• it_depends_man@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    A US company has engineered a new type of wood that it says has up to 10 times the strength-to-weight ratio of steel

    neat!

    while also being up to six times lighter.

    But… but that’s… that’s part of the thing. That you just said improved. The ‘weight’ part in ‘strength-to-weight’.

    • howrar@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      I don’t understand the confusion. Isn’t lighter material an improvement?

      • it_depends_man@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Yes it is, but it’s already covered. I’m memeing on the the text.

        It’s like saying “you need less fuel per mile/kilometer and you need less fuel”.

        You can’t just say, “you need less fuel”, because it always depends on how much you actually drive and that kind of measure is already the “liters per kilometer”, so the second part of the sentence is just nonsense. Which makes me question if the person writing about it, understood any part of what they’re writing about.

        • howrar@lemmy.ca
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          23 hours ago

          Ah, I see. I couldn’t make sense of the other comments about density, but I get it now.

          I think with your analogy, it would be more like you have a vehicle that needs less fuel per distance, but it also magically doesn’t need to travel as much distance to reach your destination.

    • Beacon@fedia.io
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      2 days ago

      If i had to guess then I’d guess they mean lighter by volume. Like if an i-beam made of steel weighs 6 tons, then the same size i-beam made using superwood would weigh 1 ton.

      I.e. it’s 10 times better in strength-to-weight, and it’s 6 times better in strength-to-volume.

      This is just my guess at interpreting what they tried to say

      • hateisreality@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        There’s a great video on YouTube by NileRed, basically they soak the wood in stuff to make the cellulose soft, then then compress the hell out of it with some heat evaporating the chemical and making smushy strong wood.