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New Advances in Materials Science
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10076 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1986 |
4,018 Words |
| Author
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Norman Metzger
Norman Metzger is a Washington, D.C. science writer. His books
include Men and Molecules and Energy: A Continuing Crisis. |
If one wants two bookends to brace the flow of civilization, then Damascus steel and vertical Blochline memories will serve quite well. Damascus steel as listed in most standard dictionaries, was justly famous as the epitome of the artisan's work. In strips it could be twisted and then forged to create metals to unsurpassed strength and hardness, perfect for the swords that broadcast the steel's qualities to the world. In contrast, Vertical Bloch line memories are as obscure as the steel is famous. They consist of delicate arrangements of materials that may, once they become practical, be able to vastly increase present information capacities of computers.
But what is common to these supposed bookends of civilization? They express humankind's evolving ability to manipulate materials, whether metals, such as with Damascus steel, or the sophisticated blendings of alloys, garnet, and deliberate impurities that will go into the construction of Bloch line memories. Such manipulations are signposts of civilizations, as demonstrated by labels put on past ages--the stone, bronze, and iron ages.
Less obvious is that the space between bookends--the era between Damascus steel and Bloch line memories--denotes an historical inversion. The steels marked the age of the artisan. Materials were used without any understanding of what gave them their qualities. Artisans tried different materials until they found one that suited their purposes. Block line memories--and such things as transistors, lasers, microprocessors, polymers, modern ceramics--are not the work of the artisan, but of the scientist. Damascus steel was a product of serendipity. It was in a way, a forced accident. Artisans stumbled on it in their search for a material that could fulfill their needs. Transistors and the like were deliberate inventions. Guided by fundamental science researchers designed and constructed exactly what they had been envisioning. In short, these bookends of civilization mark the epochal advances in understanding the structure of matter and in using that knowledge to create things that never were. Rather than merely taking what is there and putting it to use, one now creates precisely what is needed and wanted.
History has been inverted and the power of that inversion continues to grow. There are now in the offing new materials, endowed with spectacular properties. Metals which are normally inimical to each other, such as cobalt and aluminium, can now be blended, using techniques such as rapid solidification and ion implantation. The results are alloys presenting new dimensions of strength and resistance to corrosion, temperature, and other
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