Thomas comments on Where Fermi Fails: What is hard to estimate? - Less Wrong Discussion
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One quick problem. If you replace the air inside the AEROGEL with the hydrogen or helium, does it float in the atmosphere? For a while at least?
IIRC, density(areogel) - density(air) < density(air) - density(helium), so I guess it would.
Maybe this is a trick question, but why wouldn't it float?
Because there could still be too much of the solid part for it to have a density less than air's?
edit: i suspect it would float for a little bit before the lighter gas diffuses out
Wikipedia says
So the evacuated version with 1mg should rise since air is 1.2mg.
Googling, I see one or two YouTube videos of aerogel floating in air. SEAgel apparently is sometimes used this way:
edit: i suspect it would float, but only for a little bit before the lighter gas diffuses out.