HOMO FABER
Inventions and Discoveries of New Materials

©The Trustees of the British Museum

Curated by the Associazione Euresis

In collaboration with Giovanni Boccardi, Marina Figini, Mario Gargantini, Francesco Mambretti, Annamaria Naggi, Sergio Riva

A decisive aspect in history is humanity’s ability to use the materials provided by nature to improve living conditions.
Even today, it is the discovery of new materials with novel and fascinating properties—such as superconductors, biocompatible and biodegradable materials, two-dimensional structures, and more—that opens the door to new possibilities.
These “new bricks” are, ultimately, the ingenious assembly—by human hands—of the “old bricks” that lie at the foundation of physical reality: atoms. This is made possible through a deep understanding of the natural laws that govern their behavior.
What enables this “level of innovation” is the encounter between the given nature of things and the creative work of the scientist, who “builds” by obeying and harnessing the laws already in place.