How to speed up the testing of new materials

THOMAS EDISON believed in the power of trial and error. “I have not failed,” he is alleged to have said. “I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.” After rejecting many alternatives, Edison’s team discovered the carbon filament and thus revolutionised electric lighting.Trial and error of this sort is a long-winded way of making discoveries. It is still, though, surprisingly common. The pharmaceutical industry has speeded things up by employing robotic devices that handle trays containing hundreds of test tubes or plates, permitting researchers to test, simultaneously, the effects of many potential drugs on cell cultures. But in other areas, notably materials science, tests are still done one at a time, by hand—and progress is often painfully slow. This is certainly true of the quest for better ceramics for body armour.