I'm Savin Mathadu. I'm a professor of mechanical engineering and material science and engineering

at University of California Riverside and also a big fan of superhero science. So today

I'm going to kind of walk you through some of the stories of material science over the

time and how they tie into superheroes, but also some other things that I feel are really

important for the future of science. So the first thing I'll say is that everything is

connected. You know, Erlangen and Riverside are actually connected. We're sister cities,

which you guys may or may not have known. So if I look at this sign, I grew up in Riverside.

I have always seen Erlangen long before I knew where it was, and you guys may have seen

this or probably not. And Riverside is right down here. Riverside, USA is a sister city.

So it's great to be here. I'm a professor. Let's start with a quiz. You guys all like

quizzes, right? Let me ask you which is the strongest material? Not the strongest character,

the strongest material. We'll have Wolverine's claws, Thor's hammer, or Captain America's

shield right here in the corner. So how many think it's the Wolverine's claws? Maybe five,

six. Thor's hammer? Yeah, it's like back at home. Mostly ladies. You like him holding

the hammer. And the shield? All right, shield overwhelmingly. And how many just don't even

know or don't care? You're just here with your kids. Okay. So the first thing I'll talk

about is what is material science and engineering? Many have heard of mechanical engineering,

electrical engineering, civil engineering. Material science and engineering is a field

that makes new materials like Captain America's shield or her sword through connections between

processing, structure, properties, and performance. How are these connected? I probably sound

like a professor to you. You're like, what does that mean? Let me put it in terms that

you can understand. All right. Potatoes, salt, and oil. How many different things can you

make that you eat? Chips, tater tots, fried potatoes, french fries. All of those have

different taste, textures, flavors because of the way that they're heated, cooked, temperatures,

time. Material scientists take the elements of the world and we make materials in the

same way. I've been here for three days. I think I've eaten potatoes 10 different ways.

And cabbage. Lots of cabbage. Okay. Let me make an even clearer German analogy, something

I learned about two days ago. Reinhardt's Geburt. You can only use three things. And

that was even before they knew what yeast was. Now you can use four things. Otherwise,

it's not beer. I just learned about it. It's fascinating. And I learned about it, that

there was competition between brewers and bakers. That's why they decided to do this.

Quit taking our ingredients. Okay. So what material scientists do is we take the elements

on the periodic table, like iron, like magnesium, like aluminum, and we mix them with different

things and turn them into useful things like your phones, your cars, the desks, like the

camera breaking the fourth wall. We make all different kinds of alloys and materials, including

plastics, glasses, metal, ceramics, and all of those are researched at an institute like

this one that you're in today right here. So we can make brass alloys, bronze, iron.

All of these things are by combining these at time, temperature, pressure, and new ways

to make new things. So let's talk about material science over history before we get into comic

history. Materials at this point in time were things like stones, bone, teeth, skin. Those

are the trees, wood. These were the things that people built around the world. And eventually

somebody figured out how to make a better sword and a better shield out of bronze. And

they started becoming more technologically developed than the people who are using stones

and bones. And then someone figured out how to take iron and carbon and make steels and

iron and they made better swords and shields. And now we're making all kinds of new materials

that dominate the world around us. Every new technology needs new materials, whether it

be your phone battery, case, car, whatever it may be. So if we look at this map of the

importance of materials over time, we see the four general classes of materials, metals,

polymers, composites, and ceramics. And what we see is that from the 1940s, like to the

1970s, the biggest band right here is metals, superalloys, titanium, new metals and materials.