Mark Miodownik says that his interest in materials came from an incident when he was stabbed in the back with a razor blade, on his way to school. Realising that a small piece of steel had done him so much harm started his interest in materials.[6]
In 2001 Miodownik gave a series of talks at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) on aesthetics in the arts and sciences.[17] In 2003 he co-founded the Materials Library, a website for people working in materials science, with a grant from NESTA.[18] In 2005 he organised two talks at Tate Modern on the influence of new materials on the arts.[19] In 2006 he and two other scientists produced AfterImage, an installation that explores light and colour perception, which was exhibited at the Hayward Gallery.[20] In 2007 the Materials Library made a podcast, "What can the matter be?", hosted by the Tate.[21] He was interviewed by Jim Al-Khalili for The Life Scientific first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2014.[6]
He was one of the judges of the 2008 Art Fund Prize.[19] He often gives talks at the Cheltenham Science Festival, of which he is a member of the advisory group. In 2010 he placed 89 in a Times list of the 100 most influential people in science[22] and delivered that year's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. The three-part series, Size Matters,[1] looked at how size influences everything, including the shape of the universe, and aired on BBC Four in late December.[23]
^Khamsi, R. (2005). "Materials library has the right stuff: Eclectic collection promotes the tactile side of science". Nature. doi:10.1038/news050328-5.
^ abAl-Khalili, Jim (2014). "Mark Miodownik: The Life Scientific". BBC. Retrieved 11 March 2014. Mark Miodownik's chronic interest in materials began in rather unhappy circumstances. He was stabbed in the back, with a razor, on his way to school. When he saw the tiny piece of steel that had caused him so much harm, he became obsessed with how it could it be so sharp and so strong. And he's been materials-mad ever since. Working at a nuclear weapons laboratory in the US, he enjoyed huge budgets and the freedom to make the most amazing materials. But he gave that up to work with artists and designers because he believes that if you ignore the sensual aspects of materials, you end up with materials that people don't want. For Mark, making is as important as reading and writing. It's an expression of who we are, like music or literature, and 'everyone should be doing it'. To this end, he wants our public libraries to be converted into public workshops, with laser cutters and 3 D printers in place of books.
^Conte, V.; Munoz, J.; Miodownik, M. (2008). "A 3D finite element model of ventral furrow invagination in the Drosophila melanogaster embryo". Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials. 1 (2): 188–198. doi:10.1016/j.jmbbm.2007.10.002. hdl:2117/8161. PMID19627783.
^Wongsriruksa, S.; Howes, P.; Conreen, M.; Miodownik, M. (2012). "The use of physical property data to predict the touch perception of materials". Materials & Design. 42: 238–244. doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2012.05.054.
