Famelab Germany Final 2013

Bielefeld, 04.05.2013

Once upon a time, there was a great empire and a great leader. The empire was French and the leader was Napoleon.

Napoleon, having conquered almost all of Europe, still had a critical problem; how to keep food for a long time, so that his huge army could find something to eat during their long battles. One French guy found him the solution; a can made out of Tin.

Afterwards, in December 1812, Napoleon ordered his soldiers to march to Moscow to conquer the Russian capital, but it was the wrong decision. The French army was defeated, and one important reason for that was the Tin can. The French soldiers, being in Russia in winter time, suddenly found all of their Tin cans changing into dust. But why?

In order to answer this historical question, we look at Tin. Tin, just like any other metal, follows a basic rule, and that is, to keep its energy as minimum as possible. At low temperature the atoms of Tin try to minimize their energy by changing their order. They don’t only change their order actually, but even the type of bonding between them. So at high temperature they have a small metallic bond, while at low temperature, they have a large covalent bond. And this sudden increase in volume changes the metal into dust.

The French soldiers didn’t only have their food cans made out of tin actually, but even the buttons of their fancy french coats were all made of Tin. Being in Russia in December, with no food, and their coats in such a very bad condition, they were easy to be defeated.

Today we all have some of this Tin in our computers for example. So inside your computer there are those green boards, and lots of components are fixed to them. They are fixed there by Tin. But no more pure Tin, rather it's always mixed with other elements to prevent this transformation.

These boards still remind us of Napoleon, and his wrong decision. He could have had a small empire, but a great and successful one, rather he wanted to extend it more and more, until suddenly not only his food cans, but even his whole empire turned into dust.

Thank you very much :)