiences cease to be impressed by a trick involving a disappearing object?
 
This is one of the most exciting things I have read in ages. Scientists have created a material that can vanish into thin air on command. Without leaving residue or a pile of goo. WOW!

However, if substantial object made of polymers breaks up into monomers and "disappears into thin air" then that's a lot of monomers in the air: a form of pollution. And if they just fall to the ground, it's pollution of a different kind. This is an object made of matter and the matter will not be destroyed when the object disappears.
 
The next step will be materials that decompose on command, then re-assemble in another location (preferably a location where they are intended to re-assemble, otherwise consternation would ensue).

If this comes to pass, you can pretty much write off stage magic as entertainment, police detectives' work will become even more difficult, and espionage will become like sorcery. Downright Fortean!
 
Hmmm. No video to support this report.
 
Here's the sci-fi material science analogue - a rigid polymer that can be triggered to instantly decompose once you're done with it ...

I can foresee this stuff providing the basis for a lot of future Fortean reports ...

...Or.... it’s the description of Spiderman’s webbing. In the comics, he tried to sell his web formula to industry. They weren’t interested as it dissolved to nothing after a while.
 
I thought of you (Ringo) and stage performances when I first saw the news item, because ...

It struck me that this material might benefit, but just as probably undermine, stage magicians.

Once such a material becomes well known, will audiences cease to be impressed by a trick involving a disappearing object?

Well quite. I also thought of stage uses immediately. The onslaught of technology is an ever discussed topic amongst magicians. Right now we all have devices with us that are Wi-fi/Bluetooth enabled; phones, watches, scanners, printers etc. We are having to constantly add more "convincers" (as we call them) than ever, in an attempt to prove that we don't use them on a regular basis. Some tricks do require them and TV magicians or hobbyists can risk using technology as it's a one off performance. But for the rest of us who perform on a regular basis, then advanced technology is not your, or your wallets, friend.

People are very quick to think of an advanced technological solutions to a mystifying trick when the reality is that:
a) Technology can never be relied upon when it comes to live performances. You should always have an extra out.
b) It's too expensive to maintain and use night after night. A good magician would have at least one of everything in reserve, effectively doubling the purchase cost.
c) It's too fragile to be packed up, bashed about and packed down every night. Anything delicate wouldn't last a week.
d) There is always a cheaper, analogue solution which can be reset with no cost and sourced anywhere. This is usually used as the extra out I mentioned in point A. And if you can do it cheaper, quicker and easier in an analogue way then why do it more expensively and with more risk of failure?

But still, imagine...
 
"This polymer disappears in an instant when... the sun hits it."
They invented a vampire polymer.
 
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