This article was nominated for deletion on 18 March 2018. The result of the discussion was keep. |
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This is an incredibly judgmental article and is not neutral by any stretch.
Sounds like a whole lot of bullshit to me. If you've invented some super material, regardless of how greedy you are, if the applications truly are limitless, someone would pay the man what he asks. This is similar to the conspiracy theorists that claim there are devices that you can put in a car's intake to make it achieve 200 MPG, but the oil companies bought the rights to it and suppressed it. 68.57.20.165 ( talk) 04:17, 11 June 2011 (UTC)AJB
There are videos demonstrating it & confirmations by official organizations. What more do you need to know about it being real?
The BBC ran a short series of pieces on this stuff, so it exists, it's documented, and it's worth an article. However, this article needs to avoid marketing language. I also found a significant blast error. No source says this material is "blast-proof". When you look at the sources, they say it can withstand the "heat" of a nuclear blast - not the physical forces (I've made this correction since it's egregious). Rklawton ( talk) 23:26, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
Where is the invention today? It is very sad that the inventor died. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.132.42 ( talk) 18:52, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
I am glad to see somebody is helping to maintain Wikipedia's reputation for accuracy and reliability. The article you mention was published on 15 April 2009!
According to an undated message posted online within the past few days by the administrator of his YouTube account, Maurice Ward "passed away a few months ago".
Alderbourne ( talk) 12:19, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
References
Hard to believe - if it's as good as he says this would have been picked up and utilized. I have a perpetual motion machine if anyone interested? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.239.215.193 ( talk) 22:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
This is an old comment but I have a bad habit of refusing to leave inaccurate statements unanswered. The article even quite clearly explains why Starlite was never "picked up and used." Ward refused to relinquish a 51% controlling interest in all utilisations of the formula and furthermore refused to share the formula. This wasn't an acceptable deal for the corporations and other groups who wanted to utilise it as they would rather hold the controlling interest and thereby maximise their own profit margins. Ward's paranoia was justifiable - it is likely whoever he sold the rights to would have ultimately pushed him out of the business one way or another and seized complete control, farming it out to other companies for profit and leaving him with nothing. He would not have been the first to have this happen to them. 92.238.238.62 ( talk) 09:32, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
So the way he decided to go worked out so so so so much better! The material is lost to the world, all its benefits etc and he never saw any profits at all, not even 49%! Way to go, much better choice — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:23A:F600:48D2:2F51:6B8D:3894 ( talk) 10:14, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
I mean, to be fair I'm sure some organization out there that he supposedly gave it to, like NASA, could certainly have analyzed it in a lab to figure out how it was made. Since he refused to patent it, there would not have been anything he could do to prevent that if he gave them a sample. As far as the BBC show being proof of its existence, there's a show on History Channel that says aliens built the pyramids, but practically everyone agrees that isn't true. 2603:300A:161D:8300:D0E2:F471:B00C:E5AC ( talk) 02:53, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Considering it is apparently 90% organic, wouldn't a better name for it be "dragonhide" ? (suggested by derspatz) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.216.34.202 ( talk) 16:09, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
"Under tests Starlite withstands attack by a laser beam producing a temperature of 10,000 degrees Celsius." -- but a mirror can withstand this, by reflecting the light away. are there tests done that show watts of power added to the material versus amount of ablation after x minutes? -- 208.76.231.143 ( talk) 15:51, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Some of the comments on this page are as bigoted as they are ignorant.
According to an article on Maurice Ward in this week's New Scientist,* by June 1991 officials at the MOD were sufficiently intrigued by Starlite to ask one of their scientists, Keith Lewis, to take a closer look at it:
* Richard Fisher, "Material Man", New Scientist, 12 May 2012.
Alderbourne ( talk) 18:32, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
GeckoFeet ( talk) 00:37, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Richard Fisher is a professional science journalist. I would be greatly surprised if he did not know the difference between an arc lamp and a tungsten bulb. He does in fact say that the former is essentially a powerful version of the latter.
Alderbourne ( talk) 18:12, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Withstanding 1000 °C is very unimpressive. Your coffee mug can, and has, temperatures in excess of 1000 °C. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
110.169.129.18 (
talk) 13:38, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Starlite (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 05:19, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
The "anonymous contributor to The Guardian's Notes & Queries section" from this edit is a user-generated source that can't be used for factual claims. Even a direct quote with attribution to the source would run afoul of Wikipedia:Fringe theories as well as the policy on due and undue weight. There's in fact no way to check that this "anonymous contributor" isn't simply pulling everyone's leg. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 06:43, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
Is the video by that YouTuber really notable on its own? I don't doubt that it's an intriguing find by them, but I would think that his findings would have to be reported on by some notable third party in order for that information to be considered notable enough to be put in an article. goose121 ( talk) 04:20, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
Interesting Engineering — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walkerig1 ( talk • contribs) 21:16, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
Second source has confirmed the NightHawkInLight material works by testing it against thermite, in the video it performed better than a graphite crucible. NightHawkInLight Starlite analogue tested against thermite
What needs to be done to update the current page which is clearly now out of date?
Will update the page if required.
@ Crimpadre: Please read the comments above before continuing to engage in your revert-war. Particularly the last sentence above. ~ Anachronist ( talk) 16:50, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Regarding the mention of the NightHawkInLight video, there was an earlier attempt at replicating this material back in 2016 by youtuber RJ WARNER. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htntNOiYcZU 71.201.20.239 ( talk) 02:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
There was a single line at the end of the Commercialisation section that was a claim made on a media program that Maurice Ward had died without revealing the secret of Starlite. Now, even if there were no other claims ever made anywhere, how would they know that he had not revealed the secret, or that it might be somewhere in a shoebox waiting to be found. It is the epitome of hubris to make such a grandiose statement, and it has no place in Wikipedia. Considering there have been statements that the family, specifically the daughters, have either sold the secret or are shopping it around, this statement is ill advised. — Myk Streja (beep) 21:02, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
@ Captainllama: I'm not going to revert your edit of the redlink because doing so at this time would give the appearance of editwarring. Nope, what I'm gonna do is ask you to revert it yourself. I'm currently working on an article to cover that redlink, but I'm not ready to have it reviewed yet. (We still do that, right?) So, IGF? What do you say? — Myk Streja (beep) 17:43, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
I stumbled on this article (the German version) purely by chance and I'm amazed people fuss about this so much. Let me get this straight: There's nothing special about this and most certainly nothing new or "secret". My dad started 1978 as an electrician in West-Berlin and later Hamburg, mostly installing and repairing cables in harsh industrial environments, first electrical and control cables, starting in the 90th ethernet and later fibre optical cables. Everywhere these cables are or could be exposed to high temperatures they need shielding. Either they are placed in special tubes filled with some heat insulator or they get a heat resistant coating. That coating is what everyone wants to call "Starlite" and it's been in use for a long time, maybe even going back to pre-ww2.
There's really nothing special about it, it's called "Flammfest" (at least the stuff that's used in my dad's company, I'm sure there're many cheaper versions) and I used it myself on several occasions (for some time, I pursued a job as an electrician, but had to give up as I'm no good at reading schematics despite trying hard). It comes as three ingredients to be mixed on site, there is a two-part mix but it is much more expensive and gets hard more quicker. Yes, it blocks heat up to about 3000°C (maybe more, but that's what the rating states) for quite a while, but that's about all it does. It's main applications are control and power cables in steel mills, waste incinerations facilities and, that's where I know it from, fire fighting training premises.
Why is it not used more widely and limited to that niche? Well, it has a couple of drawbacks that severely limit its applications: While it is certainly good at withstanding and isolating from heat, that is only true for radiant heat like from a flame, infrared or a laser. Putting a lump of molten steel onto it will burn right through, that's why in steel mills there are additional cable guards around the coated wires. That is also the reason why fire blocking doors do not use it. And most importantly, while it is heat-resistant it is not abrasion-resistant, you can easily scratch it off. Therefore, it's not really any use for walls or any other large surface. And it is not simply smear-on, it has to be applied in a specific and precise manner along the length of the cable and if you miss even a tiny spot you have heat intrusion and it's game over. And it's only for static use, the hydraulic cables of an elevator are no good, the same for the cables and wires in an airplane because of the vibrations.
To sum up, while it is undoubtedly very interesting material, there is nothing miraculous or secretive about it. It's just that for almost all applications nowadays there are better choices. Remember that for a long time asbestos was heralded as a perfect fire-resistant solution till the drawbacks got known. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:C1:670F:5A00:F22F:74FF:FEF6:C013 ( talk) 17:15, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
How did he mold it safely 98.97.35.83 ( talk) 06:57, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
This article was nominated for deletion on 18 March 2018. The result of the discussion was keep. |
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This is an incredibly judgmental article and is not neutral by any stretch.
Sounds like a whole lot of bullshit to me. If you've invented some super material, regardless of how greedy you are, if the applications truly are limitless, someone would pay the man what he asks. This is similar to the conspiracy theorists that claim there are devices that you can put in a car's intake to make it achieve 200 MPG, but the oil companies bought the rights to it and suppressed it. 68.57.20.165 ( talk) 04:17, 11 June 2011 (UTC)AJB
There are videos demonstrating it & confirmations by official organizations. What more do you need to know about it being real?
The BBC ran a short series of pieces on this stuff, so it exists, it's documented, and it's worth an article. However, this article needs to avoid marketing language. I also found a significant blast error. No source says this material is "blast-proof". When you look at the sources, they say it can withstand the "heat" of a nuclear blast - not the physical forces (I've made this correction since it's egregious). Rklawton ( talk) 23:26, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
Where is the invention today? It is very sad that the inventor died. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.132.42 ( talk) 18:52, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
I am glad to see somebody is helping to maintain Wikipedia's reputation for accuracy and reliability. The article you mention was published on 15 April 2009!
According to an undated message posted online within the past few days by the administrator of his YouTube account, Maurice Ward "passed away a few months ago".
Alderbourne ( talk) 12:19, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
References
Hard to believe - if it's as good as he says this would have been picked up and utilized. I have a perpetual motion machine if anyone interested? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.239.215.193 ( talk) 22:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
This is an old comment but I have a bad habit of refusing to leave inaccurate statements unanswered. The article even quite clearly explains why Starlite was never "picked up and used." Ward refused to relinquish a 51% controlling interest in all utilisations of the formula and furthermore refused to share the formula. This wasn't an acceptable deal for the corporations and other groups who wanted to utilise it as they would rather hold the controlling interest and thereby maximise their own profit margins. Ward's paranoia was justifiable - it is likely whoever he sold the rights to would have ultimately pushed him out of the business one way or another and seized complete control, farming it out to other companies for profit and leaving him with nothing. He would not have been the first to have this happen to them. 92.238.238.62 ( talk) 09:32, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
So the way he decided to go worked out so so so so much better! The material is lost to the world, all its benefits etc and he never saw any profits at all, not even 49%! Way to go, much better choice — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:23A:F600:48D2:2F51:6B8D:3894 ( talk) 10:14, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
I mean, to be fair I'm sure some organization out there that he supposedly gave it to, like NASA, could certainly have analyzed it in a lab to figure out how it was made. Since he refused to patent it, there would not have been anything he could do to prevent that if he gave them a sample. As far as the BBC show being proof of its existence, there's a show on History Channel that says aliens built the pyramids, but practically everyone agrees that isn't true. 2603:300A:161D:8300:D0E2:F471:B00C:E5AC ( talk) 02:53, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Considering it is apparently 90% organic, wouldn't a better name for it be "dragonhide" ? (suggested by derspatz) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.216.34.202 ( talk) 16:09, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
"Under tests Starlite withstands attack by a laser beam producing a temperature of 10,000 degrees Celsius." -- but a mirror can withstand this, by reflecting the light away. are there tests done that show watts of power added to the material versus amount of ablation after x minutes? -- 208.76.231.143 ( talk) 15:51, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Some of the comments on this page are as bigoted as they are ignorant.
According to an article on Maurice Ward in this week's New Scientist,* by June 1991 officials at the MOD were sufficiently intrigued by Starlite to ask one of their scientists, Keith Lewis, to take a closer look at it:
* Richard Fisher, "Material Man", New Scientist, 12 May 2012.
Alderbourne ( talk) 18:32, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
GeckoFeet ( talk) 00:37, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Richard Fisher is a professional science journalist. I would be greatly surprised if he did not know the difference between an arc lamp and a tungsten bulb. He does in fact say that the former is essentially a powerful version of the latter.
Alderbourne ( talk) 18:12, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Withstanding 1000 °C is very unimpressive. Your coffee mug can, and has, temperatures in excess of 1000 °C. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
110.169.129.18 (
talk) 13:38, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Starlite (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 05:19, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
The "anonymous contributor to The Guardian's Notes & Queries section" from this edit is a user-generated source that can't be used for factual claims. Even a direct quote with attribution to the source would run afoul of Wikipedia:Fringe theories as well as the policy on due and undue weight. There's in fact no way to check that this "anonymous contributor" isn't simply pulling everyone's leg. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 06:43, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
Is the video by that YouTuber really notable on its own? I don't doubt that it's an intriguing find by them, but I would think that his findings would have to be reported on by some notable third party in order for that information to be considered notable enough to be put in an article. goose121 ( talk) 04:20, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
Interesting Engineering — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walkerig1 ( talk • contribs) 21:16, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
Second source has confirmed the NightHawkInLight material works by testing it against thermite, in the video it performed better than a graphite crucible. NightHawkInLight Starlite analogue tested against thermite
What needs to be done to update the current page which is clearly now out of date?
Will update the page if required.
@ Crimpadre: Please read the comments above before continuing to engage in your revert-war. Particularly the last sentence above. ~ Anachronist ( talk) 16:50, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Regarding the mention of the NightHawkInLight video, there was an earlier attempt at replicating this material back in 2016 by youtuber RJ WARNER. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htntNOiYcZU 71.201.20.239 ( talk) 02:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
There was a single line at the end of the Commercialisation section that was a claim made on a media program that Maurice Ward had died without revealing the secret of Starlite. Now, even if there were no other claims ever made anywhere, how would they know that he had not revealed the secret, or that it might be somewhere in a shoebox waiting to be found. It is the epitome of hubris to make such a grandiose statement, and it has no place in Wikipedia. Considering there have been statements that the family, specifically the daughters, have either sold the secret or are shopping it around, this statement is ill advised. — Myk Streja (beep) 21:02, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
@ Captainllama: I'm not going to revert your edit of the redlink because doing so at this time would give the appearance of editwarring. Nope, what I'm gonna do is ask you to revert it yourself. I'm currently working on an article to cover that redlink, but I'm not ready to have it reviewed yet. (We still do that, right?) So, IGF? What do you say? — Myk Streja (beep) 17:43, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
I stumbled on this article (the German version) purely by chance and I'm amazed people fuss about this so much. Let me get this straight: There's nothing special about this and most certainly nothing new or "secret". My dad started 1978 as an electrician in West-Berlin and later Hamburg, mostly installing and repairing cables in harsh industrial environments, first electrical and control cables, starting in the 90th ethernet and later fibre optical cables. Everywhere these cables are or could be exposed to high temperatures they need shielding. Either they are placed in special tubes filled with some heat insulator or they get a heat resistant coating. That coating is what everyone wants to call "Starlite" and it's been in use for a long time, maybe even going back to pre-ww2.
There's really nothing special about it, it's called "Flammfest" (at least the stuff that's used in my dad's company, I'm sure there're many cheaper versions) and I used it myself on several occasions (for some time, I pursued a job as an electrician, but had to give up as I'm no good at reading schematics despite trying hard). It comes as three ingredients to be mixed on site, there is a two-part mix but it is much more expensive and gets hard more quicker. Yes, it blocks heat up to about 3000°C (maybe more, but that's what the rating states) for quite a while, but that's about all it does. It's main applications are control and power cables in steel mills, waste incinerations facilities and, that's where I know it from, fire fighting training premises.
Why is it not used more widely and limited to that niche? Well, it has a couple of drawbacks that severely limit its applications: While it is certainly good at withstanding and isolating from heat, that is only true for radiant heat like from a flame, infrared or a laser. Putting a lump of molten steel onto it will burn right through, that's why in steel mills there are additional cable guards around the coated wires. That is also the reason why fire blocking doors do not use it. And most importantly, while it is heat-resistant it is not abrasion-resistant, you can easily scratch it off. Therefore, it's not really any use for walls or any other large surface. And it is not simply smear-on, it has to be applied in a specific and precise manner along the length of the cable and if you miss even a tiny spot you have heat intrusion and it's game over. And it's only for static use, the hydraulic cables of an elevator are no good, the same for the cables and wires in an airplane because of the vibrations.
To sum up, while it is undoubtedly very interesting material, there is nothing miraculous or secretive about it. It's just that for almost all applications nowadays there are better choices. Remember that for a long time asbestos was heralded as a perfect fire-resistant solution till the drawbacks got known. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:C1:670F:5A00:F22F:74FF:FEF6:C013 ( talk) 17:15, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
How did he mold it safely 98.97.35.83 ( talk) 06:57, 18 August 2022 (UTC)