Customer Reviews

Stuff: Materials World

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Optimistic, easy-to-read, this charming history of the effect of new materials on society is filled with brilliant analogies. From the ceramics and bronze of prehistoric times through iron, steel, aluminum, polymers, transistors, silicon microchips and solid-state lasers, using personal interviews and a number of diagrams, Amato takes the reader on a joyful tour of what became Materials Science. This fount of good (but not excellent) explanations of many things is marred by a number of technical errors, and a Green Party stance on all of the current environmental issues. These flaws drag down what would have been a 5-star rating to 3 stars. The generally delicious writing style is marred by some problems with transitive verbs and a few slang expressions that may be hard to translate. Citation of sources is adequate.
...

Ivan Amato's Stuff: The Materials the World is Made of is a good, workmanlike history and description of "materials science." Basically, materials science involves the fashioning of one material of nature into another; Amato imagines the first "materials scientist" as the caveman breaking rocks to make the first tools. Modern materials science, of course, is focused much more on atomic and sub-atomic levels, and Amato does a good job describing the state of the art today. Much of his writing is a bit "gee whiz", both over-written and over-enthusiastic for my tastes. He writes clearly and in a well-organized fashion, and I learned a fair amount from this book.

He manages to explain complicated things in a way me and you can understand them,and me makes you even more interested in the subjects he covers.

There's nothing terribly wrong with this book, but unfortunately it came out at about the same time as Phillip Ball's vastly superior "Made to Measure," which covered the same ground, at least as regards technology. Mr. Amato must be one of the few people on Earth who can be so awestruck by a technical conference -- he devotes at least an entire chapter to the thrill and wonder of a Materials Research Society meeting, which is, well, just a technical conference.

It's so great to find a layman's overview to the influence of materials science and engineering. The author covers the breakthroughs of ancient times, the birth of the discipline in the last century, and it's future directions. Great book for anyone who works even marginally with engineered materials! As a doctoral student in the field myself, it was fun to see how the author made complex concepts understandable to a wider audience.

As a mechanical engineer, I was exposed to a rather dry subject of material science limiting to a choise of performance curves that satisfied the load requirements. I bought this book some years ago and I was amazed on the explanation and depth of the coverage. Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask about materials is somehow reflected here, the history, the facts the whys.. As a special bonus there is a graph (page 243)that shows the interplay of factors that influence steel behaviour, just this is worth the reading... I wonder why is out of stock?..

I think that stuff is a great book. If you are interested if the materials of the world, this is a great book.