Posts Tagged ‘materials science’
“Every decently-made object… is not just a piece of ‘stuff’ but a physical embodiment of human energy, testimony to the magical ability of our species to take raw materials and turn them into things of use, value and beauty”*…
Indeed, as the Materials Library of the Institute for Making at UCL brilliantly demonstrates, that’s often true of the materials themselves…
The Materials Library is a collection of some of the most wondrous materials on earth, gathered from sheds, labs, grottoes and repositories around the world. It is a resource, laboratory, studio, and playground for the curious and material-minded to conduct hands-on research through truly interdisciplinary inquiry and innovation. The collection is accessible to Institute of Making members day to day, and to the public at Materials Library Discovery sessions.
###
As we celebrate stuff, we might spare a thought for Addison Emery Verrill; he died on this date in 1926. An invertebrate zoologist, museum curator, and university professor, he is best remembered as curator of zoology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, where he developed one of the largest, most valuable zoological collections in the U.S.
Verill trained under Louis Agassiz at Harvard; then, at age 25, became Yale University’s first professor of Zoology. His lifelong devotion to taxonomic research yielded the development of extensive collections at Yale in a wide variety of taxa. From 1871-87, while he was in charge of scientific explorations by the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Verrill found and described hundreds of new marine specimens. His expeditions took him to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America and to Hawaii and Central America. He published more than 350 papers and monographs, including descriptions of more than a thousand species of animals in virtually every major taxon. His breadth of interests included parasitology, mineralogy and botany.
“…there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this one matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement”*…
Polyester has had a roller coaster ride as a clothing fabric, but now it’s sitting pretty. As Virginia Postrel explains, thanks to advances in materials science, it reinvented itself so successfully that many people don’t even realize they’re wearing polyester today…
Fifty years ago, polyester seemed like a wonder fabric. It freed women from their ironing boards, and they poured into the workforce, feeling liberated in their double-knit pantsuits. Polyester held bright colors better than old-fashioned materials, making it ideal for psychedelic prints, disco attire, and sports teams clashing on color television. It was inexpensive, and it didn’t wear out. People loved polyester.
Until they didn’t. A decade later, polyester was the faux pas fiber. It pilled and snagged. It didn’t breathe. It stank from sweat. And it represented bad taste. ‘It became associated with people of low socioeconomic status who didn’t have any style’, an advertising executive told the Wall Street Journal in 1982.
That year, prices fell by more than 10 percent, as polyester fiber consumption dropped to its lowest level since 1974. Profits plummeted. Plants closed. Industry polls showed a quarter of Americans wouldn’t touch the stuff – with resistance fiercest among the young, the affluent, and the fashion-conscious. For polyester makers, the miracle threatened to become a disaster…
Four decades later, polyester rules the textile world. It accounts for more than half of global fiber consumption, about twice that of second-place cotton. Output stands at nearly 58 million tons a year, more than 10 times what it was in the early ’80s. And nobody complains about polyester’s look and feel. If there’s a problem today, it’s that people like polyester too much. It’s everywhere, even at the bottom of the ocean…
On the past and future of a ubiquitous fiber: “How polyester bounced back,” from @vpostrel.
* “He paused, twisting his goatee, considering the law in Deuteronomy that forbade clothes with mixed fibers. A problematic bit of Scripture. A matter that required thought. ‘Only the devil wants man to have a wide range of lightweight and comfortable styles to choose from,’ he murmured at last, trying out a new proverb. ‘Although there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this one matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement’.” – Joe Hill, Horns
###
As we contemplate clothing, we might send inventive birthday greetings to Ron Popeil; he was born on this date in 1935. An inventor and entrepreneur, he developed dozens of best-selling products and pioneered the direct-response infomercial form of sales.
At the age of 17, Popeil moved to Chicago and went to work for his father to learn the trade from him. Popeil’s father, Samuel J. Popeil, was an inventor as well, and some of Ron’s earlier famous creations were based on his father’s gadgets. He also discovered a flea market in Chicago called Maxwell Street that helped boost his career considerably. He also demonstrated his products at Woolworths’ in Chicago where he earned in excess of $1000 per week. After acting as his father’s distributor for a few years, Popeil eventually opened up his own company named “Ronco” in 1964.
When Popeil was working for his father, one of the products he undertook to sell was a vegetable chopper called “Chop-O-Matic”. Priced at $3.98, this was one of the bestselling products of his company and sold over 2 million units. The only problem was that salesmen could not carry enough vegetables with them to demonstrate the chopping process at each house. The solution was to record a video demonstrating the use of the gadget. This led him to think about advertising these videos as a commercial on television. Television commercials and Popeil were an instant match. Popeil’s natural selling skills could now reach crowds of millions and further sales began to pour in.
Ron had a long list of bestselling products with his company Ronco. One was a device called the “pocket fisherman” that is a small tackle box with hook, line, and sinker all in one. He called it “the best fishing invention since the fishing pole and only for $19.95”. Another invention was “Mr. Microphone” – a low powered FM modulator and radio transmitter that would broadcast using an FM radio. Another of his bestsellers was the “Showtime Rotisserie” oven for cooking chicken and BBQ. In his infomercials he used the line “Set it, and forget it!” to pitch the product to audiences. Other products include smokeless ashtray, drain buster, bottle cap opener, electric food dehydrator, egg scrambler, hair formula to cover up bald patches, Dial-O-Matic, and a pasta maker.
Famous Inventors
And Popeil was also hugely impactful in the ways that he sold his products, helping to develop and establishing a number of the norms and tropes of the infomercial, including the now-standard catchphrases “But wait, there’s more” and “Operators are standing by.”
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”*…
In 1702, when the Spanish still ruled Florida, an English fleet from colonial Carolina approached Castillo de San Marcos, a Spanish stronghold on the Atlantic shore.
The fort guarded the Spanish empire’s trade routes as well as the surrounding city of St. Augustine, and the English wanted to run this politically and economically important outpost for themselves. Led by Carolina’s governor James Moore, the English boats dropped their anchors and laid siege.
But even after nearly two months of being shelled with cannonballs and gunfire, the fort’s walls wouldn’t give. In fact, they appeared to be “swallowing” the British cannonballs, which then became embedded within the stone. Precisely how the walls did this remained a mystery for the next three centuries.
Normally, a cannonball creates long, deep cracks in stone that radiate out from the impact’s center, causing catastrophic damage to a structure. This was clearly not the case for the walls surrounding Castillo de San Marcos. Built from coquina—sedimentary rock formed from compressed shells of dead marine organisms—the walls suffered little damage from the British onslaught. As one Englishman described it, the rock “will not splinter but will give way to cannon ball as though you would stick a knife into cheese.”…
The secret of the Spanish– and what it might mean for the future: “The Mystery of Florida’s Cannonball-Eating Spanish Fort.”
*
###
As we muse on mutable materials, we might send altitudinous birthday greetings to Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin; he was born on this date in 1838. An inventor, engineer, and manufacturer, he was the aviation pioneer who built the first rigid dirigible airships– called, in his honor, Zeppelins.
He patented his idea in 1895, then formed a company to build airships in 1898– though many thought his invention incredible, and dubbed him “Foolish Count.” His first airship took off on July 2, 1900; its success stimulated funding. Eventually, he produced more than 100 dirigibles for military uses in World War I, during which, the Zeppelins were used to bomb Britain. After the war, he continued to improve the design and built a fleet of airships for commercial passenger service, which included transatlantic flights. Zeppelin use ended after the May 6, 1937 Hindenburg fire disaster at Lakehurst, N.J.
“Any color– so long as it is black”*…
A British company has produced a “strange, alien” material so black that it absorbs all but 0.035 per cent of visual light, setting a new world record. To stare at the “super black” coating made of carbon nanotubes – each 10,000 times thinner than a human hair – is an odd experience. It is so dark that the human eye cannot understand what it is seeing. Shapes and contours are lost, leaving nothing but an apparent abyss.
If it was used to make one of Chanel’s little black dresses, the wearer’s head and limbs might appear to float incorporeally around a dress-shaped hole.
Actual applications are more serious, enabling astronomical cameras, telescopes and infrared scanning systems to function more effectively. Then there are the military uses that the material’s maker, Surrey NanoSystems, is not allowed to discuss.
The nanotube material, named Vantablack, has been grown on sheets of aluminum foil by the Newhaven-based company. While the sheets may be crumpled into miniature hills and valleys, this landscape disappears on areas covered by it [as seen in the photo above]…
Read more about the new material– “pretty much as black as we can get, almost as close to a black hole as we could imagine”– in “Blackest is the new black: Scientists have developed a material so dark that you can’t see it.”
* Henry Ford, describing the choices in purchasing a Model T
###
As we reach for our torches, we might recall that it was on this date in 622 that the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who’d been warned of a pending assassination attempt, and his followers began their migration from Mecca to Medina– an event known as “Hijra” (Arabic: هِجْرَة hijrah, or Hijrat or Hegira). The Hijra was later declared the beginning of the Muslim calendar, so that any subsequent date is known. a la “AD” or “CE,” as “AH” (Anno Hijra).
You must be logged in to post a comment.