Word: alloys
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They are being made of almost anything and everything-polyester fiber glass, alloy aluminum, weatherproofed cardboard, plastic, bamboo. More than 50 companies have taken out licenses to make them in the U.S. alone. The small domes are light enough to be lifted by helicopter, and they practically build themselves. Non-English-speaking Eskimos can put them together in a matter of hours out of color-coded components. The day his company began erecting a geodesic auditorium in Hawaii, Henry J. Kaiser hopped a plane from San Francisco to see the work in progress, but it was finished by the time...
...space suffer from some far-out troubles. Cosmic radiation sickens their semiconductors. Vibrations and swift temperature changes cause fractures in all-important wires. Lubricants evaporate into the vacuum of space. But scientists are already working on some far-out cures. The latest: a tin-magnesium-aluminum alloy that can be made into wires that grow gap-bridging "whiskers" when broken and soon heal their own wounds...
When a wire containing a core of the new alloy snaps, whiskers sprout from both ends of the break. In a few days, the whiskers can bridge a gap one millimeter wide (about one twenty-fifth of an inch) and carry one watt of electrical power-enough for most of the delicate circuitry in modern spacecraft. Collision with a sizable meteoroid might result in damage too extensive for whisker therapy, admits Minneapolis-Honeywell Physicist William Jarnagin, who led the team that developed the alloy. But that hardly matters, he adds somberly. "Everything would go then...
Using new techniques and novel materials, scientists have learned to construct permanent magnets of astonishing power. Into a small hunk of fancy alloy, or a little bit of fragile ceramic, they have built all the pulling power of a hefty electromagnet without its awkward current-carrying coils. But in spite of their handiness. the new magnets have a built-in flaw: their pull is permanent. They lack practical versatility because their fierce attraction for iron-bearing metal cannot be turned off at will, unlike the clumsiest electromagnet, which can be controlled by the flick of a switch...
...Philharmonic Hall, Lippold chose as his material highly polished copper alloy because it complemented the travertine used in the interior. After experimenting with a model in his studio, he ordered 190 slender metal planks of different sizes, to be hung from the ceiling by steel wires of extra strength. He had no final image in mind as he worked, but in the end he produced two giant floating sculptures that suggested "two friendly gods." He named his work Orpheus and Apollo...