Shape memory alloy applications (nitinol braces)

That's why this is the only time I've ever seen someone — Charlie Brooks's book — where he actually put the nose of the martensite curve. Ordinarily they go down 10 to the minus 1 or 10 to the minus 2 seconds and they cut it off. He actually went down to 10 to the minus 8. And there is a scientific reason — it has to do with the martensitic transformation being what we call a displacement transformation. You ever heard about shape memory alloys, these nickel-titanium alloys, where you can make a wire out of it, straighten out the wire, and if you've heat treated it properly and you heat it up a little bit, you can spell out your name? The wire has a memory. Well, dennis [dentists] now use this for braces, okay. It's a martensitic transformation in a non-ferrous alloy. So there are some uses for martensite in a number of areas, other than worrying about messing up the weldability of steels.