Asbestos fibers strength measurement

Asbestos fibers measured at ~700,000 PSI. Used to compare claimed (untested) carbon-nanotube strengths against historically validated single-crystal fiber strengths.

So in the last 25 years, the physicists and many materials scientists have sold a billion dollars worth of research on carbon nanotubes, because in theory they're super strong. But who has ever measured the strength of a carbon nanotube? No one. We did measure the strength of asbestos fibers — about 700,000 PSI. Iron whiskers, about 1.2 million PSI. They're not quite as strong as we calculate, but people have been running around selling schlock in materials science because they can't remember history. There was a guy up at Harvard named George Santayana — anybody ever heard of George? He was a philosopher, famous for the quote that those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it.