Apple has a new toy . It ’s a materials company called Liquidmetal , and everybody ’s talking ! Problem is , nobody seems too sure what they ’re talk about . So , Liquidmetal : What is this stuff and nonsense ? And what does Apple need with it ?
Liquidmetal . It ’s a subtly powerful name , invoking images ranging from self - healing exterminator to Alex Mack . It ’s also an oxymoron : Liquid , metal . ( observe to commenters : Yes , of course , metallic element can be swimming . unsound word choice . ) And while Appleprobably is n’t getting into the T1000 business , they may have Brobdingnagian plans for our new mystery metal .
https://gizmodo.com/is-apple-working-on-liquid-metal-terminators-or-what-5608322
Liquidmetal piques our involvement . Not because it ’s brand newfangled — it was first brought to market in 2003 , and only after years of development — but just because it ’s not . It ’s been used before in golf club and baseball bats ; it ’s been sent to space ; it ’s been sent to work by none other than the maligned Deepwater Horizon drilling fishing rig ; it ’s even been used in consumer electronics that you ’ve probably fall across yourself . ( You eff thoseSanDisk Cruzer TitaniumUSB drives , with the sloping trough - out connexion ? Yeah , those are n’t made of Ti . )
And yet suddenly , after all these years , Apple does n’t just want to use Liquidmetal , it wants to own it , and may want to keep it from everyone else . Why ? What do they see that everyone else has n’t ? And what does it mean for the future of Apple production , and for everyone else in the industry ?
The Science
The scientific definition of Liquidmetal function something like this : Liquidmetal is a penis of a class of metallic element alloys known formally as bulk metallic glasses — because the cloth shares some property most closely associated with glass , like encroachment brittleness , and , instead of a fixed melt pointedness , a gradual loss of unity at eminent temperature . It ’s a mixture of stuff you ’ve in all probability hear of : copper , atomic number 22 , aluminum and nickel . So yeah , essentially , it ’s just a type of stuff , like a polymer , an aluminum admixture , or a meth .
The arcanum ’s in how it ’s made : Instead of simply mixing the admixture and letting it nerveless , amorphous alloys are chill more apace . This changes their atomic structures , in turn altering their introductory properties . average metal typically have crystalline , ordered nuclear structures , and therefore incline to contort when come across or flexed ; amophous alloys are made of helter-skelter , unordered atoms , which tend to jump back into build , more like a liquid . ( Most metals have directional grain , like woodwind instrument . Liquidmetal does n’t . )
What makes Liquidmetal special compared to other uncrystallized alloys is that it ’s easier to make . To brutally simplify things , it does n’t call for to be cooled as quick as other exchangeable materials , and can be cooled — read : made — in greater quantities .
Like I say , you ’ve probably heard something along these strain , either more precise or less , but unless you ’ve catch a degree in the physical scientific discipline , description like this do n’t think of much . So it ’s got a weird atomic structure . What does that matter ?
What It Is
So you ’ve got a composition of Liquidmetal in your hand . What does it look like ? What does it feel like ? “ In terms of color and look , Liquidmetal alloy looks like a normal metallic element , more like stainless steel than Al , albeit with its own distinct metallic colouring material . ” That ’s Dr. Atakan Peker , one of the research worker behind Liquidmetal . He worked with the company for more than 10 old age , and now theDirector of Advanced Materials at WSU . “ In a sparse card or rod configuration , it feel much more flexible than untarnished steel or aluminum . However , as you bend it more , it feels much strong and will require much more violence to bend … One can conceive of Liquidmetal alloy as a much inviolable plastic . ”
The coolest matter about Liquidmetal is that , as circumstances get more extreme , so do its behavior . From aNASA reporton the gist :
In the experiment , three marble - sized balls made of steel were drop from the same meridian into their own glass thermionic vacuum tube . Each tube-shaped structure had a unlike case of metal plate at the bottom : sword , titanium , Liquidmetal . Once each ball was dropped they were left to bounce . The balls hitting the blade and atomic number 22 plate bounced for 20 to 25 seconds . The ball hitting the Liquidmetal plate reverberate for 1 moment and 21 second . During the experimentation , this was the only ballock that rebound outside its tube
Hints of flubber here , no ?
Dr Peker gave me an even more vivid image : “ If one makes a paper clip from Liquidmetal alloy , it will stay quite conciliatory and one would likely anguish or cut a finger or two before deform it for good . ” seek to bend that Liquidmetal , kid , and you ’re going to wound yourself .
But lest we get trip up setting up a mythology here , we should point out that it ’s had a limited success in existent products . There was that SanDisk winder . Samsung stuck some Liquidmetal parts in afew phone — filmdom frames and hinge parts , to be specific . And it ’s assure that the specific framework are pretty much indistinguishable from the one that do n’t .
But the further we get away from consumer electronics , the more exciting Liquidmetal ’s write up becomes . In earlier avatar , it ’s live both inside golf testicle on the face of $ 600 clubs , where its utmost bounciness was a blessing but its lack of refinement may have been a mistake — some of the social club whereknown to shatter , spectacularly and without so much as a “ FOOOORRREE . ” ( This small fiasco push Liquidmetal , the company , into “ strong ” debt . )
It ’s been used in Rawlings baseball game cricket bat and Head tennis racquets ; it ’s been wrapped around the sum of a few skis . It was treated a lot like titanium : something that get to a mathematical product premium , and that see good on newspaper , but which you might not notice if you were n’t told . Andre Agassi used a Liquimetal racket for a while , but does anyone think he would n’t have won the 2003 Australian Open with another small-arm ?
The military machine has influence it into tips of armour - piercing Kinetic Energy Penetrator ( KEP ) fastball , and it ’s been used to make ultra - laborious scalpel . It ’s been built into refilling join for humans . It has fans at NASA , which has send it to space a fistful of times for experiment , and once in solar wind aggregator tile above the doomed Genesis investigation . harmonize toan old BP / Transocean drilling contract , it’salmost certainthat the drilling carriage that desolate the Gulf of Mexico used Liquidmetal — under the name Armacor — in its recitation organ pipe . ( Armacor has n’t been implicated in the catastrophe . )
To sum it up : Liquidmetal is utile anywhere you could conceive of an exceedingly gruelling , somewhat flexile , well fictile piece of stuff to be useful . Which defecate it all the more unknown that Apple want to own it — not just in part , but all the path . They ’ve purchased the undivided rights to a substance that , on the face of it , has been less successful in contrivance than in most other industries it ’s been used for . Even weirder ? It ’s conceivable that Apple will soon be in concern witn the military - industrial complex , the areospace companies , and the mysterious - sea drilling troupe . The movie villains . ( Update : plain Apple ’s arrangementcould allowLiquidmetal to license their technical school for non - consumer - electronics applications.—Thanks , Ogged ! )
Why Apple Wants It
There are only two way to bang what Apple would do with Liquidmetal . The most obvious , and least potential to sour , would be to ask Steve Jobs , Jonathan I ve or an Apple engineer . Ha . Alternately you could just see how they already have . Yup , it turn out that prior to their purchase , Apple presided over what could be one of the largest deployments of a Liquidmetal product in account : the iPhone .
Speaking toLeander Kahney at Cult of Mac , Dr Peker point out something leftover about the iPhone ’s SIM cartridge ejector pin : “ I recognized it immediately . Take it from an expert , that ’s Liquidmetal . ” So yeah , Americans ( in other parts of the Earth the thole seem to be brand ): go find your iPhone 3G/3GS boxwood ( sorry iPhone 4 owner , your MicroSIM ’s ruining the fun . Again . ) , dig that immobilize out and feast your eyes : you are in willpower of a tiny little composition of Liquidmetal .
This tells us … well , not much . It shows that the cheek at Apple has been interested in Liquidmetal for longer than they ’ve let on . It also tells us that they ’ve find someone , somewhere , capable of turn over out millions of low piece of the poppycock . Dr Peker notes that the reason Liquidmetal has n’t taken off in consumer electronics likely has less to do with the inherent promise of the material than a “ lack of a suited manufacture infrastructure . ” Nobody ’s truly thrown their system of weights behind it , so it ’s just been too expensive to make . But that ’s not an insurmountable trouble : All it would take is a company with patience , money and leverage over hardware manufacturers . It would take a troupe like … Apple .
So in a material scientist ’s wildest imagery , what could Apple do with this stuff ? Dr Peker points to the most obvious use for a hard , non - deforming , non - corroding and mostly scratch resistive material : cases .
charge plate are flexible but not strong , and while metals are much stronger than plastics , they ’re not as flexible . Liquidmetal admixture can allow for a more long-lasting casing , which is much more resistant to prick , nicks , scratch and breakage than difficult credit card .
If you drop a plastic - encased phone , it cracks or scuffs . If you drop a metal - incase phone , it dents , or dent . If you drop a Liquidmetal - encased phone , well , it should just bounce . For like , a minute and 21 seconds . Maybe . In theory .
Pekar also proposed a use that ’s ripped directly from the headlines , talking again to Leander Kahney : It could be used for an aerial — and in fact already has been , in a Novatel wireless modem built for Verizon . That the last iPhone ’s fraught aerial was also part of its case may be no small coincidence — Liquidmetal is well moldable , and afford all the shit Apple had to eat duringAntennagate , it ’s reasonable to intend that they ’re scramble for an choice . And this one would n’t have seams .
But the most naturalistic upshot of this leverage is , to utilise the word of the day , subtle . Like any other good material , Liquidmetal will be asked to go away into a product at the service of design . An iPhone with a Liquidmetal antenna , for exercise , would n’t be commercialise as a Liquidmetal iPhone — it would be marketed as a more or less good iPhone .
And allow ’s say it finds its path into the hinges of our MacBooks , under the presumptuousness that it will loosen or jade less quickly ; or that it makes up the body of the next iPod Shuffle , as cartoonishly tiny as that ’s certain to be . These product will , if Liquidmetal ’s various booster dose are to be believed , be the kind of subtle improvements on their herald that we normally take for granted . It may be heavy to notice .
What could be promiscuous to discover is the edge the Modern material could give Apple . commemorate , there was nothing wildly transformative about Apple ’s unibody manufacturing process — it was just a chip better — it made their products feel more epicurean and structurally wakeless . It supply a distinctive face . Maybe it made them more durable ; it ’s hard to really know . In any character , this collection of subtle difference came to specify the company ’s laptop line , and shrewdly , Apple patent the hell out it . If — when — Liquidmetal ooze its way into the next generation of Apple products , you might not be able-bodied to point to it , but you ’ll have sex it ’s there .
imagination by Sam Spratt . Check out Sam’sportfolioand become a rooter of hisFacebook Artist ’s Page .
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