Scotch tape

Scotch tape's ripping sound is really tens of thousands of sonic booms per second. A 2026 KAUST team filming at 2M fps saw cracks race along the adhesive at 250–600 m/s, past the speed of sound (342 m/s). Each collapses a vacuum pocket at the edge, booming ~37,000 times/s.

In 2008, UCLA showed in Nature that peeling Scotch tape in a vacuum emits nanosecond X-ray bursts. The tape's adhesive side charges positive, outer side negative — a ~40,000 V gap. Accelerated electrons strike across and emit X-rays. They photographed finger bones with it.

In 2004, physicist Andre Geim discovered graphene by peeling scotch tape off graphite during a casual Friday evening experiment. This "dream nanomaterial"—200 times stronger than steel and 100 times more electrically conductive than copper—earned him the Nobel Prize in 2010.