8.2 Malleable Materials
119
wood became the principal source of energy. Electricity, used by animals for internal communication only, became the universal tool for power transmission. Nuclear
energy emerged as the power source ultimately detached from and hostile to the
chemistry of life.
This started to change late in the last century, accelerating in our own time. It
would be impossible to imitate Nature in metal or concrete, but softer materials on a
human scale are more suitable for this purpose. Although “tech” generally refers in
the popular press to all kinds of computer programming, biomorphic technology has
nothing to do with simulated “artificial life”, computer games starting with cellular
automata (Sect. 2.5) and evolving to an increasing sophistication that prompts postmodern solipsists to doubt whether we ourselves are material creatures or hackers’
play. The real progress is in working with materials that can be felt and molded, and
in the ways to morph them so as to imitate those employed by Nature.
8.2 Malleable Materials
Biological materials are distinguished by their complex composition and partial ordering that can be witnessed on a mesoscopic scale (Sect. 3.2). They are often soft
to touch, as their integrity is sustained by weak intermolecular forces. The first material of this kind that already entered technology in the 19th century was vulcanized caoutchouc – natural rubber, followed in the 20th century, first, by synthetic
rubber, and then, by a variety of materials synthesized via polymerization of small
organic molecules. The portmanteau term soft matter was coined by Pierre-Gilles
de Gennes who was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering that
methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers.
Besides polymers and liquid crystals, this term has been applied to colloidal materials characterized by a mesoscopic structure or physical properties intermediate
between those of solids and liquids.
Polymers became ubiquitous in the 20th century. Plastic, first celebrated for being
affordable, ductile, and resilient, became for the same reasons a scourge of garbage,
spreading to the open oceans. There is nothing biomorphic about these materials,
even though they are based on carbon: to deserve this appellation, the material
should at least be changeable after it has been manufactured, and it should be capable of responding in some way to signals and the environment. This minimal requirement is answered by shape-memory polymers. We have already met one in Sect. 3.3
– liquid crystal elastomers. They are not alone in their ability to deform when actuated, imitating muscular action. Isotropic polymers changing volume upon any
kind of a phase transition qualify as well. You may already be sleeping on a “shapememory” pillow filled by a foam that adapts to your sleeping position – but this is a
misnomer. Any material deforms under mechanical load; foam deforms more, and
“memory foam” is a viscoelastic material that rebounds very slowly, so it retains a
deformed shape for a while. A proper shape-memory material should have at least
119
wood became the principal source of energy. Electricity, used by animals for internal communication only, became the universal tool for power transmission. Nuclear
energy emerged as the power source ultimately detached from and hostile to the
chemistry of life.
This started to change late in the last century, accelerating in our own time. It
would be impossible to imitate Nature in metal or concrete, but softer materials on a
human scale are more suitable for this purpose. Although “tech” generally refers in
the popular press to all kinds of computer programming, biomorphic technology has
nothing to do with simulated “artificial life”, computer games starting with cellular
automata (Sect. 2.5) and evolving to an increasing sophistication that prompts postmodern solipsists to doubt whether we ourselves are material creatures or hackers’
play. The real progress is in working with materials that can be felt and molded, and
in the ways to morph them so as to imitate those employed by Nature.
8.2 Malleable Materials
Biological materials are distinguished by their complex composition and partial ordering that can be witnessed on a mesoscopic scale (Sect. 3.2). They are often soft
to touch, as their integrity is sustained by weak intermolecular forces. The first material of this kind that already entered technology in the 19th century was vulcanized caoutchouc – natural rubber, followed in the 20th century, first, by synthetic
rubber, and then, by a variety of materials synthesized via polymerization of small
organic molecules. The portmanteau term soft matter was coined by Pierre-Gilles
de Gennes who was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering that
methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers.
Besides polymers and liquid crystals, this term has been applied to colloidal materials characterized by a mesoscopic structure or physical properties intermediate
between those of solids and liquids.
Polymers became ubiquitous in the 20th century. Plastic, first celebrated for being
affordable, ductile, and resilient, became for the same reasons a scourge of garbage,
spreading to the open oceans. There is nothing biomorphic about these materials,
even though they are based on carbon: to deserve this appellation, the material
should at least be changeable after it has been manufactured, and it should be capable of responding in some way to signals and the environment. This minimal requirement is answered by shape-memory polymers. We have already met one in Sect. 3.3
– liquid crystal elastomers. They are not alone in their ability to deform when actuated, imitating muscular action. Isotropic polymers changing volume upon any
kind of a phase transition qualify as well. You may already be sleeping on a “shapememory” pillow filled by a foam that adapts to your sleeping position – but this is a
misnomer. Any material deforms under mechanical load; foam deforms more, and
“memory foam” is a viscoelastic material that rebounds very slowly, so it retains a
deformed shape for a while. A proper shape-memory material should have at least