Tag Archives: World War II

Graphene and silly putty combined to create ultra sensitive sensors

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One of my favourite kinds of science story is the one where scientists turn to a children’s toy for their research. In this case, it’s silly putty. Before launching into the science part of this story, here’s more about silly putty from its Wikipedia entry (Note: A ll links have been removed),

During World War II, Japan invaded rubber-producing countries as they expanded their sphere of influence in the Pacific Rim. Rubber was vital for the production of rafts, tires, vehicle and aircraft parts, gas masks, and boots. In the U.S., all rubber products were rationed; citizens were encouraged to make their rubber products last until the end of the war and to donate spare tires, boots, and coats. Meanwhile, the government funded research into synthetic rubber compounds to attempt to solve this shortage.[10]

Credit for the invention of Silly Putty is disputed[11] and has been attributed variously to Earl Warrick,[12] of the then newly formed Dow Corning; Harvey Chin; and James Wright, a Scottish-born inventor working for General Electric in New Haven, Connecticut.[13] Throughout his life, Warrick insisted that he and his colleague, Rob Roy McGregor, received the patent for Silly Putty before Wright did; but Crayola’s history of Silly Putty states that Wright first invented it in 1943.[10][14][15] Both researchers independently discovered that reacting boric acid with silicone oil would produce a gooey, bouncy material with several unique properties. The non-toxic putty would bounce when dropped, could stretch farther than regular rubber, would not go moldy, and had a very high melting temperature. However, the substance did not have all the properties needed to replace rubber.[1]

In 1949 toy store owner Ruth Fallgatter came across the putty. She contacted marketing consultant Peter C.L. Hodgson (1912-1976).[16] The two decided to market the bouncing putty by selling it in a clear case. Although it sold well, Fallgatter did not pursue it further. However, Hodgson saw its potential.[1][3]

Already US$12,000 in debt, Hodgson borrowed US$147 to buy a batch of the putty to pack 1 oz (28 g) portions into plastic eggs for US$1, calling it Silly Putty. Initially, sales were poor, but after a New Yorker article mentioned it, Hodgson sold over 250,000 eggs of silly putty in three days.[3] However, Hodgson was almost put out of business in 1951 by the Korean War. Silicone, the main ingredient in silly putty, was put on ration, harming his business. A year later the restriction on silicone was lifted and the production of Silly Putty resumed.[17][9] Initially, it was primarily targeted towards adults. However, by 1955 the majority of its customers were aged 6 to 12. In 1957, Hodgson produced the first televised commercial for Silly Putty, which aired during the Howdy Doody Show.[18]

In 1961 Silly Putty went worldwide, becoming a hit in the Soviet Union and Europe. In 1968 it was taken into lunar orbit by the Apollo 8 astronauts.[17]

Peter Hodgson died in 1976. A year later, Binney & Smith, the makers of Crayola products, acquired the rights to Silly Putty. As of 2005, annual Silly Putty sales exceeded six million eggs.[19]

Silly Putty was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame on May 28, 2001. [20]

I had no idea silly putty had its origins in World War II era research. At any rate, it’s made its way back to the research lab to be united with graphene according to a Dec. 8, 2016 news item  on Nanowerk,

Researchers in AMBER, the Science Foundation Ireland-funded materials science research centre, hosted in Trinity College Dublin, have used graphene to make the novelty children’s material silly putty® (polysilicone) conduct electricity, creating extremely sensitive sensors. This world first research, led by Professor Jonathan Coleman from TCD and in collaboration with Prof Robert Young of the University of Manchester, potentially offers exciting possibilities for applications in new, inexpensive devices and diagnostics in medicine and other sectors.

A Dec. 9, 2016 Trinity College Dublin press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes their ‘G-putty’ in more detail,

Prof Coleman, Investigator in AMBER and Trinity’s School of Physics along with postdoctoral researcher Conor Boland, discovered that the electrical resistance of putty infused with graphene (“G-putty”) was extremely sensitive to the slightest deformation or impact. They mounted the G-putty onto the chest and neck of human subjects and used it to measure breathing, pulse and even blood pressure. It showed unprecedented sensitivity as a sensor for strain and pressure, hundreds of times more sensitive than normal sensors. The G-putty also works as a very sensitive impact sensor, able to detect the footsteps of small spiders. It is believed that this material will find applications in a range of medical devices.

Prof Coleman said, “What we are excited about is the unexpected behaviour we found when we added graphene to the polymer, a cross-linked polysilicone. This material as well known as the children’s toy silly putty. It is different from familiar materials in that it flows like a viscous liquid when deformed slowly but bounces like an elastic solid when thrown against a surface. When we added the graphene to the silly putty, it caused it to conduct electricity, but in a very unusual way. The electrical resistance of the G-putty was very sensitive to deformation with the resistance increasing sharply on even the slightest strain or impact. Unusually, the resistance slowly returned close to its original value as the putty self-healed over time.”

He continued, “While a common application has been to add graphene to plastics in order to improve the electrical, mechanical, thermal or barrier properties, the resultant composites have generally performed as expected without any great surprises. The behaviour we found with G-putty has not been found in any other composite material. This unique discovery will open up major possibilities in sensor manufacturing worldwide.”

Dexter Johnson in a Dec. 14, 2016 posting on his Nanoclast blog (on the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers]) puts this research into context,

For all the talk and research that has gone into exploiting graphene’s pliant properties for use in wearable and flexible electronics, most of the polymer composites it has been mixed with to date have been on the hard and inflexible side.

It took a team of researchers in Ireland to combine graphene with the children’s toy Silly Putty to set the nanomaterial community ablaze with excitement. The combination makes a new composite that promises to make a super-sensitive strain sensor with potential medical diagnostic applications.

…

“Ablaze with excitement,” eh? As Dexter rarely slips into hyperbole, this must be a big deal.

The researchers have made this video available,

For the very interested, here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Sensitive electromechanical sensors using viscoelastic graphene-polymer nanocomposites by Conor S. Boland, Umar Khan, Gavin Ryan, Sebastian Barwich, Romina Charifou, Andrew Harvey, Claudia Backes, Zheling Li, Mauro S. Ferreira, Matthias E. Möbius, Robert J. Young, Jonathan N. Coleman. Science  09 Dec 2016: Vol. 354, Issue 6317, pp. 1257-1260 DOI: 10.1126/science.aag2879

This paper is behind a paywall.

Unbreakable encrypted message with key that’s shorter than the message

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A Sept. 5, 2016 University of Rochester (NY state, US) news release (also on EurekAlert), makes an intriguing announcement,

Researchers at the University of Rochester have moved beyond the theoretical in demonstrating that an unbreakable encrypted message can be sent with a key that’s far shorter than the message—the first time that has ever been done.

Until now, unbreakable encrypted messages were transmitted via a system envisioned by American mathematician Claude Shannon, considered the “father of information theory.” Shannon combined his knowledge of algebra and electrical circuitry to come up with a binary system of transmitting messages that are secure, under three conditions: the key is random, used only once, and is at least as long as the message itself.

The findings by Daniel Lum, a graduate student in physics, and John Howell, a professor of physics, have been published in the journal Physical Review A.

“Daniel’s research amounts to an important step forward, not just for encryption, but for the field of quantum data locking,” said Howell.

Quantum data locking is a method of encryption advanced by Seth Lloyd, a professor of quantum information at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that uses photons—the smallest particles associated with light—to carry a message. Quantum data locking was thought to have limitations for securely encrypting messages, but Lloyd figured out how to make additional assumptions—namely those involving the boundary between light and matter—to make it a more secure method of sending data.  While a binary system allows for only an on or off position with each bit of information, photon waves can be altered in many more ways: the angle of tilt can be changed, the wavelength can be made longer or shorter, and the size of the amplitude can be modified. Since a photon has more variables—and there are fundamental uncertainties when it comes to quantum measurements—the quantum key for encrypting and deciphering a message can be shorter that the message itself.

Lloyd’s system remained theoretical until this year, when Lum and his team developed a device—a quantum enigma machine—that would put the theory into practice. The device takes its name from the encryption machine used by Germany during World War II, which employed a coding method that the British and Polish intelligence agencies were secretly able to crack.

Let’s assume that Alice wants to send an encrypted message to Bob. She uses the machine to generate photons that travel through free space and into a spatial light modulator (SLM) that alters the properties of the individual photons (e.g. amplitude, tilt) to properly encode the message into flat but tilted wavefronts that can be focused to unique points dictated by the tilt. But the SLM does one more thing: it distorts the shapes of the photons into random patterns, such that the wavefront is no longer flat which means it no longer has a well-defined focus. Alice and Bob both know the keys which identify the implemented scrambling operations, so Bob is able to use his own SLM to flatten the wavefront, re-focus the photons, and translate the altered properties into the distinct elements of the message.

Along with modifying the shape of the photons, Lum and the team made use of the uncertainty principle, which states that the more we know about one property of a particle, the less we know about another of its properties. Because of that, the researchers were able to securely lock in six bits of classical information using only one bit of an encryption key—an operation called data locking.

“While our device is not 100 percent secure, due to photon loss,” said Lum, “it does show that data locking in message encryption is far more than a theory.”

The ultimate goal of the quantum enigma machine is to prevent a third party—for example, someone named Eve—from intercepting and deciphering the message. A crucial principle of quantum theory is that the mere act of measuring a quantum system changes the system. As a result, Eve has only one shot at obtaining and translating the encrypted message—something that is virtually impossible, given the nearly limitless number of patterns that exist for each photon.

The paper by Lum and Howell was one of two papers published simultaneously on the same topic. The other paper, “Quantum data locking,” was from a team led by Chinese physicist Jian-Wei Pan.

“It’s highly unlikely that our free-space implementation will be useful through atmospheric conditions,” said Lum. “Instead, we have identified the use of optic fiber as a more practical route for data locking, a path Pan’s group actually started with. Regardless, the field is still in its infancy with a great deal more research needed.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Quantum enigma machine: Experimentally demonstrating quantum data locking by Daniel J. Lum, John C. Howell, M. S. Allman, Thomas Gerrits, Varun B. Verma, Sae Woo Nam, Cosmo Lupo, and Seth Lloyd. Phys. Rev. A, Vol. 94, Iss. 2 — August 2016 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.022315

©2016 American Physical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

There is an earlier open access version of the paper by the Chinese researchers on arXiv.org,

Experimental quantum data locking by Yang Liu, Zhu Cao, Cheng Wu, Daiji Fukuda, Lixing You, Jiaqiang Zhong, Takayuki Numata, Sijing Chen, Weijun Zhang, Sheng-Cai Shi, Chao-Yang Lu, Zhen Wang, Xiongfeng Ma, Jingyun Fan, Qiang Zhang, Jian-Wei Pan. arXiv.org > quant-ph > arXiv:1605.04030

The Chinese team’s later version of the paper is available here,

Experimental quantum data locking by Yang Liu, Zhu Cao, Cheng Wu, Daiji Fukuda, Lixing You, Jiaqiang Zhong, Takayuki Numata, Sijing Chen, Weijun Zhang, Sheng-Cai Shi, Chao-Yang Lu, Zhen Wang, Xiongfeng Ma, Jingyun Fan, Qiang Zhang, and Jian-Wei Pan. Phys. Rev. A, Vol. 94, Iss. 2 — August 2016 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.020301

©2016 American Physical Society

This version is behind a paywall.

Getting back to the folks at the University of Rochester, they have provided this image to illustrate their work,

The quantum enigma machine developed by researchers at the University of Rochester, MIT, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. (Image by Daniel Lum/University of Rochester)

The quantum enigma machine developed by researchers at the University of Rochester, MIT, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. (Image by Daniel Lum/University of Rochester)

Turing film, Imitation Game, gets European première at London Film Festival; will world première be at Toronto International Film Fest?

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There’s quite a cast associated with “Imitation Game,” a film which focuses on Alan Turing’s years as a codebreaker during World War II and will be enjoying its European première at the BFI [British Film Institute?] London Film Festival on Oct. 8, 2014 according to a July 21, 2014 BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) news item online.

The cast includes Mark Strong as,

Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, KCB KCMG DSO MC (/ˈmɪŋɪz/; 30 January 1890 – 29 May 1968) was Chief of MI6 (SIS), British Secret Intelligence Service, during and after the Second World War. (see the rest of Menzies’ Wikipedia entry here along with all the links)

Strong always offers a compelling performance and he is billed alongside, Benedict Cumberbatch (BCC Sherlock) as Alan Turing, Keira Knightley as Turing’s friend and colleague in what are described in the BBC online news item as “extraordinary performances,”

The Imitation Game follows the race against time as Turing and his team at the top-secret codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park attempt to decipher German naval messages and help end the war.

Matthew Goode, Mark Strong, Rory Kinnear and Charles Dance also star.

Festival director Clare Stewart said the film featured “extraordinary performances”.

A July 21, 2014 news item by Nick Vivarelli for Variety describes the film and upcoming première (aka preem; Note: A link has been removed),

Norwegian helmer Morten Tyldum’s Alan Turing drama “The Imitation Game,” with Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, will open the 58th BFI London Film Festival on October 8th, marking the pic’s European preem.

The biopic based on the life story of the crypotgrapher and mathematician who cracked the German “Enigma Code” during WWII, and was later prosecuted by the British government in the early 1950s for being a homosexual, will screen in London’s Odeon Leicester Square, with key cast, Cumberbatch and Knightley, and helmer Tyldum, expected on the red carpet.

A July 21, 2014 article by Andrew Pulver for the Guardian notes the emphasis on the Oct. 8, 2014 event as a ‘European’ première,

Directed by Morten Tyldum and co-starring Keira Knightley as Turing’s friend and fellow code-breaker Joan Clarke, the London film festival screening is being billed as a European premiere, which suggests the film’s world premiere will be held outside Europe, most likely at the Toronto film festival in early September.

The London film festival runs from 8-19 October [2014].

Here’s a trailer for the film; (it looks pretty good to me),


Widespread release for the film is scheduled for early November 2014. I have not been able to confirm that “Imitation Game” will be at TIFF in early September 2014.

Turing has been mentioned here many times but my June 20, 2012 posting is the most comprehensive,

Alan Turing led one of those lives that seems more like an act of fiction than anything else. Born June 23, 1912, the centenary is being celebrated in the UK and internationally as he was an instrumental figure in the field of science.

He had quite an extraordinary life unto a death, which could be described as enigmatic. It is not clear whether he committed suicide or accidentally killed himself with cyanide. A half-eaten apple was found by his bedside but never tested for poison. (Snow White was Turing’s favourite fairy tale.) His death came after shortly completing a court-ordered course of chemical castration (he could have chosen imprisonment instead) on being found guilty of homosexuality.

You can find out more about the BFI London Film Festival here and about the Toronto International Film Festival here. There is a July 21, 2014 posting by Sarah on Lainey Gossip speculation about this film and Benedict Cumberbatch’s chances of an Academy Award (Oscar) nomination along with speculation about possible competitors.

ETA July 22, 2014, 1130 PDT: Imitation Game is getting its Canadian première at the 2014 TIFF (media release PDF p. 5). H/T Lainey Gossip (scroll down about 40% of the way.