Talk:Starlite

Neutrality
This is an incredibly judgmental article and is not neutral by any stretch.


 * It's not judgmental at all. It's complete bullshit.  In the egg demo, where did the heat go?


 * I have no idea whether this stuff is legit or not, but as to your question of where the heat went: one possible answer is, the same place light goes that strikes a mirror.Mcswell (talk) 22:51, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

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


 * The guy was a former hairdresser. I couldn't find any mention of formal training.  I suspect that he and Troy Hurtubise have a lot in common...lots of claims, but nothing in the way of patents, and a lot of "only I know the mysterious secret."Ormewood (talk) 23:16, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

There are videos demonstrating it & confirmations by official organizations. What more do you need to know about it being real?


 * Proof. That sort of thing.


 * There are videos demonstrating it & confirmations by official organizations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.82.65.226 (talk) 20:36, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

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 it today
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)


 * Died? Not according to a Daily Telegraph interview published 12th June 2011. Mrstonky (talk) 14:00, 12 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)


 * Apologies -- a genuine mistake on my part. Thanks for pointing it out. Mrstonky (talk) 23:49, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Hard to believe
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)

Dragonhide
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)


 * Look at the Wikipedia article on organic compounds. It basically just means a compound whose molecules contains carbon. Ormewood (talk) 00:01, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

10,000 degrees
"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:


 * The first thing Lewis and his colleagues did was fire powerful laser pulses at the material. There was little damage, despite the fact that each pulse contained 100 millijoules of energy. "That will drill holes in bricks," says Lewis.


 * Other tests at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and the Atomic Weapons Establishment on the island of Foulness, UK, confirmed that Starlite was the real deal. At Foulness, researches used an arc lamp, essentially a powerful tungsten bulb, to focus a huge amount of heat onto a small area of the material. Again an impressive performance: the material easily withstood temperatures of around 1000 °C, according to a 1993 article in the military publication International Defence Review.

* Richard Fisher, "Material Man", New Scientist, 12 May 2012.

Alderbourne (talk) 18:32, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * It's not clear how reliable the New Scientist article is. An arc lamp is absolutely not "a powerful tungsten bulb"; the two technologies have almost nothing in common. Arc lamps work by sparking in a gap between two carbon rods; tungsten bulbs work by heating a wire. This isn't an obscure matter, either. It's impossible to trust that article

GeckoFeet (talk) 00:37, 16 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia's article on New Scientist:


 * In September 2006, New Scientist was criticised by science fiction writer Greg Egan, who wrote that "a sensationalist bent and a lack of basic knowledge by its writers" was making the magazine's coverage sufficiently unreliable "to constitute a real threat to the public understanding of science". In particular, Egan found himself "gobsmacked by the level of scientific illiteracy" in the magazine's coverage of Roger Shawyer's "electromagnetic drive", where New Scientist allowed the publication of "meaningless double-talk" designed to bypass a fatal objection to Shawyer's proposed space drive, namely that it violates the law of conservation of momentum. Egan urged others to write to New Scientist and pressure the magazine to raise its standards, instead of "squandering the opportunity that the magazine's circulation and prestige provides". Ormewood (talk) 23:46, 22 July 2016 (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)

Move discussion in progress
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)

User-generated source
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 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)

NightHawkInLight Video
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)


 * Why? That video is not a primary source (Ward's statements would be) and I don't see why it should not be referenced directly – assuming it's reliable and relevant to the subject matter, which I think is. That guy is simply showing how you don't need exotic ingredients or mysterious recipes to come up with something broadly equivalent to that 'lost invention'. The reader will definitely get a fuller picture with that YouTube video included. --Deeday-UK (talk) 14:34, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Reported in the following third party source:
Interesting Engineering — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walkerig1 (talk • contribs) 21:16, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Additionally Confirmed by a second experimental source
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.


 * Some problems here:
 * The YouTube video is somebody's original research, and self-published. It never claimed to be Starlite for certain, it's just a well-educated guess, and Wikipedia should not be misrepresenting what it is.
 * Other YouTube sources are not reliable for the purpose of confirmation.
 * Finally, this is nothing new. Intumescent materials like this are common.
 * There has been no secondary publication in reliable sources (the source cited doesn't even have a byline), no formal peer review. No valid reasoning has been given to give this YouTube video such prominence.
 * However, since it has been mentioned in a secondary source, I have drastically shortened the section using a brief summary. The section is called "Replication" for documenting other notable attempts to replicate the material. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

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)

Took it to the grave
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)
 * Apologies, I reverted before noticing the talk page entry. Nonetheless, Wikipedia is not claiming he did take it to the grave, merely that the broadcast made that statement. Captainllama (talk) 21:16, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * No apologies needed; I know how it is. Well, if we can't take that out, I'll just have to load it down with all of the other assertions that he did not take it to the grave. That single statement is biased toward a single opinion, and asserting a negative doesn't make it reliable. As I said above, ...how would they know? For now, there are a couple of minor grammar errors I'll fix, then it's off to the archives! Hi ho! BTW, did you review that source? It's a big part of why I took it out. — Myk Streja (beep) 17:36, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * P.S. I decided to rein in my baser instincts and just went with the one notable claim. 20:30, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not debating the merits of the statement. I confirm, as indicated in my edit summary, that I reviewed the source which I found to be a reputable, highly regarded multi-award-winning science program from the BBC hosted by respected scientists. I wonder what was "a big part of why" you took out the content, and, characterising the hosts as "media commentators", whether you properly reviewed the source. Thanks for adding a counterpoint from the beeb. And for reining in your baser instincts! Best wishes Captainllama (talk) 01:52, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Thermashield, LLC redlink
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 appreciate redlinks are sometimes appropriately retained for an article for which there is an obvious need easily and rapidly fulfilled by numerous editors. Thermashield, LLC appears to be solely notable for and dependent upon its association with Starlite. I respectfully decline your invitation to re-redlink it at this time but wish you well with the nascent article and will be happy to click as soon as it is blue, cheers! Captainllama (talk) 01:54, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

What's the fuss?
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 do you mold it safely
How did he mold it safely 98.97.35.83 (talk) 06:57, 18 August 2022 (UTC)