Miodownik's Stuff Matters

A Most Mysterious Material: The Aerogel

In his book, “Stuff Matters”, Miodownik discusses, through personal narratives, the many facets of material science and their applications in real world instances. Out of all of the different types of materials he encounters, perhaps the most exotic were aerogels. In this chapter, “Marvelous,” Miodownik begins in a top secret U.S. government laboratory where he first sets his eyes on this mysterious material. At first, Miodownik is denied a chance to observe aerogels closely, as the material was deemed classified. In his recollections, he remembers that during this period of time, Chinese espionage was prevalent and the government’s secrets were kept under lock and key. I believe by introducing aerogels in this fashion, Miodownik succeeds in laying the groundwork for an underlying theme that sets this material apart from any other; The central idea that aerogels in themselves represent the unknown nature of our reality
Namely, the optical properties of the substance. Like the sky, the aerogel exhibited an amazing ghostly blue hue in front of a black background. However, the aerogel seemed to disappear when put in front of a white background. The reason behind this interesting characteristic did not remain obscure for long, as the underlying property that caused this was already well known in the scientific field. The reason for the ghostly blue hue was Raleigh Scattering. Although the property was originally applied to the blue sky, it was eventually connected to aerogels. It turns out, light is not scattered evenly by the aerogel. Instead, shorter wavelengths are scattered more than the longer ones. As a result, more blue light is scattered compared to the longer wavelengths of visible light. With this conclusion, the ambiguous nature of the physical existence of aerogels became