Practical applications for flubber

[Ilya Muromets]

I saw a commercial for that Flubber movie starring Robin Williams when I skipped by the Disney Channel in the middle of channel surfing. It got me wondering. A substance like flubber could have all sorts of potentially useful applications in real life.

Leave aside the fact that it can apparently develop sentience and reproduce itself, I can recall the following properties:

> It was said to increase speed with every bounce rather than decrease speed.
> Can be made into cream or liquid form which can apparently cover substances with a long-lasting coating that allows them to bounce with a force greater than that which was applied.
> Said coating/liquid forms can apparently be adjusted for variable bouncing capability since those flubber-coated tacks he covered the basketball shoes with didn't quite achieve as much bounce as "pure" flubber or the ones he coated the bowling ball and golf ball with.
> It can achieve levitation if brought to a low temperature and charged with, IIRC, microwaves.

Obviously, that levitation capability certainly has a lot of useful potential. Another possible application which comes to mind would be body armor, as a flubberized coating may deflect incoming bullets. Or at least redirect enough of its force since, as I recall, the flubber didn't really get hit with any force approaching that of a bullet in the film.

What other practical applications for the little green blob could you guys envision?

[Lord of the Abyss]

> It was said to increase speed with every bounce rather than decrease speed.
> Can be made into cream or liquid form which can apparently cover substances with a long-lasting coating that allows them to bounce with a force greater than that which was applied.

Right there you have a big use for it; as a power source. Exactly how good a one would depend on where the energy is coming from. Does it work like a battery (eventually running out of "extra bounce") or like some kind of generator (it has "extra bounce" forever, presumable gathering energy from some external source)? It probably wouldn't be very hard to build a motor out of it.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. Flubber's a little green violation of the law of conservation of energy; the applications are staggering.

The real question is, what's the limit? Toss a ball of flubber into a steel box, slam the lid shut, and what happens? Does it just keep bouncing back and forth around inside the box until it comes blasting out the door?

Someone wrote an SF short story about this back in the 40s or 50s, I think; I'll dig up my copy tomorrow.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Heck, put three flubber spheres in a piston engine and you've got a car that runs forever without gas.

[Ilya Muromets]

The real question is, what's the limit? Toss a ball of flubber into a steel box, slam the lid shut, and what happens? Does it just keep bouncing back and forth around inside the box until it comes blasting out the door?

From what I recall of the Disney film version, Flubber seems to lose its bounce at lower temperatures. The liquid-nitrogen dipped mass he used to power his car was inert and not jiggling and moving like it usually did, and only produced levitation when charged.

The spray-on version was also off-handedly mentioned to lose its bounciness over time. Then again, that could be attributed to the degradation of the thin coating. Some of the professor's analysis earlier in the film also mentioned that that bowling ball and golf ball he sent bouncing with a thicker flubber coating would stop "eventually," so it's probably not a perpetual energy generating substance.

But, yeah, given how long "eventually" was (the balls were still bouncing toward the end of the film) flubber is an insanely exceptional source of cheap energy.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Someone wrote an SF short story about this back in the 40s or 50s, I think; I'll dig up my copy tomorrow.

If it's the same one I'm thinking of, the ball converted thermal energy into movement, and finally stopped bouncing when it froze and shattered.

[adam_grif]

I can't believe this thread exists.

And yeah, applications are pretty obvious when you're dealing with a substance that ignores conservation of energy/momentum.

Also, I didn't like that movie. Never really liked what's-his-name, the lead actor.

[Lord of the Abyss]

From what I recall of the Disney film version, Flubber seems to lose its bounce at lower temperatures.

It's just occurred to me that you might be able to use that to turn flubber into a reactionless drive. Bounce it up and down a long tube, rapidly chilling and rewarming it so it only manifests its "extra bounce" when striking one end of the tube. Since it will be striking one end of the tube with more energy, there should be net acceleration.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Also, I didn't like that movie. Never really liked what's-his-name, the lead actor.

...Robin Williams?

[adam_grif]

You know, that was the name I thought of, but then for some reason it sounded wrong. Huh.

[Crossroads Inc.]

[Rant] Well are we talking about the "original" flubber? Or the good awful sapient jelly of the Robin Williams remake? Cause as far as I'm concerned there is only one Flubber Movie:P [/End Rant]

Ok, now thats out of my system. As far as I'm concerned the biggest concern to using Flubber is the danger of either catastrophic breakdowns of the containers holding it, or eventual atomic explosions.

If Flubber gains energy with each bounce, it means if you put it into a container, in theory, it would gather energy and momentum until its force was sufficient to simply explode out of the container.

Conversely, if you had a very very very strong container, it may gather enough energy, before breaking out, that its state becomes so hot or so fast, that it may simply exploded. Mater into Energy and all that.

What you would need is some sort of regulator to keep it form going out of control.

[Samuel]

Conversely, if you had a very very very strong container, it may gather enough energy, before breaking out, that its state becomes so hot or so fast, that it may simply exploded. Mater into Energy and all that.

Nuclear fusion is dependent upon temperature and pressure so I suppose that might happen... if you had a container that could withstand pressures and temperatures found in the heart of the sun. It is more likely to vaporize long before that point though.

What you would need is some sort of regulator to keep it form going out of control.

That is what the liquid nitrogen is supposed to do. Really convienient you can turn it violation of thermodynamics on and office. Otherwise it would be as dangerous as ice-9.

[Simon_Jester]

Conversely, if you had a very very very strong container, it may gather enough energy, before breaking out, that its state becomes so hot or so fast, that it may simply exploded. Mater into Energy and all that.

It would explode, but not the way you think. What would end up happening is that the average energy of the individual atoms in the flubber would get higher and higher, increasing the temperature of the flubber. Eventually, it would overheat to the point where its chemical structure changes. Since flubber's exotic properties are chemical (somehow), it's got to have a maximum temperature beyond which it stops working. So it overheats, or melts, or vaporizes, and craps out long before you get a nuclear fireball.

[Cykeisme]

Hmm that's a good point.. eventually the flubber would increase in temperature until it destroys itself. As far as I can tell, the temperature at which it decomposes (or otherwise loses its ridiculous conservation-of-energy-defying properties) is not shown in the movies.

If that temperature is low, it might be easier to tap into its limitless energy through mechanical means (an apparatus arranged to have its movement spin a generator) rather than using the heat it gives off to boil water and spin steam turbines.

[Rossum]

Its been a while since I've seen any of the movies and Flubber was the last one... but I think in that movie he mentioned something to the effect that the flubber molecules break down to provide the extra energy. Or maybe not, I'm pretty sure he mentioned something about the flubber decaying with use and I interpreted that as it using itself as fuel to provide the extra bounces.


But also, I remember seeing one of the old Flubber movies where they had a "Flubber gas" that seemed to work like a lighter than air gas and just a quick injection into a football caused it to become lighter than air and fly into the stratosphere when someone kicked it (cause you know... the absent minded professor loves using this stuff to cheat at sports).

Also, someone was finding commercial uses for it and came up with Flubberolium. Basically linoleum put on the floor of a house with flubber added to it. Their commercial had an average 50s family falling around and breaking stuff on 'regular' floor, but with their Flubberolium flooring then whenever dopey old dad fell down he bounced right back up, when eggs fell they bounced back up unharmed... babies apparently bounce around all happy like with no injuries when they fall out of their highchairs or get used as basketballs and I have no idea what happened when the wife spilled a bottle of milk but I'm sure it involved it magically cleaning itself up with no problems.

The professor was watching the commercial and looked horrified at the idea of using this stuff as flooring in a domestic house.

I think the marketing guy also proposed using the stuff for toothpaste but I have no idea how that could be a good thing... though having it in a convenient paste form would have plenty of dangerous uses I'm sure.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I forsee a development split.

"Civilian Flubber"
"Controlled Flubber"

"Civilian Flubber" would be flubber that is basically depleted.. It is very very very bouncy, but ebbs on the loss of energy side. Normal bounces loose about 50% each bounce, Depleted flubber may only loose perhaps 10% per bounce, but still loose energy.

A substance like that would still have immense applications in construction, home use, etc.

Meanwhile "Controlled Flubber" is of course the stuff we know, Gaining energy as it bounces. Because in truth, a substance that openly defies the laws of physics is something you want in very controlled hands. It would be like weapons grade plutonium.

Someone needs to do a study quantifying just how much energy it gains per bounce. One would imagine it would reflect the height of the bounce and size of the flubber. So if you dropped a 1pound ball of flubber from 10feet, how much of the energy would it gain form the fall?

[Lord of the Abyss]

I forsee a development split.

"Civilian Flubber"
"Controlled Flubber"

"Civilian Flubber" would be flubber that is basically depleted.. It is very very very bouncy, but ebbs on the loss of energy side. Normal bounces loose about 50% each bounce, Depleted flubber may only loose perhaps 10% per bounce, but still loose energy.

A substance like that would still have immense applications in construction, home use, etc.

Meanwhile "Controlled Flubber" is of course the stuff we know, Gaining energy as it bounces. Because in truth, a substance that openly defies the laws of physics is something you want in very controlled hands. It would be like weapons grade plutonium.

I don't think that would work. Most of its really good uses like flubber powered engines need the real thing to work, not a watered down version. And unlike nuclear weapons, I don't believe that flubber has ever been portrayed as something that requires highly purified, rare, hard to work with elements and huge facilities to make. Even if you got, say, America to follow your rules you'd never be able to make every other or even most nations on the planet go along.

[Cykeisme]

Hmm something else grabbed me when I heard about the flubber-linoleum flooring, and babies bouncing on it..

If something bounces on a trampoline or a spring, what happens is that its velocity is decreased to zero over a lengthened distance and time, thus reducing the magnitude of deceleration.
If a baby were to hit a flubber-linoleum floor, the floor would not flex to soften the impact.. not only would the baby sustain injury similar to striking a hard floor, it would in fact be far worse, as the baby would go from downward velocity to upward velocity in a very short span of time.. indicating a very high magnitude of force and acceleration. I assume this would at the very least fracture a baby's bones, and very likely also cause major organ trauma that could result in death.
I would have to strongly recommend against this.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Or if it actually works the way it was portrayed, without injury, it means that flubber apparently not only has super bounciness, but it can "bounce" other objects away from itself with some sort of field effect. Since that's about all that could bounce the baby that way without any harm from impact and acceleration forces. There's uses for that, I'm sure.

Now I have visions of flubber armor...no, that's not dignified enough. "Kinetic Reflector Armor", KRA.

[Night_stalker]

Hmmm... Would Flubber as a form of crowd control be useful? It's nonlethal, powerful enough to knock the target down onto their ass, relatively stable, and we could use it in a form similair to the M1029 Crowd Dispersal Round used in the M203 Grenade launcher.

[Norade]

Hmmm... Would Flubber as a form of crowd control be useful? It's nonlethal, powerful enough to knock the target down onto their ass, relatively stable, and we could use it in a form similair to the M1029 Crowd Dispersal Round used in the M203 Grenade launcher.

I would think not, I'm picturing Flubber knocking a guy down, flying back at the guy who fired it, cracking him good and then flying off and taking out a window or ten.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Maybe a grenade filled with the liquid version?

Now there's a thought; if you wrap a layer of flubber around an explosive, what happens when the explosive goes off?

[Boombaye]

Well shit.

I think we found Element Zero. Energy source...

Righto, but I can see the applications for a Non-Newtonian fluid in bullet proof vests. As in, a liquid that gets harder the harder you smack it. Like custard.

This would be a great energy source. And power generator cooling pools can finally be green, instead of that pretty, pretty blue.

[Cykeisme]

Or if it actually works the way it was portrayed, without injury, it means that flubber apparently not only has super bounciness, but it can "bounce" other objects away from itself with some sort of field effect. Since that's about all that could bounce the baby that way without any harm from impact and acceleration forces. There's uses for that, I'm sure.

That's a good point. Flubber may begin applying force to an object before it actually makes contact.

Do you think it's a velocity-dependent effect? Presumably it is, otherwise flubber (and "flubberized" objects coated with it) would constantly repel from other objects, and this does not seem to be the case.
Also, might warrant some number crunching to figure out what sort of distance it would take for a baby to slow down that would keep it happy after it's dropped; how far did the baby fall in those scenes?

What about if an object was about to make contact with a flubberized surface, but it was stopped for some other reason?
For example, consider this: I suspend a ball from the ceiling using a string with an exact length so that the the ball hangs half a centimeter from the flubberized floor. When I drop the ball, it will never actually touch the flubber, as the string will stop it. Will it still slow down and/or bounce upward, though it does not touch the floor?

Now I have visions of flubber armor...no, that's not dignified enough. "Kinetic Reflector Armor", KRA.

We have the ability to generate a field (or volumetric effect of some sort) that applies considerable force at a distance, and only to objects travelling above a certain relative velocity.. this reminds me of Dune shields. If it were possible to capitalize on the field effect, possibly figuring out a way to increase its radius, then forget body armor.. it would actually be more like personal shielding!

[Rossum]

Or if it actually works the way it was portrayed, without injury, it means that flubber apparently not only has super bounciness, but it can "bounce" other objects away from itself with some sort of field effect. Since that's about all that could bounce the baby that way without any harm from impact and acceleration forces. There's uses for that, I'm sure.

Now I have visions of flubber armor...no, that's not dignified enough. "Kinetic Reflector Armor", KRA.

Now that you mention it, all those times that the professor put flubber on the soles of wimpy basketball players shoes and things didn't result in peoples legs flying off or their knees shattering from rapid acceleration and deceleration brough about the the physics defying jumps they were pulling off would support the theory that Flubber can magically protect nearby objects from inertia.

I mean, in all of the Flubber movies there were people playing basketball with Flubber shoes. And they were doing inhuman and cartoonishly hight jumps which I think would be over 10 feet in the air at least. Wouldn't a drop from 10ft onto a basketball court floor break a persons legs if they landed on it normally? Plus when their feet bounced back up upon contact (either with slighlty less energy then the drop produced if it was 'weak' Flubber or more energy if it was normal) would cause their feet and knees to start flying upwards even while their spine and head were still dropping down from the drop.

The result would probably involve alot of poor nerdy basketball players suddenly flying into the air, wetting themselves, trying to land, landing hard in a way that results in broken bones if they are lucky enough to land on their sides or roll with the fall, or landing on their feet which results in their knees and legs getting seriously injured or breaking, and then their wacky bouncy shoes bounce up with more force than the fall had and either kicks them in the ass or nails them in the face as their head and spine are trying to land on the ground.

Of course... considering that even a tiny film of the stuff on their shoes was able to bounce a person around...


Okay... something is nagging my brain about how physics works and I don't know any of the math to explain how horrible it is.

Alright, if you have a 5 ounce regular rubber bouncy ball and drop it 10 feet then it will bounce something like 5 feet.
If you have a 5 ounce rubber bouncy ball and balance a 100 pound weight on top of it then drop them both onto the floor then the 100 pound weight will just squish the rubber ball and any 'bounce' will be negligible since any energy saved by the bouncyness of the rubber is insignificant compared to the impact of the weight above it.


The kids with Flubber shoes had to be something like 150 pounds each (or something... I don't know how much nerdy basketball players weight) and their Flubber soles were like 1 ounce of Flubber at most. If Flubber pulls energy out of nowhere to make itself bounce higher... then the energy generated by 1 ounce of Flubber should be fairly negligible when compared to the weight of the person wearing the shoes.

Unless it simply doesn't matter how much Flubber there is, but it instead matters how much force is applied to the Flubber. Like... Flubber isn't just something that's impossibly bouncy (I know, it defies physics... but I'm thinking it defies physics in a horrible horrible way that makes traditional physics defying seem tame and reasonable). What if Flubber is actually some sort of Hyper-Reflective Kinetic substance? I mean, like how light reflects off of a mirror, and how a super-conductor can conduct electricity without losing any electricity in the process... what if Flubber actually reflects kinetic energy in a way that it reflects more energy then originally entered the reaction?

So, if you put a thin layer of Flubber on the floor and dropped a 16-ton weight on it then the weight would just bounce right back up... not because the Flubber is acting like some sort of zero-point energy generator and shoving back enough energy to bounce the weight higher... but the energy of the weight is actually reflected and multiplied back towards itself once it hits the Flubber?


That would mean that you could make nearly impervious substances out of Flubber. Just like protecting against lasers by putting reflective paint on a ship, you could protect against kinetic weapons like bullets by putting Flubber paint on it instead.

Flubber isn't just outrageously physics defying, its outright magical!