Name: Stuff Matters
Rating: 4.3 (19 reviews)
Author: Mark Miodownik

What’s in it for me? Take a look into the wondrous world of materials.

Did you know that early celluloid billiard balls were so chemically unstable that they’d sometimes explode on impact?

Or what about the fact that just as much engineering went into getting chocolate to melt in your mouth as into constructing some of our most complex buildings?

Welcome to the crazy fascinating world of materials, where there is always a story and some deeper meaning behind what our naked eye can see. These blinks contain a peek into the magically complex realm of molecules, cultures and the things that make up our world.

After reading these blinks, you’ll know

why paper clips bend;
why we don’t have stainless steel toilets; and
what differentiates you from a pencil.

What are everyday objects made of? Depends on the scale at which you study them.

From the pencils we write with to the steel utensils we use to eat, every day we encounter countless man-made items. But what are these objects actually made of? In fact, the answer depends on the scale at which you’re examining the object in.

At first glance, they may seem like monolithic, single-piece units, but look a little closer and you’ll find that the material is usually made up of an intricate arrangement of smaller parts that interlock perfectly. A sweater is made of tightly woven threads, for example. And if you examine those smaller parts more closely, you’ll find that they too are made up of even smaller parts, much like a Russian nesting doll.

Unfortunately, the naked eye cannot reveal more about your sweater, but a powerful microscope would show the individual fibers that make up these threads. Looking even deeper, you’d see that the fibers consist of hundreds of thousands of molecules, and, finally, atoms.

These molecular and atomic levels of detail are important, because changes there can have a profound effect.

For example, consider that though they look completely different, both diamonds and the graphite found in pencils are made up of carbon. The difference in appearance arises from the fact that on a molecular level, the carbon atoms are arranged differently in each material: graphite contains atoms arranged in sheets, whereas in diamonds they are in a cubic structure.

So, as far as materials are concerned, remember that there’s much more to them than meets the eye.

Even the minute substructures in seemingly solid materials do, in fact, move around.

As you now know, all materials, including the most seemingly solid structures, contain immeasurable smaller parts.

Metals, for example, are actually made up of billions of tiny crystals. This might seem counterintuitive, because we usually think of crystals as translucent gemstones on rings, but a powerful microscope reveals it’s true.

Living and non-living matter differ mostly in how they react to stimuli.

We humans may consider ourselves the pinnacle of evolution, but actually we’re made of exactly the same atoms and molecules as everything around us. Atomically, our bodies are composed of some of the most common elements on earth: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.

It’s only small variations in how these elements have arranged themselves in our bodies, as well as a few more unusual elements like calcium, that account for our human physical form: our body, hair, skin, eyes, and so forth.

The Final summary

The key message in this book:

Take a closer look at the objects around you, and you’ll find that far from being solid and monolithic, they’re comprised of tiny subcomponents, and subcomponents beyond those. By looking at these tiny particles on a smaller scale, we can better understand their properties, and begin to create even more incredible materials in the future.

Key ideas in Stuff Matters

About the Author

Mark Miodownik is a professor of materials and society at University College London, where he also works as the director of the Institute of Making – home to a library containing some of the rarest materials on Earth. He won the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books for Stuff Matters, and he’s been invited to give the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures.