My Science School

Almost anything can be made from plastic! Plastic packaging keeps food fresh and protects it from bacteria. A plastic coating, called Teflon, can prevent food from sticking to cooking pans. Plastic can be elastic, like the skin of a balloon, or very rigid and reinforced with other fibers, as in a protective helmet. Plastic can also be a good insulator. A plastic sleeve on electrical wiring protects the wires from corrosion and the user from electric shocks. Polystyrene packaging can help to keep take-away food warm. Plastic can be dyed in bright colours or completely transparent, to make spectacles and contact lenses. Without plastics, there would be less music in our lives, with no cassette tapes, compact discs or even old-fashioned records.

Plastic, polymeric material that has the capability of being molded or shaped, usually by the application of heat and pressure. This property of plasticity, often found in combination with other special properties such as low density, low electrical conductivity, transparency, and toughness, allows plastics to be made into a great variety of products. These include tough and lightweight beverage bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), flexible garden hoses made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), insulating food containers made of foamed polystyrene, and shatterproof windows made of polymethyl methacrylate.

Many of the chemical names of the polymers employed as plastics have become familiar to consumers, although some are better known by their abbreviations or trade names. Thus, polyethylene terephthalate and polyvinyl chloride are commonly referred to as PET and PVC, while foamed polystyrene and polymethyl methacrylate are known by their trademarked names, Styrofoam and Plexiglas (or Perspex).

Industrial fabricators of plastic products tend to think of plastics as either “commodity” resins or “specialty” resins. (The term resin dates from the early years of the plastics industry; it originally referred to naturally occurring amorphous solids such as shellac and rosin.) Commodity resins are plastics that are produced at high volume and low cost for the most common disposable items and durable goods. They are represented chiefly by polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, and polystyrene. Specialty resins are plastics whose properties are tailored to specific applications and that are produced at low volume and higher cost. Among this group are the so-called engineering plastics, or engineering resins, which are plastics that can compete with die-cast metals in plumbing, hardware, and automotive applications. Important engineering plastics, less familiar to consumers than the commodity plastics listed above, are polyacetal, polyamide (particularly those known by the trade name nylon), polytetrafiuoroethylene (trademark Teflon), polycarbonate, polyphenylene sulfide, epoxy, and polyetheretherketone. Another member of the specialty resins is thermoplastic elastomers, polymers that have the elastic properties of rubber yet can be molded repeatedly upon heating.

Plastics are polymers, which means that they are made of lots of small molecules joined together to form larger molecules in the form of long chains. Polymers can be manufactured from crude oil, natural gas, or coal. They include artificial fibers and many kinds of plastic. Plastics are extremely useful because they are extraordinarily versatile. They are easy to shape and color. They can be made into rigid objects or thin, pliable sheets. Some plastics are heatproof, while others melt at low temperatures.

Plastic is a material consisting of any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic compounds that are malleable and therefore can be molded into solid objects. Plasticity is the general property of all materials that involves permanent deformation without breaking. Polymers’ name is derived from their flexible and plastic properties.

Plastics are typically organic polymers of high molecular mass, but they often contain other substances. They are usually synthetic and most commonly derived from petrochemicals. However, today’s focus on the environment has led to a growing number of plastics to be derived from renewable materials such as polylactic acid from corn or cellulosic’s from cotton linters.

Plastics have been adopted in a significant, and ever-expanding, range of products thanks to their relatively low cost, ease of manufacture, versatility, and imperviousness to water. They can be found in products as simple as paperclips or as complex as planes.

A large source of diverse plastic material is available across a widespread manufacturing spectrum. One of the most recent and exciting manufacturing domains is in 3D Printing. As new applications for 3D Printing are discovered almost daily, diverse arrays of plastic objects have already been produced using the 3D Printing process. These objects can be found in prototyping labs, toys, mechanical gearboxes, medical prosthetics, and many more. Plastics are generally classified by the chemical structure of the polymer's backbone and side chains.

Some Athletes do not specialize in just one sport but maintain a very high standard at several. For them, multi-disciplinary sports, in which points are awarded for performance in a variety of events, are ideal.

A multi-sport event is an organized sporting event, often held over multiple days, featuring competition in many different sports among organized teams of athletes from (mostly) nation-states. The first major, modern, multi-sport event of international significance was the Olympic Games, first held in modern times in 1896 in Athens, Greece and inspired by the Ancient Olympic Games, one of a number of such events held in antiquity. Most modern multi-sports events have the same basic structure. Games are held over the course of several days in and around a “host city”, which changes for each competition. Countries send national teams to each competition, consisting of individual athletes and teams that compete in a wide variety of sports. Athletes or teams are awarded gold, silver or bronze medals for first, second and third place respectively. Each game is generally held every four years, though some are annual competitions.