Materials that shrink when heated
Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 16:00
in Physics & Chemistry
One common reason that people with fillings experience toothache is that their fillings expand at a different rate to the original tooth when, for example, drinking a hot drink. Contrary to intuition, however, not all materials expand when heated - some actually contract. Recent research on these so-called negative thermal expansion (NTE) materials has led to the discovery of alloys exhibiting unexpectedly large thermal contraction.