Written by Sulayman Hussain, second-year Materials Science
I first came across Materials Science in my sixth form at a guest lecture discussing Formula One cars. Why is it that some materials will deform lots under force, like a carbon fibre chassis, and others remain rigid? Why do we use nickel single crystals in the fiery core of a jet engine and aluminium alloys elsewhere? And what is the process of digging rocks out of the earth and transforming them into these high-performance structures?
As is often the case, having been exposed to Materials Science once, I started seeing them everywhere. It seemed like every week; Materials scientists made a breakthrough.