(curious music)
- [Narrator] Throughout human history,
the color blue has been a conundrum.
Blue minerals that can be used
to make pigment for paint are rare on Earth.
And it wasn't until about three centuries ago
that we finally figured out how to create blue pigment
that was durable, reasonably non-toxic,
and cheaper than gold.
Though, once we found a few basic recipes that worked,
progress on the color blue pretty much stopped.
- [Researcher] When I see the periodic table,
for it is like a playground.
I see a lot of things I can play with.
- [Narrator] It took Oregon State researcher Mas Subramanian
to nudge the science of blue into motion once again.
While trying to create new materials for electronics
in Mas's lab, they came upon a combination of elements
that created a brilliant blue pigment.
(upbeat music)
- The day I walk in, I have no clue
what I'm going to discover.
Here comes out a beautiful blue pigment
come out of the furnace at 1300 degrees celsius.
Wonder, "Wow!
"Why no one saw this before?"
I call that as a discovery.
- [Narrator] They called the new pigment colon YInMn Blue.
That's short for the elements that make it:
yttrium, a rare earth metal,
and the more common elements indium and manganese.
The new pigment has garnered quite a bit of interest
from industry, because it's non-toxic
and astoundingly heat reflective.
And by tweaking the formula of YInMn Blue,
Mas has come up with new greens and pinks as well.
- Every day I walk into this building,
I really don't know what I'm going to discover,
to be honest.
I have some ideas, I have some goals,
but once you enter the lab, put things together,
you don't know what it's going to be.
- [Narrator] Mas figured out the YInMn Blue's brilliance
comes rom a particular way
some of its molecules are arranged.
- By knowing the structure,
we can tell where the colors come from.
- [Narrator] And he thought there might be more
new pigments to discover if he found other minerals
with that same structure.
- Then we can manipulate that composition
by adding other elements in the periodic table
to be able to make a better color
or change the color itself.
- [Narrator] But it turns out that molecular arrangement
is very rare on Earth.
So he turned to the skies.
- [Mas] We found a mineral called hibonite.
It's only seen in meteorites.
- [Narrator] Way back when the planets
were just a cloud of around the sun,
hibonite was one of the first minerals that formed.
Now, it occasionally falls to Earth.
- [Mas] So when the meteorites come through the atmosphere,
it still is stable.
That's why it's a very highly stable structure.
- [Narrator] Stability is important for pigments.
No one wants a paint that fades.
Because celestial hibonite is extremely rare,
Mas created synthetic hibonite in the lab.
Then he started playing with its chemical structure,
hoping a little luck would again be on his side.
- It's a part of doing science;
you always have to be prepared for it.
As Louis Pasteur said, "Luck favors the prepared mind."
- [Narrator] This time, the lab created
a new class of pigment called hibonite blue.
(cheerful music)
Still, the many-hued world of Mas Subramanian
isn't quite colorful enough.
Now that he's conquered blue
in a way no other living human has,
he's moving on to the next great challenge.
Mas now his sights set on ...
red.
(cheerful orchestral music)