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SCIENCE GALLERY COMICS GROUP ISSUE 1 €2 1 INTRODUCTION BY MICHAEL JOHN GORMAN, DIRECTOR, SCIENCE GALLERY & LYNN SCARFF, PROGRAMME MANAGER, SCIENCE GALLERY What makes a material magical? Is it an ability to Superpowers, however, are not the only familiar change shape before your eyes, to automatically heal, comic book storyline. A public with sometimes or to be one of the lightest yet strongest materials mixed feelings towards new advances in science “UNLEASH on earth? MAGICAL MATERIALS explores the are another regular feature. In reality, we often properties of some of the world’s most mysterious embrace new technologies and the improvement materials, giving you an opportunity to investigate and they bring while also feeling anxious about the experiment at the cutting edge of materials science. unknown consequences of synthetic materials. In developing MAGICAL MATERIALS, Science Like all good comic books, MAGICAL MATERIALS Gallery teamed up with artist Stephen Byrne to create offers visitors opportunities to explore YOUR a band of superheroes imbued with the intriguing new materials and their applications, ask properties of the materials we are exploring. From questions and imagine future scenarios. Nanoman, with his amazing tensile strength and We would like to thank the numerous flexibility, to Morph, who can radically change shape researchers, artists, designers and producers or size due to a small variation in temperature, the that have been so generous with their time, ideas MAGICAL MATERIALS superheroes exhibit physical and connections in developing MAGICAL SUPER and chemical properties that are directly based on MATERIALS. In particular, our curators John emerging fields of materials science research. Boland, Director of CRANN [Centre for Research Comic books regularly borrow from the world on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices of science in both their plotlines and the creation at Trinity College Dublin] and Marie O’Mahony of their superheroes, and materials science [Advanced Fashion and Textiles, OCAD in particular forms the parameters of their University, Toronto] who have contributed their POWERS!” superpowers. While characters such as Batman expertise and knowledge to the exhibition. and Iron Man overtly use advances in science Dig out your superhero cloak, unleash and technology as the basis of their power, your superpowers and join us in exploring the others like Wonder Woman, with her mythical peculiar properties of materials science! lasso of truth, are more inspired by scientific advancements—her creator, William Moulton Marston, also invented the polygraph. And now, with developments in nanoscience and high- end microscopy allowing us to manipulate the microstructures of matter to create materials with amazing capabilities, superpowers have never seemed more attainable. Inspired by the exhibition, you can sketch your own superhero in our design studio. Each week, we’ll be choosing a visitor’s superhero design for Stephen to bring to life as a full-colour comic book cover. 02 03 INTRODUCTION BY JOHN BOLAND, DIRECTOR OF CRANN INTRODUCTION BY MARIE O’MAHONY, [CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON ADAPTIVE NANOSTRUCTURES AND NANODEVICES], TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN ADVANCED FASHION AND TEXTILES, OCAD UNIVERSITY, TORONTO Materials are the key ingredient in all From mysterious to mythical, why do the properties scientific and science fiction vision. The benefit technologies—from iPhones to flat panel TVs, and “IRELAND IS IN FACT of so many materials strike us as almost magical in is that while plastic has struggled to find its own from medical implants to the controlled release nature? The Mayans believed that the gods originally identity, nanotechnology is already being appreciated of pharmaceutical drugs. Although materials ONE OF THE WORLD tried to create humans from mud and wood. The for its own unique characteristics. Although scientists shape the world we live in, the role of materials in Greeks described the Titan Prometheus as combining have not attempted to resize people, they have gone underpinning vast sections of the Irish economy LEADERS, AND WAS clay and water to make man, which in turn inspired on to develop some extraordinary materials and has largely gone unnoticed by the general public. Mary Shelley’s book ‘Frankenstein—The Modern products such as carbon nanotubes and jeans that Ireland is in fact one of the world leaders, and INDEPENDENTLY Prometheus’. Today’s myth-makers move with ease can clean pollution from the air. Science, it would th was independently ranked 6 for nanoscience TH between science and science fiction. Self-healing seem, can sometimes be stranger than fiction. and 8th for materials science, with the majority of RANKED 6 FOR phones, flexible screens and clothing designed to Before modern science, the alchemists used these publications and discoveries coming from make the wearer stronger can and do exist in both evocative terms such as Quicksilver and Aqua Regina the CRANN Institute at Trinity College Dublin. NANOSCIENCE AND fact and fiction, so the magic has become reality. in their promises of turning base metal into gold. MAGICAL MATERIALS highlights Ireland’s TH The relationship between science and Today, the names of materials such as Aluminium scientific expertise in working with a range 8 FOR MATERIALS science fiction has always been cyclical, as they Nitride and Quantum Dots invoke an other-world of nanoscale materials, from graphene to inspire one another. In cinema Fritz Lang’s work or super-power quality. Such titles hint at some of quantum dots and nanowires and how these SCIENCE” with Herman Oberth on the rocket design for The their inherent qualities, but tell little of their actual materials are adding new functionality to Girl in the Moon [1929] was considered so realistic power, size or use. In MAGICAL MATERIALS, film existing electronics and medical devices, that the rocket models were seized as state secrets and photography are used to reveal the secrets of while introducing revolutionary new technologies. by the Gestapo. When physicist Richard Feynman some of these materials that are hidden from the By understanding how these materials behave, wrote his seminal article on nanotechnology There’s naked eye. When Feynman first spoke of the potential we can begin to think about improving the Plenty of Room at the Bottom in 1959, scientists of nanotechnology, he stressed the importance efficiency of existing products, such as batteries, had little idea what materials made with such a of photography in realising this vision, pleading solar cells and computer chips. We can also revolutionary technology would actually look like, “is there no way to make the electron microscope work towards developing new exciting devices, or what they could do. Science fiction writers and more powerful?”. In the fifty years since then from flexible electronic screens to personalised filmmakers were quick to step in with cult classics advances in microscopy and imaging have helped healthcare diagnostics and treatments. Advanced such as Richard Fleischer’s Fantastic Voyage in our understanding, conceptualisation and in materials and nanoscience research taking place [1966]. Fleischer depicted a world where humans the development of new materials. In MAGICAL today is critical to Ireland’s economic future. are shrunk to a nano-scale in order to be able to MATERIALS these techniques are seen to be employed travel through a human body and perform surgery. not only by science, but by the hands of artists and However, left to their own devices, early designers who draw our attention to and beyond materials scientists were likely to try to recreate a the science, to the inherent beauty of technology. synthetic version of what already existed in nature. MAGICAL MATERIALS is a celebration of the Plastics are an example of this. It seems strange wonder of our material world. The French philosopher today that the material was once promoted as Roland Barthes reminds us that of the senses an alternative to ivory. For decades, plastic was “sight is the most magical”, but also that “touch dismissed as a cheap disposable material, an is the most demystifying”. In combining physical imitator of other more worthy materials, rather than materials, investigative imaging techniques and one with qualities of its own worthy of consideration. hands-on physical experiments this exhibition looks However, with nanotechnology, the theory existed long to do both. It also aims to go further and inspire before the technology to realise it. It is only relatively the minds that will create the materials that will recently that the science has begun to catch up with shape and benefit humanity well into the future. 04 05 MATERIALS 08 SENTIENT MATERIALS 08 INVINCIBLE & INVISIBLE 10 SMART CLOTHES 12 POWERFUL & PLIABLE 14 CLEAN & CLINICAL 16 DESIGNED BY NATURE 18 EXPERIMENTS 20 EXHIBITS 22 MATERIAL REFERENCE 24 ABOUT SCIENCE GALLERY 27 ABOUT CRANN 27 SCIENCE GALLERY COMICS GROUP ISSUE SENTIENT MATERIALS 4 25c From plastics that bleed and self-heal to the world’s lightest solid, these substances represent some of the most exciting and groundbreaking research in materials science. These smart materials can communicate, remember shapes and respond to a host of external stimuli—including temperature, stress, moisture, electric or magnetic fields. SELF-HEALING PLASTICS AUTO-HEALING POLYMERS Plastics that bleed red when damaged and A silicon polymer sheet that when cut, forms new heal themselves when light or heat is applied. bonds and and can weld itself back together. SHAPE MEMORY METALS AND POLYMERS FERROFLUID Metals and polymers that deform at one A liquid that becomes strongly magnetised temperature and recover their original in the presence of a magnetic field. undeformed shape upon heating. SHAPE-RETAINING PLASTIC SELF-HEALING PAINTS A polyethylene plastic that bends like a metal, A polyrotaxane-based paint that enables but holds its shape unless you bend it back. small grazes to heal within an hour and deeper cuts to heal in up to a week. SUPER-ELASTIC PLASTIC A thermoplastic that stretches to eight HYDROGEL times its original size without ripping.

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