Annealing

A metal worked cold is a wreck of tiny, strained grains. Heat it and new, unstrained crystals nucleate and eat their neighbours โ€” order grows by consuming disorder. The grains coarsen; the boundaries shorten; the metal softens.

Drag to pour in heat where the cursor passes. Anneal raises the whole field. Watch the grain count fall.

โ† back to the lattice
grains: โ€”