Magical metals show the ‘frontier of science’

Bring out your inner superhero.

Magnetic liquids, self-healing plastics, shape memory metals, and hydro-phobic fabrics — just some of the materials that will be on display from today in the Magical Materials exhibition at Dublin’s Science Gallery.

Over the next four weeks, the public will have the opportunity to see and interact with substances formerly the stuff of comic book invention.

But the future is here — materials on display include Silly Putty, a malleable hard substance which can be bounced like a rubber ball but which, over time, begins to lose its form and drip; Ferrofluid — a metal fluid that responds to magnets and Aerogel or “solid smoke” — the world’s lightest solid.

It’s science on a really, really small scale. “One nanometer is about one billion times smaller than a hair on your head and certainly invisible to the naked eye. If you take four or five atoms and line them up you have a nanometer,” says Eilis McGrath, education and outreach officer at CRANN, the Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices at Trinity College.

Ms McGrath explains that nanoscience matters because it “really is the frontier of material science”.

“If we work at this level, we can not only invent new materials but we can take properties of existing materials and use them to create better, smarter, more energy efficient substances,” she said.

In conjunction with Nanoweek 2102, this is the centre’s first joint exhibition with the Science Gallery. During the exhibition stations or booths with names such as “Invincible and Invisible“, “Sentient Materials”, and “Powerful and Pliable” will be facilitated by members of CRANN, who will be on hand to answer questions about the featured materials and to allow the public to engage with the exhibition.

“We want people to see that under the surface of everyday items there is something really interesting,” says Diarmuid O’Brien, executive director of CRANN.

* Magical Materials opens today and runs until Oct 14. Admission is free. See www.sciencegallery.com