A robotic metamaterial spells the word ‘LEARN’. A metamaterial is a special material whose properties are not determined by its chemical composition alone but also by its structure, giving rise to unusual properties.
| Photo Credit: Coulais Lab/University of Amsterdam
When you exercise, your muscles become stronger. When you sow a plant, its stem will bend so that its leaves get more sunlight. Both these changes are examples of adaptation — when a biological material senses its environment, then reorganises its internal structure to survive better. All life must adapt over time to changing conditions. Populations that don’t could become extinct.
However, most non-living materials do not actively adjust their internal structure in response to new conditions after they are made. When a metalsmith forges a bar of steel, its internal structure is mostly fixed from that point on, though it can still change due to heat, stress, etc. If you want a new bar with different properties, you need to engineer it anew.
Published – May 06, 2026 07:30 am IST
