Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World

Stuff Matters gives the reader a glimpse into the engineering and properties of many of the critical materials that we encounter in day to day life. Mark Miodownik is professors of material and society at UCL and introduces the reader gently to his expertise leaving them with a newfound appreciation for physics, engineering and chemistry. The book is highly readable and engaging and gives an excellent introduction to a subject we should all know about. Stuff Matters picks several materials that are all contained in the surroundings of the author while he drinks coffee on his roof. He starts by discussing steel and the properties of metal. He discusses how we moved from the bronze age to the iron age and what was required to jump to the steel age. The author discusses the atomic structure of metals and how simple metallurgy can fundamentally change the strength of metals due to the crystal structures. The author moves on to paper and where it comes from (plants) and how it is both made and its properties. He discusses different forms of paper including glossy, newspaper, receipt paper and money as well. The author then moves on to concrete and how it enables modern construction. Concrete has been with us from Roman times but was forgotten for millennia and was rediscovered only recently. The physics of the material are described and the properties of reinforced steel are detailed. The author moves on to a totally different kind of item, chocolate. He discusses the history and the properties and the reader is left with a newfound appreciation for chocolate making. The next subject tackled is foam. This topic takes the reader on a slightly less immediately observable material but is a fascinating tale. The reader is introduced to a material called aerogel which sounds remarkable. The author then moves in to plastic and discusses it through the story of the inventor of plastic, it is really interesting and plastic was first being focused on commercially to fill the supply demand imbalance for billiard balls. The author then discusses glass. We are shown how it is made and where it comes from. We are introduced to both modern and ancient glassmaking and the material properties of glass. The author also talks about carbon and discusses how graphite and diamond are the same material. He discusses the crystal and molecular structure of carbon atoms and how they can form together in different structures. The author discusses pottery and introduces the reader to both clay and basic pottery but extends the discussion to modern porcelain and ceramics. The author ends the topics with a story of how he broke his leg and some aspects of materials in modern medicine. He discusses plaster and how it is a simple yet incredibly important material that has changed the nature of life and death injuries for math. He also discusses teeth and organs in reference to the 6 million dollar man to discuss what we can rebuild using todays technology. Stuff Matters introduces the reader to the basic properties of many of our most important materials used in day to day life. It does so engagingly and by the end the reader will feel like they understand a little bit more about the materials we use. Definitely recommend the book and the audience is very wide.

Earlier this week, I stabbed myself with an exposed staple hanging under a tabletop, and I didn't even mind. Instead, I took a page from Mark Miodownik thought to myself 'Wow, staples <I>are</I> pretty amazing. That's because I had just read Miodownik's book (of which <a href="http://extratextuals.com/notes-from-stuff-matters/">my notes are here</a>), where he manages to describe the stainless steel that makes a staple with such appreciation that even sharing his experiences of <I>being stabbed</I> sound pretty impressive, on the material's part. So in the week after I read the book, when I received a slight wound from one of these bits of 'stuff', I didn't mind as much. In the book, the author devotes a chapter to each material he considers emblematic of a time, giving each (concrete, steel, plastic, foam, chocolate) a bit of history, a unique story story, and a hint of personality. Each material described made me realize how intimately familiar it is in our lives, and how fortunate we are as a society to have them. Stainless steel forks that don't leave a taste in our mouths. Totally transparent glass that's meant to shatter harmlessly. Chocolate that melts in the mouth. Concrete that provides the solid foundation for each building in our cities. As I read Miodownik's words of appreciation, that appreciation transferred over to me. As he described that laminated safety glass that shatters without jagged edges, I recalled a mirror I had recently received in the mail that arrived in a thousand of these pieces, and how they fell harmlessly out of the box and into my hands. The experience became less annoying, and more fascinating. Perhaps this frame of mind would be beneficial for all of us. As the author says himself; “We may like to think of ourselves as civilized, but that civilization is in large part bestowed by material wealth. Without this stuff, we would quickly be confronted by the same basic struggle for survival that animals are faced with. To some extent, then, what allows us to behave as humans are our clothes, our homes, our cities, our stuff, which we animate through our customs and language…The material world is not just a display of our technology and culture, it is part of us. We invented it, we made it, and in turn it makes us who we are.” That's a good lens through which to view the world.

Most of us at times feel thoroughly modern and enlightened, and perhaps even a little haughty when we consider the primitive world that existed in ancient times. You know,say, 50 years ago. But if asked to explain even some of the simplest "low tech" items and objects around us, concrete, paper, plastic, etc., our response is often shrugs and far off stares. Mark Miodownik, is a young-ish materials engineer with a PhD, who is not just brilliantly knowledgable of the makeup and history of "Stuff", but is equally a gifted, entertaining and creative writer and instructor who clearly loves his subject with a passion. He's like that one teacher we all had somewhere between grade school and until we "finished", that talks and teaches with enthusiasm, gestures and such complete animation, that you can't help to both smile and be riveted to every word. Who knew that such basic and seemingly boring things like plastic that are both ubiquitous and often derided as cheap, had such an interesting story to tell even as they make our everyday lives, as we know them, even possible. How, for example, did billiard balls usher in the invention of the first plastic? Billiards went from an elitist past time, to a populist activity. Bar owners, especially, saw the game as an opportunity to have patrons stay longer and, well, keep drinking. But billiard balls were made from ivory, and with the explosion in popularity, ivory was becoming almost prohibitively expensive. John Westley Hyatt and his brother set up a lab in their shed, motivated by an advertisement in the New York Times that offered $10,000, a gigantic sum at the time, to anyone who could invent a new material for billiard balls. The money was offered by a syndicate of investors led by a retired Civil War general. Hyatt's experimental billiard balls had the annoying habit of exploding when they collided, with everyone in the bar drawing their guns, with what sounded like gun fire. So begins his saga of plastics. To say I have an entirely new perspective and respect for the 10 items of "Stuff" Mr. Miodownik details is a wild understatement. It's a light, quick read, due to the talent of his combination of little boy fascination and enthusiasm and sometimes stand-up comic, sometimes poetic word weaver. It's rare, at least for me, to ever desire to revisit a movie or book with so many other things competing for the precious open time slots. But I'm actually anxious to re-read Stuff Matters again from the beginning to try to fix the huge volume of interesting and entertaining information in my mind both for sharing with like minds and to keep my appreciation for the not so mundane Stuff, fresh. An enthusiastic exploding 5 stars!

This is an excellent book that tries to explain the history and practical applications of various materials that we come across our daily life. This is a non-technical book that picks up a material in each chapter and tries to explain it. There are 11 chapters in the book, with 10 chapters, each for a single material (steel, paper, concrete, chocolate, foam, plastic, glass, graphite, porcelain, implants) Things I liked about the book: 1. The writing style is very informal and easy to understand. You can tell that the author poured his heart and life experience into this book. The writing style also changes from different chapters, and author tries to introduce the material to the readers from the perspective of a normal person and not a material scientist. 2. You don't need to have a science background to understand any of this. There are technical explanations in this book but they are not very technical and are easy to understand. 3. You can pick up and read any chapter in any order. Thing you should be aware of before buying: 1. This book is to pique the curiosity but not satisfy it. This is not a material science 101 book. The technical aspects of the materials covered are not deep enough for a more technical person. However, if you like something more technical then I would definitely recommend Eight Amazing Engineering Stories . This book is more technical (but not university level technical) and written in a similar approach to this book (each chapter covers one particular element)

The book is outlined in a way that makes sense; it starts by showing you a picture of Mark (the author) on what looks to be a terrace and then has a drawn-in arrow to the object that he will go over for the next 10-20 pages. The whole book follows this pattern, but it is actually fascinating. He explains the arrangement of the molecules and atoms in each of the objects and how we use them in our everyday life, how this overlooked stuff is essential in the lifestyle that we live. Some of the information that he gave was really interesting. It was really cool when he gave examples of how they relate to the arrangement of the atoms or molecules, like a blacksmith hammering a new sword or a piece of paper and how it keeps the ink because the reaction takes place. Still, he would swiftly continue onto the next topic without further knowledge of that item, making the book more of a trivia info book. Still, nevertheless, the book was exciting the whole time. It had been established from the beginning of the book and continued to circle back to the importance of understanding how majorly we take things for granted. The book ends with Mark shortly giving his opinion on how these things really shape the world and how people use them. Overall, this was a great book and led me to be thankful for the complex simplicity of the everyday stuff that I use.

Overall, an enjoyable read. Some detractors: [(1) The sketches and photographs are of low quality. For example, there is a really bad sketch of an atom on page 149. Also, many of the pictures in the book are unnecessary. For example, in the chapter on paper, there are pictures of a letter, photographic paper, books, receipts, envelopes, paper bags, glossy magazines, tickets, money, and newspapers. (2) The last chapter should have been the first chapter. The author spends the first 10 chapters on steel, paper, concrete, chocolate, foam, plastic, glass, graphite, porcelain, and body implants. Then he spends the last chapter giving a high level view of materials science. Perhaps the author felt that the Introduction (before chapter 1) was enough of a foundation. (3) There are some serious distractions in the book, such as the 26-page screenplay in the chapter on plastic, which struck me as a tedious way to cover the subject. I ended up just skimming it. (4) The book goes back and forth between being folksy / anecdotal and being scientific. Personally, I would have been quite happy with a little less information on the author's personal life, and a little more information (and sketches) on quantum mechanics, atoms, and molecules.] All-in-all, an interesting and informative book, and I recommend reading it, but . . .

Stop. Look around you right now. It doesn't matter if you are standing or sitting. You may be in your office, room, local coffee shops, or on a bus or subway. Now, you may bethink yourself of nothing of importance around you. Don't quit just yet. Try again, and have a long look at your surroundings. No sooner do you submit to my admonition than do you realize you are enmeshed by things – simply things: computers, phones, windows, books, clothes, food, metal objects, plastic objects, buildings, mirrors, utensils such as a spoon or fork, and etc. Hardly do we pay any much attention to those things as we live our lives. Of course, they are nothing out of ordinary; we see them every day. They have existed around us and surely will in the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, can you imagine a life without them? – sleeping on hay or a lump of leaves; cooking with sharp rocks; eating with our own hands; living in a cave; and writing memo by engraving on a stone tablet in the absence of paper. This kind of life style is akin to that of our ancestors back in the Stone Age, approximately 1-2 million years ago. And that is precisely correct. Our lives without what we take for granted will be exactly like it. Many things around us, which we are absentmindedly taking for granted on a daily basis as I showed you, are the tangible results of the apotheosis of technology and science in the span of the entire human history. Our history, since the emergence of Homo sapiens, is inseparable to the history of materials. Indeed, the biggest milestones and that which separates distinct epochs in history, undoubtedly, are from the names of materials to have been utilized at each as shows in the three age system - Stone, Bronze, and Iron. They behaved differently, also, depending on what materials they were using at each time, as though their history was dictated by the very own material that they discovered and invented. The essence of which ought to have given you an aha moment. The author has pointed this out in the first chapter which made me awe-struck. Whether or not you are a science geek, (Although, I don't consider myself a geek. But I have been on a science book reading streak of late. Maybe I am?) you will enjoy this book. This book is not very rarefied at all, written for common people, so much so that the author came up with a brilliant way to easily explain on the evolution of plastic, that is, by writing a screenplay, the main story of which evolves around the protagonist who invents plastic material. Not only is it fun to read, but also it is your responsibility as a modern person to know how the materials that shroud us came about. Only after you learn the struggle and inconvenience through which those who passed before us went without what we have now, are we called up to a true veneration for the things that sustain our modern life style. That is, before stainless steel was invented, people tasted metal in their food from cutlery. Before the invention of amalgam which is the mixture of various metals, the dentists waited out a tooth to go completely rot only to pull out the tooth. Without plastic film, no way could it be possible that cameras were widely distributed and enjoyed by many in the early 20th century. There exist countless examples of such in the book. Don’t miss out the chapters on metal and chocolate which were my favorite.

Mark Miodownik provides a light, usually amusing, romp through the everyday materials that surround us. Plastics, paper, concrete, glass, etc. Each chapter covers a different material for which the reader will had had extensive practical experience. The book squeezes out a brief history of each, points out it benefits and weaknesses, and guides the reader to an understanding of the scientific nature of these materials: why they work and what are their weaknesses. Since each is introduced based on Miodownik's personal experience, the narrative is light, easy to read, and provides memorable details about the complexity of chocolate, why concrete doesn't dry, what papers are good for anti-counterfeiting, and the importance of glass technology in the development of Western civilization. His introduction to the chapter on glass starts with him watching rows of trees pass by while on a road in Spain when his head hits the windshield in a collision with a tractor. The fact that it shattered, not splintered, precluded worse injuries, and the reasons are explained. I looked forward to each chapter and certainly enjoyed the complex chemistry of chocolate in forming the various solid chocolates having just the right properties (hardness, melt point, creaminess, etc.) for its intended use. I really enjoyed the essay on iron/steel and the role of materials engineering in the development of famous Samari swords and the Bethamer steel process.

The author’s dominion on these topics is evident. And his ability to easily explain and convey the complex realities around us is magnificent. Great book for curious people.

Fabulous read, by no means an I a scientist... Far from it, but this book is very interesting, informative and down right important. I teach elementary school and the information in this book is completely helpful and anecdotally relevant in my classroom. Loved it!!! Wish the hardcover was available.

This book is definitely worth the read. The author writes everything with great interest and answers questions that I have personally never asked. He opened my eyes, and made me more interested in asking about the history of materials. Great knowledge of chemistry is not required. This motivated me to revise for chemistry more, if you are a student, you will understand why after reading this book!

Mark Miodownik nos conduz em uma viagem de conhecimento sobre a composição material e o comportamento de objetos do nosso dia-a-dia, como as cerâmicas, concreto, plásticos, elásticos, delícias como o chocolate e surpreendentes novos materiais ainda pouco conhecidos do público em geral; há curiosidades na área da cosmologia e da engenharia que nos possibilitou vivermos a vida moderna, tudo escrito numa linguagem simples e com pitadas de humor. Um valioso livro para os curiosos do mundo que nos cerca e além.

„Stuff Matters“ hat mich als Ingenieurwesen-Student total fasziniert, weil es auf spannende und verständliche Weise erzählt, wie verschiedene Materialien unsere Welt prägen. Anders als viele trockene Lehrbücher bringt es die Wissenschaft hinter alltäglichen Stoffen – von Stahl über Papier bis hin zu Kunststoffen – lebendig und anschaulich rüber. Das Buch hat mein Verständnis für Werkstoffe deutlich erweitert und zeigt, wie wichtig Materialwissen für Ingenieure wirklich ist.Besonders gefallen haben mir die vielen Anekdoten und Verknüpfungen zwischen Wissenschaft und Alltag. Es macht den manchmal komplexen Stoff greifbar und motiviert, noch tiefer in die Materialkunde einzusteigen. Für jeden, der als zukünftiger Ingenieur nicht nur rechnen, sondern die Grundlagen der Technik verstehen möchte, bietet das Buch echten Mehrwert.Ich kann „Stuff Matters“ jedem Studenten empfehlen, der mehr über die faszinierende Welt der Materialien erfahren möchte – es macht neugierig und ist wirklich gut geschrieben.