Evidence: Well-supported for reviews and the existence of two material families. Performance numbers in press are often best-flake, not average-product.
Documented science
- Geim and Novoselov, Nature Materials 6, 183 (2007) — the review most later citations treat as the field’s map.
- Graphene oxide (Hummer’s, Brodie, Staudenmaier routes) and reduced GO are now a parallel literature with different defects, chemistry, and honesty requirements.
Claims in the air
“Stronger than steel, thinner than paper, better than copper” compilations spread. Those comparisons mix ideal monolayer calculations with bulk steel and bulk copper — true as textbook limits, misleading as product copy.