The Science of Materials

Abstract

Sometime in the eight millennium B.C. human beings conducted the first intentional transformation of an inorganic natural material into a new material displaying novel properties. The first spin-offs from real understanding of materials came later in the 19th century. It began with chemistry. Chemical theory proved to be helpful as a guide to the more efficient processing of materials that had been known for centuries. It has been in the 20th century, and particularly in the past 40 years, that chemist and physicists have been able to achieve the fundamental insights that now drive advances in the development of new materials and new processing technology. The deeper theoretical understanding of materials, coupled with powerful analytical tools for studying materials, has led to close cooperation between materials scientists and engineers. Material scientists have for the most part studied structure and properties and the relation between them. Materials engineers have concentrated on the relation of structure and properties to performance and on processing techniques that improve performance. 9 figures.