The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.201903391. This publication is dedicated to Siegfried Bauer, who has sadly passed away during the course of this work 5th Anniversary Article [ †] Deceased December 2018.

Conventional refrigeration relies on hazardous agents, contributing to global warming. Soft, cheap, biodegradable solid-state elastocaloric cooling based on natural rubber offers an environmental friendly alternative. However, no such practical cooler has been developed, as conventional soft elastocaloric designs are not fast enough to ensure adiabaticity.In this work, we combine snap-through instability with strain-induced crystallization and achieve a sub-100 ms quasi-adiabatic cycling which is 30 times faster than previous design.Negligible heat exchange in expansion/contraction stages combined with the latent heat of phase transitions result in a giant elastocaloric crystallization effect. The rubber-based all-soft heat pump enables a specific cooling power of 20.9 W/g, a heat-flux of 256 mW/cm 2 , a coefficient of performance of 4.7 and a single-stage temperature span between hot and cold reservoirs of 7.9 K (full adiabatic temperature change of rubber membrane exceeding 23 K).The pump permits a compact all-soft voltage-actuated setup, opening up the opportunity of a viable plug-in-ready cooling device.

Nature offers bionic inspirations for elegant applications of mechanical principles such as the concept of snap buckling, which occurs in several plants. Exploiting mechanical instabilities is the key to fast movement here. We use the snap-through and snap-back instability observed in natural rubber balloons to design an ultrafast purely mechanical elastomer actuator. Our design eliminates the need in potentially harmful stimulants, high voltages, and is safe in operation. We trigger the instability and thus the actuation by temperature changes, which bring about a liquid/gas phase transition in a suitable volatile fluid. This allows for large deformations up to 300% area expansion within response times of a few milliseconds. A few degree temperature change, readily provided by the warmth of a human hand, is sufficient to reliably trigger the actuation. Experiments are compared with the appropriate theory for a model actuator system; this provides design rules, sensitivity, and operational limitations, paving the way for applications ranging from object sorting to intimate human-machine interaction.

In his Discorsi, Galileo aimed to correct centuries of Aristotelian “unreason” concerning the physics of falling objects by introducing a thought experiment that pointed out contradictions when combinations of one light and one heavy body are dropped. Inspired by Galileo's story, we sought to formulate research questions and design experiments for students to enable independent learning based on the history of science. The experiments involve commonly used or inexpensive equipment and free software, and show that Aristotle and Galileo did not disagree about falling objects, but were focusing on different kinds of motion. We assess data generated by high-speed video motion tracking of the fall of various combinations of simple handmade paper cones, following closely the discussion between Simplicio, Salviati and Sagredo in the Discorsi, and demonstrate that every statement in Galileo's reductio ad absurdum holds true and that his argument is in fact free of contradiction.

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