Why Things Break: Understanding the World by the Way It Comes Apart (Hardcover)

~ Mark Eberhart (Author) "What incredible luck..." (more)
Key Phrases: boron effect, nickel aluminide, interfacial energy, Second Law, Los Alamos, Professor Cohen (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Why can you bend a piece of taffy into all kinds of shapes while a peppermint stick breaks if you push on the middle of it? Why does adding carbon to iron make the resulting metal, steel, stronger, whereas adding sulfur brittles it, making it more liable to break? Eberhart, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines, explains the chemistry of metals and other materials to answer these and similar questions. Scientists still have much to learn about how planes of atoms slide over one another when a substance bends, or why impurities can toughen an alloy. In the past, scientists and manufacturers designed new products on a wing and a prayer, hoping that they wouldn't break. The Titanic went down in large part, Eberhart explains, because the iron used in the ship's hull had been made brittle by sulfur, allowing the iceberg to rip through it easily. Today metallurgists have to be able to develop materials with the exact properties needed to avoid another such disaster-think of the Challenger or of an airplane breaking up in flight because a tiny crack was exacerbated by increasing and decreasing air pressure. Hydrogen-powered cars are still in the future because hydrogen embrittles most substances it comes into contact with, so new and tougher engines need to be designed to withstand it. Though Eberhard uses many examples from everyday life to illustrate his points, his discussion gets more specialized as the book progresses, making it best for science buffs.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In materials science, nothing succeeds like failure, for it prompts discovery of what caused a disaster. In trying to understand why things break, scientists like Eberhart know that a fracture starts at the level of atomic bonds, but determining precisely what forces a bond to break remains a mystery. Shake-and-bake metallurgy and glass manufacturing has taken technology pretty far, furnishing us with jet turbines and Corningware galore, but, as Eberhart explains, making engines even more powerful and ceramics more fracture resistant runs into roadblocks at the quantum-mechanical scale. Atoms drift around, making material more brittle, and bonds stretch and bend in certain angles, all aspects of the fracture problem that Eberhart has investigated. He translates the technicalities of this field into accessible layperson's terms, aided by autobiographical excursions into his experiences with research funding, and with the public's generally deficient appreciation of technological risk: nothing is unbreakable, though we (or tort lawyers) demand that everything should be so. A very readable work for technology buffs, especially those who enjoyed Edward Tenner's Why Things Bite Back (1996). Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harmony; 1 edition (October 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400047609
• ISBN-13: 978-1400047604
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #371,472 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating compendia, April 21, 2004

By	Marissa Carter (Cody, WY, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Why Things Break is one scientist's account of how he came to came to investigate the science of fracture mechanics at a molecular level--not really the how, but the why. Although the narrative is sometimes rambling, and Dr. Eberhart digresses considerably at tangents to make his points, the stories are well worth reading. It is also illustrative of the career of a scientist tackling a field that is new: full of obstacles to be overcome.

Particularly interesting--at least I found them so--are the stories of creating ever tougher and harder materials, from metal to ceramics, starting with ancient techniques thousands of years ago. If you've ever wondered how the Samurai made their swords, or how steel ultimately replaced bronze in the case of weapons, Eberhart's vignettes will delight you. The case study of Corning's Corelle line is especially instructive in demonstrating the pitfalls of trying to make commercially viable materials that don't break easily, and often one gets the impression this was a solution looking for a problem. Other fascinating examples include the sinking of the Titanic, the armor aboard the USAF's C141, and litigation involving the fracturing of a cast-iron pump.

Most of the science presented will be understandable to an arts major, although on occasion the chemistry might prove hard going--sometimes explanations in science can be tough! On pages 142-143, the author makes some errors: the WWII aircraft he cites--the Supermarine Spitfire and the Mitsubishi Zero--were not mostly made of wood; rather new aluminum alloys were used. Perhaps Erhard was thinking of the twin-engine DeHavilland Mosquito fighter-bomber.

My only criticism is that the real why of things breaking is really relegated to a couple of chapters at the end of the book, but possibly this is because still so little is known about the subject.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Read, January 11, 2004

By A Customer

I bought this book because it appeared to be aimed at showcasing the field of Fracture Mechanics to the lay person - certainly a daunting task in view of the depth of knowledge normally required to understand 'why things break". I wanted to see how the author would approach such a difficult subject (and without any pictures!). To my pleasant surprise this book was much more than an attempt to do "technology transfer". Eberhart has written a semi-autobiographical text that immerses the reader in the author's metamorphosis from a young child wondering about breaking atoms in butter with his knife to a full-fledged academic professor and researcher who asks and answers "why", not "how" or "when", but "why" something broke or failed. The examples given range from understanding how glass shatters, how Correlle ware is not really unbreakable, to the tragedy of the Challenger accident and the need to listen to engineers when they become wary about a material or system entering an unknown environment. Eberhart does lament the "pecking order" of science and the politically correct way that research funding in North America is meted out, but this, in my view, is an accurate reflection of how the approach our government agencies and industries are taking to funding fundamental research is leading our society towards mediocrity, inhibiting development of revolutionary ideas that can transform society into better ways to do things much quicker. While a conservative approach can provide a safer and lower risk result, it also can significantly slow the rate at which new ideas bubble to the surface. Research must be risk-taking by its very nature. We require a better understanding of "why" things happen if we really want to develop the new innovations that improve our lives and those of others around the world in need of appropriate technological support. Furthermore, the established "pecking-order" in research prevents certain problems from being viewed in contexts that differ from the "norm". Cross disciplinary teams are needed if we wish to find innovation in the conventional. There is much food for thought in this well-written and enjoyable book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written, poorly organized, and largely incomprehensible, April 20, 2008

By	David M. Giltinan (San Francisco) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Like all books, this one has its strengths and weaknesses.

WEAKNESSES:

1. Poor organizational structure.
There is really very little discernible organization to the way the material is presented, a distinct disadvantage in a book which is trying to present some fairly complex ideas. In particular, the interweaving of anecdotes from the author's personal life is more of a distraction than a help. Other reviewers seem not to have been bothered by this, but to me the effect - more often than not - was to interrupt the flow of whatever argument the author was trying to make.

2. Paragraphs like this one - (Eberhard explains how he likes to play games when people ask him what he does for a living):

"When I want to have fun, however, I say, `My research is concerned with the study of why things break.' Usually a look of satisfaction appears in the questioner's eyes as he says, `Oh, so you are a mechanical engineer (metallurgist, ceramist, or materials scientist).'
Now the fun begins as I say, `No, I study why things break, not when.'
The questioner is now doubtful. I sometimes break down at this point and explain my research in detail, but I have been known to milk the when/why distinction until my questioner is just fed up and moves on. ...
It is a common misunderstanding, confusing when with why. What people really understand is *when* things break. Fracture, as with almost every other phenomenon, is composed of two parts, cause and effect. The question of *when* deals with the cause, while that of *why* deals with the effect."

I find that paragraph, which is in no way atypical, problematic for a number of reasons. His gameplaying in response to a simple, polite question seems a bit juvenile. There's a certain smug superiority in the way he introduces the critical 'when/why' distinction. Which one might be more willing to overlook if he did even a halfway competent job of clarifying the distinction. But he doesn't. Those last two sentences make no sense whatever, at least not in a world where we continue to assign the normal English meaning to the word "why". Since his efforts elsewhere in the book to elucidate the 'when/why' distinction, which he obviously considers critical, are equally unhelpful, the reader is left frustrated. It's as if you've been condescended to by a professor who mocks your ignorance and then does nothing constructive to remedy it.

3. No diagrams, no figures, no graphs.

I understand why an author would choose to avoid equations and formulae in a book intended for a nonspecialist readership. But failure to include even a single figure or graph is a mystifying - and unfortunate - choice. There were at least a dozen places in the book where a simple graph would have spared the reader several paragraphs of poorly written, tortuous prose and made the point far more effectively.

4. Lack of clarity about the intended audience.

A key characteristic of good scientific writing is the author's ability to place himself in the shoes of the target reader (thus finding the appropriate level of technical detail). A major difficulty with this book is an apparent lack of clarity about the target audience. Who is this book intended to reach? It's unlikely to be interesting to people already familiar with the material. But it's also not going to be helpful to people unfamiliar with the author's field, as he displays a repeated inability to put himself in the general reader's shoes, resulting in "explanations" which don't really clarify things at all. Ultimately, this is the flaw which causes the book to fail completely, in my opinion. Eberhard is like your nightmare professor from college - the guy who launches into a convoluted, poorly thought-out, stream-of-consciousness explanation, not noticing that he has lost his audience at the third sentence.

5. A distinctly unengaging persona

Other reviewers found Eberhard's interweaving of anecdotes from his personal life endearing - I didn't. There is occasional relevance to the point being made, but far too often he allows an unattractive whining quality to creep in, for example in his repeated complaints that his chosen field of research receives too little attention, appreciation, or federal funding.

STRENGTHS:

Reading a book that is as poorly written, rambling, and dismally unclear as this one helps remind us not to take talented science writers like Richard Dawkins, Matt Ridley, Stephen Pinker, Malcolm Gladwell, Gina Kolata, and Natalie Angier for granted. To be seated next to any of these talented folks on a plane would be a fascinating experience. To be stuck next to the author of this book might well be your worst nightmare.