Which 1920s work By Michael Polanyi demonstrated metal crystals have life-like properties?

[marcuswhybrow]

In A New Landscape of Life and Learning Ray says:

And at that time [there was] a physicist Michael Polanyi who later became a philosopher. I don't think he knew he was following in Bose's footsteps. Bose said that all substances displayed the same properties that life does, just in a different form. Including learning and fatigue and so on. Polanyi demonstrated that over and over through the 1920s working with metal crystals and metallurgy. That the mechanistic idea of inert so-called material substance was very far off of reality. It wasn't a matter of atom-to-atom organization. Energy was spread out over a wide area. And the structure went below the surface.

That explains why aeroplanes have to be finely polished if they're going to be supersonic. Because the stresses of a microscopic scratch on the surface will spread the influence over a great range. Polanyi demonstrated that working the surface of a crystal changed the whole depths properties of resistance and memory of the crystal.

Which work by physicist Michael Polanyi is Ray referring too?