Hard thinking but no breakthrough yet ...

Ceramics

Has anyone realised that like every other material, ceramics are saturated in our environment? If it isn't the semiconductors in our appliances, it's the bricks of our houses, the plates that we eat off?

In history, it was one of the earliest ways of recording history. Every culture had their earthenware whether it was raw or glazed, clay or porcelain, embodying art or storing vegetables, ceramics are very much the foundations of culture.

But really where is that today? Lovely as ceramic sculptures are, many of them are in museums. The plates that we have, beautiful as it is, is probably the same as the neighbour's down the street. In the early 20th century in Africa, every household had a potter (a woman) who made containers for cooking and storing food. Today we're surrounded by injection moulded seats and die pressed cars [not literally, as in the body]. Where's the ceramic?

That, and is there a way to give ceramic a certain dynamicism(sp?). It seems as wear resistant, chemically inert, corrosion resistant, thermally insulated as it is, it's one major fall back, it's brittle. Most ceramic products sit. They stand around, might rotate in a socket or two, but overall they're pretty stable structures. And that's how we perceive them to be, that's how we recognise them, as static structures. Is there a technology that can give them freedom from that one achillies heel that will either make or break them?

Will keep you posted.