Currently we see some incredible advances in the technology of material memory manufacturing. In trucking they make the axles and other frame structure pieces in such a way that if they bend the material works its way back to its original shape. For tire ware on over the road trucks, which cost about $450 each that makes a lot of sense. From a safety standpoint even more sense. You see the steel and alloys in the beams are designed with their grains going a certain way. In toys we also have this technology for instance look at the stretch Armstrong doll, you pull its arms and it goes back into the exact shape it was previously. Now we are making polymer muscles to simulate the dynamics of human muscles for robotics. This has implications in artificial limbs, Unmanned Vehicles, robotics and hundreds of other concepts. Even more impressive is when making such manufactured material devices we can apply an electrical pulse to them to contract and then when released from the current they go right back again, great for flapping bird wings, automatic door openers or multitude of needs, you simply allow your mind to wonder across the many areas of science, different industries and potential killer applications. It should be pointed out that although this new technology is incredible and can fill so many needs you should not be impressed with material memory, as the American Indians on the North American continent were using bow and arrows some 10,000 years ago, that we know about. Venetian Blinds work this way, thank the Venetians as do accordions, thank the King or Queen of the Scots. The modern rubber band is nothing new, it was based on the catapult used to attack armed fortresses and Castles. Perhaps before we award any PhD students with kudos and praise we ought to remember that human written history is short in the over all time of the Earth and modern material manufactured memory is nothing new to even these times. If one wishes to think here, one might consider that perhaps we have forgotten more than we have ever known in our current period. Surely biological evolution shows us we are not so tricky in our advances in technology, as the main muscle in the wing of a bird has been around for some 800 million years or more perhaps closer to 2 Billion. Think about it, we have a long way to go on material memory manufacturing to call ourselves the brilliant geniuses of even our day. |
