From chocolate to Samurai swords, a fascinating take on the sensory and social dimension of materials
Pop a piece of dark chocolate in your mouth, says Mark Miodownik, and for one blissful moment you will be in thrall to the most deliciously engineered material on Earth. If you resist the urge to bite youll notice that as the chocolate melts, your tongue cools, then a combination of sweet and bitter flavours flood your mouth. These will be followed by fruity and nutty sensations, and finally an earthy, muddy taste as the liquid chocolate slides down your throat.
For Miodownik, a materials scientist, stuff is sensual. Not just food but also the stuff of Samurai swords, stainless steel cutlery, reinforced concrete, wrapping paper, china cups, buckyballs and celluloid film. He wants to reawaken our senses to appreciate the wonders of the material world that we have engineered for ourselves in the 7,000 or so years since the first copper was smelted a world that we usually take completely for granted.
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