Made to measure : new materials for the 21st century
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Made to measure : new materials for the 21st century
Princeton University Press, c1997
- : hbk
- : pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [429]-444) and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780691009759
Description
Made to Measure introduces a general audience to one of today's most exciting areas of scientific research: materials science. Philip Ball describes how scientists are currently inventing thousands of new materials, ranging from synthetic skin, blood, and bone to substances that repair themselves and adapt to their environment, that swell and flex like muscles, that repel any ink or paint, and that capture and store the energy of the Sun. He shows how all this is being accomplished precisely because, for the first time in history, materials are being "made to measure": designed for particular applications, rather than discovered in nature or by haphazard experimentation. Now scientists literally put new materials together on the drawing board in the same way that a blueprint is specified for a house or an electronic circuit. But the designers are working not with skylights and alcoves, not with transistors and capacitors, but with molecules and atoms.
This book is written in the same engaging manner as Ball's popular book on chemistry, Designing the Molecular World, and it links insights from chemistry, biology, and physics with those from engineering as it outlines the various areas in which new materials will transform our lives in the twenty-first century. The chapters provide vignettes from a broad range of selected areas of materials science and can be read as separate essays. The subjects include photonic materials, materials for information storage, smart materials, biomaterials, biomedical materials, materials for clean energy, porous materials, diamond and hard materials, new polymers, and surfaces and interfaces.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Art of Making3Ch. 1Light Talk: Photonic Materials15Ch. 2Total Recall: Materials for Information Storage63Ch. 3Clever Stuff: Smart Materials103Ch. 4Only Natural: Biomaterials143Ch. 5Spare Parts: Biomedical Materials209Ch. 6Full Power: Materials for Clean Energy244Ch. 7Tunnel Vision: Porous Materials282Ch. 8Hard Work: Diamond and Hard Materials313Ch. 9Chain Reactions: The New Polymers344Ch. 10Face Value: Surfaces and Interfaces384Bibliography429Figure Credits445Index447</
- Volume
-
: hbk ISBN 9780691027333
Description
This text describes how scientists are inventing thousands of materials, ranging from synthetic skin, blood and bone, to substances that repair themselves and adapt to their environment, that swell and flex like muscles, that repel any ink and paint, and that capture and store the energy from the Sun. It shows that this is being accomplished because materials are being designed for particular applications, rather than being discovered in nature or by haphazard experimentation. Linking insights from chemistry, biology and physics, with those from engineering, the book outlines the various areas in which newly-invented materials will transform our lives in the 21st century. The chapters provide vignettes from a broad range of selected areas of materials science and can be read as separate essays. The subjects include: photonic materials; materials for information storage; smart materials; biomaterials; biomedical materials; materials for clean energy; porous materials; diamond and hard materials; polymers; and surfaces and interfaces.
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