The Puzzling Promise of Graphene

If you’ve heard about graphene, you’ve probably heard that it’s a miracle substance. The only atom-thick material known to man, it seems to also be the lightest, strongest, and most conductive material on earth. Its potential applications seem almost limitless. The only problem, as John Colapinto explained in a recent magazine piece, is that nobody has figured out what to do with it yet. On this week’s Out Loud, Colapinto joins Nicholas Thompson, the editor of newyorker.com, and Vauhini Vara, a business and technology blogger for the site, to discuss the challenges that hyped new technologies face in the marketplace, and whether graphene is likely to live up to its promise.If you’ve heard about graphene, you’ve probably heard that it’s a miracle substance. The only atom-thick material known to man, it seems to also be the lightest, strongest, and most conductive material on earth. Its potential applications seem almost limitless. The only problem, as John Colapinto explained in a recent magazine piece, is that nobody has figured out what to do with it yet. On this week’s Out Loud, Colapinto joins Nicholas Thompson, the editor of newyorker.com, and Vauhini Vara, a business and technology blogger for the site, to discuss the challenges that hyped new technologies face in the marketplace, and whether graphene is likely to live up to its promise.