If a paper clip is bent out of shape and then heated it will go back to the original shape. First, how does this even work? Second, if heated up and a new shape is created what happens if this process of cooling, bending, reheating is repeated? Does it retain memory of both or just the last heated shape?
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When a paper clip is bent out of shape, the atoms that make up the metal are forced out of their natural positions and into new ones. When the metal is heated, the atoms gain energy and begin to move around more quickly. As they move around, they can potentially return to their natural positions, which would cause the paper clip to return to its original shape.
If a paper clip is heated and then bent into a new shape, and this process is repeated multiple times, the paper clip will retain its most recent shape. It will not retain any memory of its previous shapes. This is because when the metal is heated and bent into a new shape, the atoms are rearranged into new positions, and there is no way for the metal to retain a “memory” of its previous arrangement.
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