When a molten metal alloy is rapidly cooled, it has no time to form the crystalline structure common in ordinary metals. The end result is a solid material called amorphous metal, in which atoms are arranged in the dense, randomly packed configuration, typical of liquids.
This property makes amorphous metals very strong and at the same time highly elastic. Scientists have learned how to blow some of these metal alloys into virtually any shape, much the same way plastic objects are molded. Some say this discovery is as revolutionary as the introduction of synthetic plastics.
