7 Man-Made Substances that Laugh in the Face of Physics

The universe is full of weird substances like liquid metal and whatever preservative keeps Larry King alive. But mankind isn't happy to accept the weirdness of nature when we can create our own abominations of science that, due to the miracle of technology, spit in nature's face and call it retarded.

That's why we came up with...

What do you get when you suspend nanoparticles of iron compounds in a colloidal solution of water, oil and a surfactant? Did you guess Zima? The real answer is ferrofluids, though you should be proud if you just knew what "surfactant" was.

A ferrofluid is a liquid that reacts to magnetic fields in trippy ways that make you think that science is both magical and potentially evil. They have multiple real world applications, many which are pretty badass, and none of which you will care about after seeing this:

Tell us that didn't look like the birth of the most sinister dildo ever.

What happens is that when a magnetic field is applied to the fluid, the particles of iron compound inside align to it. Once that happens, the fluid becomes a fluid-solid. That's right, ferrofluids are first generation T-1000s, only metallic black and thus 10 times as badass.

What the Hell is it Used For?

Ferrofluids have a lot of pretty mundane uses, from lubricating and protecting hard drives to providing heat conduction in speakers, but their primary use is in looking cool.

The ability to become solid or liquid with the application of a magnetic field also makes them perfect for computer assisted shock absorbers in Ferraris; NASA uses them for high-tech flight altitude assistance, and like a gyroscope in spacecraft. The Air Force uses their magnetic field absorbing properties to make aircraft invisible to radar and we like to think someday they'll be able to make super hot, futuristic robot dominatrices that we can store in a cup in the pantry when not in use.

It's not the brick in the picture up there, it's the stuff under the brick. Aerogel, also called "Frozen Smoke," is very much like Ben Affleck's appeal: practically non-existent, but still there somehow. It is 99 percent air, with the other percent being silicon dioxide or fudge or whatever, and looks like fucking magic. Its structure makes it a piss-poor conductor and thus makes it an excellent insulator. In other words, aerogel is also fireproof.

In addition to being awesomely heat resistant, aerogel can also hold insane amounts of weight proportionate to the size of the aerogel being used, up to 4000 times, which shames regular air something fierce. To put it in totally nonsensical terms, if air had a party, while aerogel was busy getting hummers in the back, loser oxygen would be making sure everyone was using a coaster. That's how much cooler aerogel is. Fuck you, oxygen.

What the Hell is it Used For?

The suits astronauts use are filled with it to keep the cold of space from, you know, killing them. More transparent aerogels are being made to insulate windows, or the world's lightest ping-pong ball, as you can see in this clip at 0:36:

Every once in a while, science rules.

Remember that scene in The Abyss, before you fell asleep, when Ed Harris was put in a diving suit that was filled with pink goo that he then breathed? It turns out James Cameron wasn't blowing pink goo-laced smoke up our ass; that stuff really exists. Perfluorocarbons are fluids that contain shitloads of oxygen, making it possible to breathe liquid. They originally tested it back in the 60s on mice, with a certain degree of success... sort of.

The mice ended up dying after being submerged in it for a few hours, possibly due to the gut wrenching horror of drowning, but not dying, while trying to scream in their tiny mouse voices. Rather than manning up to the fact that breathing liquid destroyed the mice's diaphragms, the scientists blamed the deaths on impurities in the liquid (most likely horrified mouse shit).

What the Hell is it Used For?

Aside from slow, tortuous rodent murder, perfluorocarbons are used for ultrasounds, and even artificial blood. But before you go out and fill your pool with some for a leisurely four-hour swim at the bottom, be aware they are also awful pollutants. The worst offenders have a half life of 50,000 years and warm the atmosphere 6,500 times more effectively than carbon dioxide, and God knows how many cow farts that would be. Supervillains of the world, we hope you are taking notes.