• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Starlite, GINGER & Indestructible Materials

daftbugger said:
Starlite, as far as I know, this is bollocks.
I don't disagree, Mr. Bugger, but what brings you to that conclusion?

daftbugger said:
The guy with the flame retardent paint was on 'What's the Big Idea?' (shown on the Discovery Channel) recently.
Was this Maurice Ward, the Starlite guy? Is he still doing the rounds?

Thanks.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by daftbugger

Starlite, as far as I know, this is bollocks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I don't disagree, Mr. Bugger, but what brings you to that conclusion?


Hey, who said anything about being male??!!!!
Miss Bugger, please!

4 years of lectures on polymers brings me to that conclusion.
The high temperature performance of polymers is dictated by the interaction between the polymer chains and the mobility of the carbon chain. I didn't really want to go into scientific detail in this forum, but I will if you insist!


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by daftbugger

The guy with the flame retardent paint was on 'What's the Big Idea?' (shown on the Discovery Channel) recently.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Was this Maurice Ward, the Starlite guy? Is he still doing the rounds?

I can't remember the name of the guy, but I think the imflammable paint and the starlite stuff are two different people.
I can't seem to find it online, I know the programme has a webpage somewhere.
 
daftbugger said:
Hey, who said anything about being male??!!!!
Miss Bugger, please!
If you insist :D I apologise, this is the second time I've done that on this thread. :goof:
daftbugger said:
I didn't really want to go into scientific detail in this forum, but I will if you insist!
I was hoping you had some information that might close this out once and for all. I have some background myself in this area so I might be able to follow what you're on about!
 
Quote:
I have some background myself in this area so I might be able to follow what you're on about!


This is where you tell me I've got it wrong, 'cause I haven't looked at polymers for ages! I'm actually doing a PhD in biomaterials (metals and ceramics) so no polymers!


:goof: Nerd Alert!
Temperature properties:

So here it goes:
[lecture]
Polymers are made from long chains of carbon, the longer the chain, the better quality your plastic. The differences in properties of your plastic depends on the different chemical groups connected to the carbon chain. Some polymers have double bonds between the carbon which makes the chain stiffer.

At low temperatures, all polymers are glass like. Some are like this at room temperature, some you'll have to freeze. The polymer chains are all mixed up like spaghetti. They are brittle and have glass like properties (although not always transparent). When you heat them up, you give energy to the carbon chains and they can move around a bit and your polymer becomes floppy and elastic. The carbon are still attached, either by physical bonds (like stapling your spaghetti together where the strands cross over) or by weaker bonds interacting between those chemical groups attached to the carbon chain. When you get hotter (say 200C) the energy your giving is more than the weak bonds and your plastic melts. If you have physical bonds, it burns instead.


Silicon can form chains, like carbon. This is what it does in glass. In some ways it has some of the properties of polymers. Unfortunately, you can't get chains longer than 5 or 6 units (plastics have 100-10000s of units) so don't make good polymers. Unless that's what Starlite is....

Physical Properties:

The strength of you plastic is dependent on the strength of the bonds between the carbon chains. The highest strength is if you pull directly along the carbon chain.
At this point the spaghetti anology isn't quite so good. The carbon chain isn't perfectly straight, more like a zig zag. The straighter you can get the chain, the stronger the material. This is how they get Kevlar so strong. If you need strength in more than one direction, you've got to weave it, again this is done with Kevlar.

I hope this helps. I've tried to keep it as simple as possible. I'm afraid I'm a scientist and my written English tends to be lousy (blame the English school system!)
For more info, read 'Introduction to Polymer Science' by R. Young and Lovell . OK, so these guys work in my department, but it is the core textbook for all polymer courses.

That's the longest post I've ever made

[/lecture]
 
It's been a while since anyone mentioned this, anyone got any new information?
 
He seem legit enough to be mentioned on a Open University degree course. Page 20 of this PDF
 
Good links, Siriuss, though I think the first one is just a coincidence. Interesting how the material properties were actually verified and yet it's all gone quiet.
Maybe, speculating wildly, this could suggest some kind of a secret deal with the US military...? Since the material was actually tested (according to the OU piece) I can see the interest, and hard cash, this might generate. As usual, the best technology gets swallowed up so we get better at killing people for oil rather than improving safety or, say, heat protection on Space Shuttles....
 
I'm sure they made a deal with whoever had the biggest chequebook - I read somewhere a former chairman/director of ICI had joined with him to promote it and broker a deal.

As it says in the OU document tho, right now several major R&D plants around the world are probably trying to develop Starlite and with no patent to stop them it's only a matter of time before they succeed and create a new market. This would certainly herald a new era of warfare, probably more EMP based or something. I wonder how this substance reacts to neutron bombs?

Still imagine opposition tanks sitting across from each other on the battlefield not bothering to do anything as they know they can't destroy each other - stalemate?
 
Take a look at that OU pdf again - the thing is eight years old, dating back to the early days of Stalite hype.

I haven't seen anything on this from the last few years, or any suggestion that there could be something in it...but I'm all ears.
 
It sounds awfully like the Death Ray mentioned recently in FT - a lot of hype, some demonstrations and then.........

Anyway more info:

Some correspondance and a scan from Jane's:
http://www.paulkemble.com/maurice.html

A picture of Maurice Ward (might also be an interesting article if I could read Basque):
http://www.zientzia.net/artikulua.asp?Artik_kod=6025

What happened next (this link has come up a couple of times before but I wanted to focus on this bit):

Realising at once the value of his invention, Ward wrote to Britain's major chemical companies, offering to demonstrate his material to them. Every one sent him the standard brush-off letter they send to cranks and crackpots. After the "Tomorrow's World" demonstration, Ward stopped getting the brush-off and starting getting offers instead.

One consequence of his contacts with chemical companies was that the head of research of ICI's paint laboratory left the firm and went into partnership with Ward to exploit the discovery commercially.

from:
http://www.alternativescience.com/flame-proof.htm

Other investigations into this (mentioned earlier but those pages are now down and these are the archived version - occasional problems connected so be patient):

http://web.archive.org/web/20010407012348/www.charm.net/~dmg/mysteries/mystery1.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20010329193359/www.charm.net/~dmg/mysteries/mystery1b.html

Emps
 
This seems like a close parallel.

Inventor spurns burns with red-hot invention

By Phil Novak
BayToday.ca
Saturday, October 04, 2003

Troy Hurtubise says he doesn’t feel the heat, even with a 2000° C blowtorch flame blazing at his head.

Hurtubise has invented a physics-defying substance called fire paste, which he claims eliminates the cross-transfer of heat and prevents anything coated in the substance from burning up.

Not only does the paste stop heat from getting through, it cools to the touch within 20 seconds of the fire source being removed.

Don’t take his word for it though, because proof is available on national television.

"I should be dead by now"

Known as ‘the bear guy’ because of the Ursus bear suits he also invented, Hurtubise demonstrated the heat resistant properties of fire paste on a segment produced by and aired Sept. 2 on the Discovery Channel program The Daily Planet.

In the spot, Hurtubise puts on a hockey helmet covered with a thin layer of cured fire paste and then chats casually while the live torch is held against his noggin.

“The scientists say I should be dead by now,” Hurtubise says at one point.

There’s no trickery involved, Hurtubise said, because the Discovery Channel controlled the entire sequence, even bringing the torches to North Bay in August to film the piece.

“The producer told me it was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, that I could sit there for 10 minutes without getting my brain fried,” Hurtubise, 39, said.

Made with household ingredients

Hurtubise provided baytoday.ca with a demonstration, holding a hardened fire paste tile in his hand, while waving a blowtorch to and fro over it. He then took the tile and placed it against his face. (See attached gallery for photo of this.)

“Didn’t feel a thing, in fact you can touch it and see it’s cool to the touch,” Hurtubise said.

“It dissipates heat at an exponential rate, it’s beyond belief, and I have no idea why it does, all I know is that it does.”

Fire paste, Hurtubise said, is biodegradable, non-toxic and made with common ingredients.

“If you knew what it was made out of you’d laugh your head off for a year,” Hurtubise said during an interview in his home lab.

And the ingredients are cheap too.

Two major markets

“I can buy a 45-gallon drum of one of the main ingredients,” Hurtubise said, “for five bucks.”

Hurtubise sees two major markets for fire paste, the formula for which is locked in a safe somewhere in the United States, he said.

“I could coat the belly of the NASA space shuttle with fire paste for ,000 (US), instead of the million it costs for them to put tiles on it,” Hurtubise said.

“It can stand up to the heat of re-entry to the earth’s atmosphere, and then they can simply wash it off.”

In fact it was just three months after the space shuttle Columbia explosion that Hurtubise perfected fire paste.

Fire insurance industry interested

He said it took him 17 years of work "and 3,600 pours of the stuff," before finding the right combination.

The fire insurance industry is also interested, Hurtubise said, and has asked him to demonstrate.

He’s going to build two small-scale houses, coat one with fire paste and leave the other as is. Then they’re both going to be set on fire. When the fire paste is sprayed off, Hurtubise said, the house will be there intact.

“It will save the insurance industry billions,” Hurtubise said.

He adds that fire paste can handle such high temperatures, that had the steel skeleton holding up the World Trade Towers been sprayed with it, the buildings wouldn’t have imploded after being hit by two airliners Sept. 11.
 
Mark Pilkington has done a piece on it here:

Vanishing Starlite

Mark Pilkington
Thursday April 8, 2004
The Guardian

In 1993 viewers of the BBC's Tomorrow's World were treated to a curious sight. Presenter Michael Rodd donned a welding mask and gloves, fired up an oxyacetylene torch and used it to attack an apparently ordinary egg.

After four minutes the egg was cracked open to reveal its interior, still raw and runny. The secret? A thin coating of Starlite, a miraculous, heat-proof substance invented by a middle-aged hairdresser from Blackburn.

Maurice Ward had no scientific background. He did like to tinker, however, and inside his rented workshop he created his own brand of hair products, using ordinary chemicals and a food mixer. He stumbled upon Starlite and its heat-proof properties by accident and, realising that he had something special on his hands, began contacting chemical companies.

At first Ward was dismissed as a crackpot inventor, but following a brief mention in Jane's International Defence Review and the Tomorrow's World demonstration, defence and chemical companies took notice. More articles in intelligence and business journals followed, reporting that Starlite had withstood a simulated 10,000 C nuclear blast and shrugged off a high-powered laser beam.

Countless applications could be imagined for this tough, lightweight material: from ship, aircraft and spacecraft design to body armour and kitchen equipment. Concerned that a corporate giant would steal his recipe, Ward refused to patent his invention, revealing only that it contained 21 components, mostly organic polymers, borates and ceramics.

Rumours soon circulated. Some said bidders included Nasa and the US department of energy, others said the plans had been stolen and a secret factory was producing Starlite for the US government while other governments had tried in vain to replicate the mixture. There was talk of billion-dollar buyouts, stockmarket flotations, even a Maurice Ward Starlite Technology Centre staffed by Nasa employees. Then everything went quiet.

The last word was in 1997, when a spokesman announced that Ward was close to a major deal with an aircraft interiors manufacturer. Ward was then enjoying his new hobby - harness racing. By 2002 his horses were still running. But whatever happened to Starlite?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/farout/story/0,13028,1187576,00.html

Emps
 
A slightly lazy effort by Mr Pilkington there - looks like he is just recycling without adding anything new.

Still looks like a scam to me...
 
Wembley said:
Still looks like a scam to me...

It does sound it - I was wondering if anyone has seen the footage? I do wonder if it would have been possible to do the old switcheroo swapping a fake egg for a real one? I doubt Tomorrow's World were really looking out for that kind of thing.

Emps
 
A spot of necromancy...

and RESURRECTION

I remember seeing the Tomorrow's World show at the time.
I remember being amazed at the demonstration - and thinking back, I can't recall there being any cuts of sleight of hand involved.

I work in TV/Advertising, and if there had been any mispractice at the time, I'm fairly sure someone would have spotted it. Remember, there are at least a dozen people the other side of the cameras.

However, seeing as we're now 10+ years on, and this stuff hasn't been made a mandatory building material or car coating, I think we can assume it's a load of hokum sadly.

But still... who knows for certain outside the inventors head?
 
ProfessorF said:
However, seeing as we're now 10+ years on, and this stuff hasn't been made a mandatory building material or car coating, I think we can assume it's a load of hokum sadly.

But still... who knows for certain outside the inventors head?

Or it is now a suppressed invention?
I remember being mightily impressed by the Tomorrow's World demonstration. If it was faked, what did he use to fake it with? :confused:
 
Yes I am afraid its just to dangerous a thing to have in the real world. So its been put away with Cold fusion, Antigravity, Zero point/ free energy devices etc etc. I think the Hutchison effect has shown how little we know about heating of materials so maybe there is something in this starlite! I remember seeing it on Tommorrows world and another demo on some other show and was very impressed accepting that Tommorrows world would not be deliberately misleading. If what was shown was what happened then it is an incredibly usefull material. It would be interesting to find what happened to the applied energy.
 
Well, here's a golden oldie of a thread that needs reviving! Maurice Ward's Starlight is mentioned early on in this rehash of old Horizon Programmes:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Materials/

Stuff: A Horizon Guide to Materials

Engineer Jem Stansfield looks back through the Horizon archives to find out how scientists have come to understand and manipulate the materials that built the modern world. Whether it's uncovering new materials or finding fresh uses for those we've known about for centuries, each breakthrough offers a tantalising glimpse of the holy grail of materials science - a substance that's cheap to produce and has the potential to change our world. Jem explores how a series of extraordinary advances have done just that - from superconductors to the silicon revolution

Wiki page on Ward is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ward

Sadly, he did die, nearly a year ago, in May 2011, so it may be quite a while before we finally learn the secrets of Starlight.
 
Can we revive th
Indestructible Materials - Starlight

is one again? As far as I know, it hasn't been discredited yet. But since the inventor's passing in 2011, nothing has been heard of it either.

https://www.historicmysteries.com/starlite-mysterious-thermal-barrier/

That's absolutely fascinating, no idea how I hadn't come across it. The evidence for Starlite's testing by major organisations such as NASA is pretty thin, but the experiment on Tomorrow's World is impressive. I'd like to hear an explanation from a magician or a professional debunker explaining how that could be done (all too easily? No idea). That TV appearance seems to be the only real evidence of Starlite's existence.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top