
New Metal Can Become Soft and Stiff Like Human Muscles - Murkin
https://www.inverse.com/article/11908-new-metal-can-become-soft-and-stiff-just-like-human-muscles
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gaze
It's not a new metal! This title is very misleading. They're just balancing a
spring against something that contributes negatively to the spring constant
that can be added and removed.

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dognotdog
Is there a more detailed explanation of this somewhere, and what range of
stiffness variation can be achieved?

From what little can be seen in the video, it looks like the main spring is
divided in half, and the center plane is variably tensioned perpendicularly,
with the leaf springs so acting variably against the lower part of the string.

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gaze
Prolly gotta read the paper. It relies on something called the beam column
effect. It's been used for ages for making vibration isolators. You compress
the flexure until you push the resonant frequency where you're happy.

