Physicists on why materials break

University of Chicago News (Nov. 4) -- New research suggests scientists could eventually help create materials that resist breaking or crack in a predictable fashion. The researchers “link discoveries about different types of cracks—narrow, clean cracks versus widely spread cracks—into a unified picture that explains them as different limits: rigid materials, on one hand, versus low-rigidity materials on the other,” said Karin Dahmen, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who did not participate in the research. “This study will trigger many follow-up studies because it gives us control, as well as a powerful unified understanding of the spatial extent of cracks in many different materials.” Also: Science 360 (NSF, Nov. 8), Futurity (Rochester, New York, Nov. 8).