This substance may look like a liquid or gas,
but instead,
it's a solid.
This is aerogel,
the world's lightest solid.
This is aerogel,
the world's lightest solid.
This incredibly rare substance
has been used in spacecrafts as an insulator.
But instead of using aerogel for something useful,
why don't we fill up
an entire pool with the stuff?
And then have you jump into it.
Before we fill a pool up with it,
we should figure out what aerogel is exactly.
The aerogel we'll be dealing with today
is silica-based.
Silica is made up
of a variety of different chemicals,
which then makes a gel.
And that gel is then
put into a chamber
where all the water is extracted.
And now we have our aerogel.
But how much would we need
to fill up an entire pool?
Well, one of the scariest parts
of this scenario is what making this much aerogel
would do to your bank account.
Aerogel is made up of many different chemicals,
using various machines.
And it also takes a long time to produce.
Because of all this,
it's incredibly expensive.
The cost of aerogel
is about $11,500 per kilogram ($29,762 per pound).
That's more expensive than gold.
So if you wanted to fill an entire pool with aerogel,
it would cost around $66 million.
And this is if you were to get it right on the first try.
After all, making aerogel is a delicate process.
Part of the reason why it's so expensive and
why quantities are so low,
is that it's very difficult to make.
And not to mention,
making this much aerogel
could take months,
depending on how much equipment you have.
For reference,
this small brick of aerogel
took a week to create.
So yeah, expect to be pretty patient
and rich to get all of this done in a timely fashion.
And after weeks have gone by,
you'd finally have all the aerogel
you'd need to fill up your pool.
Since it would be even more expensive
to make one massive brick of aerogel,
we opted for smaller chunks of the material.
Now that we have our pool full of aerogel,
it's time to jump in.
As soon as you jumped into our pool,
it would feel like you're landing on something similar
to a sea of styrofoam peanuts.
Remember, although aerogel might look like a liquid or gas,
it's really a solid.
This means you wouldn't be able to easily swim in the stuff.
But that doesn't mean you'd be completely stuck.
With all these blocks of aerogel in the pool,
every movement you make would crush it into even smaller bits.
And it wouldn't take much effort to grind it up either.
Aerogel's strength before it breaks
is equivalent to crushing a piece of cereal with your fingers.
Oh hey... Not really grinding this stuff, it's pretty stale. No chance of crushing it between my fingers
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So, as you move through this pool,
you'd be crumbling up the aerogel.
The longer you stayed in,
the more pieces would be pulverized.
Luckily, while you perfect your backstroke,
you'd be absolutely fine.
Aerogel isn't known to be toxic.
But try not to breathe in too much of the dust
you'd be leaving in your wake,
just to be on the safe side.
Instead of going into your lungs,
the aerogel dust could stick to your skin.
And after some relaxing in the pool,
you'd be totally covered in it.
Now would be the time to get out.
As you're taking a shower
and trying to get the aerogel dust off,
you'd notice the water isn't touching your skin.
Your entire body would now be waterproof.
Although you couldn't see it,
the aerogel would be an invisible barrier
between your body and the water.
But eventually some soap and some scrubbing
would get your skin back to normal.
Jumping into this strange material
might seem like a bad idea,
but the only long term consequence from it
would be the damage it would do to your bank account.
Finally, a scenario where you don't die.
But let's raise the stakes here a bit.
What would jumping into a pool full of stomach acid be like?
Well, we'll leave that story for another WHAT IF.