Materials and Man's Needs Materials Science and Engineering -- Volume I, The History, Scope, and Nature of Materials Science and Engineering (1975) / Chapter Skim
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1. Materials and Society
1. Materials and Society
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From page 3... ...
We use more materials than ever before and we use them up faster. Indeed, it has been postulated that, assuming current trends in world production and population growth, the materials requirements for the next decade and a half could equal all the materials used throughout history up to date.)
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Mankind is being forced, therefore, to enlarge its resource base -- by finding ways to employ existing raw materials more efficiently, to convert previously unusable substances to useful materials, to recycle waste materials and make them reusable, and to produce wholly new materials out of substances which are available in abundance. The expanded demand for materials is not confined to sophisticated space ships or electronic and nuclear devices, In most American kitchens are new heat~shock-proof glasses and ceramics -- and long-life electric elements to heat them; the motors in electric appliances have so-called oilless bearings which actually hold a lifetime supply of oil, made possible by powder metallurgy; the pocket camera uses new compositions of coated optical glass; office copy-machines depend on photoconductors; toy soldiers are formed out of plastic5,not lead; boats are molded out of fiberglass; the humble Garbage can sounds off with a plastic thud rather than a metallic clank; we sleep on synthetic foam mattresses and polyfiber pillows, instead of cotton and wool stuffing and feathers; we are scarcely aware of how many objects of everyday life have been transformed -- and in most cases, improved -- by the application of materials science and engineering (MSE)
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From page 5... ...
In its development, MSE not only involved cooperation among different branches of science and engineering, but also collaboration among different kinds of organizations. Industrial corporations, governmental agencies, and universities have worked together to shape the outlines and operations of this new "field." In recent years there has been a marked increase in the liaison between industrial production and industrial research, and between research in industry and that in the universities.
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From page 6... ...
Most of the work on materials until the 20th century was aimed at making the old materials available in greater quantity, of better quality, or at less cost. The new world in which materials are developed for specific purposes (usually by persons who are concerned with end-use rather than with the production of the materials themselves)
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From page 7... ...
And just as the development of mathematical principles of design enabled the l9th-century engineer to test available materials and select the best suited for his constructions, so the deeper understanding of the structural basis of materials has given the scientist a viewpoint applicable to all materials, and at every stage from their manufacture to their societal use and ultimate return to earth. The production of materials has always been accompanied by some form of pollution, but this only became a problem when industrialization and population enormously increased the scale of operation.
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The ancient Greek philosophers, who set the tone for many of the attitudes still prevalent throughout Western Civilization, regarded those involved in the production of material goods as being less worthy than agriculturists and others who did not perform such mundane tasks. Greek mythology provided a basis for this disdain: the Greek Gods were viewed as idealistic models of physical perfection; the only flawed immortal was the patron god of the metalworker, Hephaestus, whose lameness made him the butt of jokes among his Olympian colleagues.
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This survey places emphasis on materials, but it should be obvious that materials per se are of little value unless they are shaped into a form that permits man to make or do Something useful, or one that he finds delightful to touch or to contemplate. The material simply permits things to be done because of its bulk, its strength or, in more recent times, its varied combinations of physical, chemical, and mechanical properties.
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Only when the vastness of geological time scales was established and it became possible to depart from a literal interpretation of biblical genesis could credence be given to the notion that these stones were actually tools.9 Some of the features of today's materials engineering can already be seen in the selection of flint by our prehistoric forebears as the best material for making tools and weapons. Availability, shapability, and serviceability are balanced, The brittleness of flint enabled it to be chipped and flaked into specialized tools, but it was not too fragile for service in the form of scrapers, knives, awls, hand axes, and the like.
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The invention of pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils made it possible to boil, stew, bake, and fry foods as well as to broil them by direct contact with the fire. The cooking itself, and the search for materials to do it in, was perhaps the beginning of materials engineering!
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These tools were made of stone and wood; they were not very efficient. Nevertheless, agriculture was able to provide man with a surer source of food than could be obtained through the older technology of hunting, and it required concomitant advances in materials, Not the least important were fired ceramics which provided the pots needed for cooking, as well as larger containers for rodent-proof storage of crops, 2 Cyril Stanley Smith, cart, Technology, and Science: Notes on Their Historical Interaction," Technology and Culture, 11, 4 (Oct.
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Communication and commerce based on specialized skills and localized raw materials both enabled and depended upon central government together with reinforcing religious, social, and scientific concepts. The great empires in Mesopotamia and Egypt, the m~ ~ %T _ _ ~ ~ ~ ~ _ ~ _ _ ~ ~ ~ 1 3 Walter Sullivan, "Anthropologists Urged to Study Existing Stone-Age Cultures,'t New York Times (April 5, 1965~.
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So important is the change in materials base of a civilization that the materials themselves have given rise to the names of the ages -the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. In the 19th century after much groundwork both literally and figuratively by geologists, paleontologists, and archeologists, these terms came to supersede both the poets gold and silver ages and the philosopher's division of the past into periods based on religious, political, or cultural characteristics.
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Though the earliest stone industry and commerce had required some organized system of production, and division of labor was well advanced in connection with large irrigation and building projects, the use of metals fostered a higher degree of specialization and diversity of skills; it also required communication and coordination to a degree previously unknown. Both trade and transportation owe much of their development to the requirements of materials technology: not only ores, requiring bulk transportation over great distances from foreign lands, but also precious objects for the luxury trade, such as amber, gem stones, gold and silver jewelry, fine decorated ceramics, and eventually glass.
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If, on the other hand, the porous mass is hammered vigorously while hot, the particles weld together, the slag is forced out,and bars of wrought iron are produced.
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This truly marvelous transmutation of properties must have been observed quite early, but its significance would have been hard to grasp and,in any case,it could not be put to use until some means of controlling the carbon content had been developed. Since the presence of carbon as the essential prerequisite was not known until the end of the 18th century Ago., good results were achieved only by a slowly~learned empirical rule-of-thumb schedule of the entire furnace regimen.
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Although the classical civilization of Greece rather fully exploited the possibilities offered by metals and other materials available to them from preceding ages, producing beautifully-wrought ceramics, exquisite jewelry, superb sculpture, and an architecture which still represents one of the peaks of the Western cultural and aesthetic tradition, they did little to innovate in the field of materials themselves. The same is true of the Romans who acquired a great reputation as engineers, and rightly so, but this rests largely upon the monumental scale of their engineering endeavors -- the great roads, aqueducts, and public structures -- rather than upon any great mechanical innovations or the discovery of new materials, There is one exception to this generalization.
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Then it was discovered that chemical substances of identical composition could differ in their internal structure, and finally structure became relatable to properties in a definite way; in fact, it was found possible to modify the structure purposefully to achieve a desired effect. 2 5 There have been many interpretations of the decline and fall of the Great Roman Empire.
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, and Cyril Stanley Smith and John G Hawthorne, University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1963)
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However, cast iron that contains enough carbon to be fusible is brittle, and it took Europeans some time to realize its utility, although it had long been used in the Far East. By the beginning of the 15th century, cast iron containing about 3% carbon and commonly about 1% silicon and which melts at a temperature of about 1200° C in comparison with 1540° C for pure iron, had found three distinct uses -- as a bath in which to immerse wrought iron in order to convert it into steel as a material to be cast in molds to produce objects like pots, fire irons, and fire backs more cheaply; and, most important of all, as the raw material for the next stage of iron manufacture.
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From page 22... ...
The wrought iron produced from cast iron by the new finery process was made by oxidizing the carbon and silicon in cast iron instead of by the direct reduction of the iron oxide ore. The two-stage indirect process gradually displaced the direct method in all technologically advanced countries.
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Two major technological developments helped precipitate the changes that signalized the close of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times: gun powder and printing. Both of these had earlier roots in Chinese technology and both were intimately related to materials.
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Modern times were beginning. The political and economic environment had been strongly influenced somewhat earlier by the introduction of gunpowder in Western Europe.
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Some of our most famous treatises on materials technology date from the 16th century, and the best of these continued to be reprinted over 150 years later -- an indication that practices were not advancing rapidly. The most famous of these treatises is the de Re Metallica35 by Georg Bauer (Latin, Georgius Agricola)
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39 Cyril Stanley Smith, ea., Sources for the History of Science and Steel, 1532-1786, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
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THE START OF A SCIENTIFIC MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY BASED ON CHEMISTRY The linking of theoretical understanding with practical applications, the hallmark of MSE, did not occur with the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century nor the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. Tremendous advances occurred during the 17th to 19th centuries in scientific understanding of the nature and operation of the physical universe at both atomic and cosmic levels, but very little of this could find direct connection to the materials made and used by man.
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From page 28... ...
In the past, even when breakthroughs occurred which might have illumined the nature and structure of materials, their significance was not immediately apparent to the practitioner and the impact on technology was delayed. With only a few exceptions, the coupling of science to engineering had to await the slow development of new concepts, a tolerance for new approaches, and the establishment of new institutions to create a hybrid form: engineering science, or, if one prefers, scientific technology -- which is basically different from both the older handbook-using technology and rigorous exclusive science.
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From page 29... ...
It was then recognized that their unified actions were mutually beneficial, and of service to mankind. If we outline briefly the developments in materials science and in materials engineering during the 18th and 19th centuries, we can see some hints of the eventual emergence of the new and fruitful relationship to which we have given the name of "scientific technology." The story of Sal ammoniac in the 18th century is instructive in this regard.
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From page 30... ...
Discovered in the laboratory, electricity inspired a number of empirical experimenters and gadgeteers but it found no practical use for nearly forty years, when the electric telegraph and electroplating appeared almost simultaneously. These applications provided an opportunity for many people of different intellectual and practical approaches to acquire experience with the new force.47 The beginning of the electrical power industry lies in the design of generators for the electroplated, and widespread knowledge of circuitry came from the electric telegraph.
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From page 31... ...
Similarly, the success of Dalton's atomic theory drew attention away from compounds that did not have simple combining proportions, and it left the very exciting properties of nonstoichiometric compounds to be rediscovered in the middle of the 20th century. Lavoisier's enthusiasm for the newly~discovered oxygen not only led him to believe it to be the basis of all acids -- hence its name -- but also to claim that its presence was responsible for the properties of white cast iron.
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50Cyril Stanley Smith, ea., The Sorby Centennial Symposium on the History of Metallurgy, Gordon and Breach, New York (1965)
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Equally important was Henry Cort's improvement of the production of wrought iron. He developed the puddling process in which coke-smelted pig iron was oxidized on a large scale in reverberatory furnaces instead of in small batches in the earlier firing hearths, and he combined this with the rolling mill to give an integrated plant for the large-scale, low-cost production of bar iron in a diversity of shapes and sizes.
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From page 34... ...
He happened to see the unmelted shell of a pig of cast iron that had been exposed to air while being melted in a reverbatory furnace, and this started him thinking about oxidation. The thermal aspect of his process was also not anticipated, and his first experiments on blowing air through molten cast iron were done in crucibles set into furnaces to provide enough external heat.
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From page 35... ...
54 More than anything else, this event revealed the richness of structure on a scale between the atom and the crystal and stimulated studies of composite materials of all kinds, Previously, the main metallurgical advances lay in the development of alloy steels. This had become a purposeful objective at the end of the 19th century,for most earlier attempts to improve steel had involved relatively small pieces of metal for cutting tools in which only hardness and wear resistance were needed.
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THE NEW SCIENCE OF MATERIALS BASED ON STRUCTURE Modern MSE, however, involves much more than metals. Perhaps the most dramatic changes in this century have been in organic materials, and for this we must return to the 19th century and the development of organic chemistry, moving from the simple inorganic molecule of Dalton into molecules of far more complicated structure.
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From page 37... ...
The benzene ring diagram showed the structural nature of these organic molecules, and provided guidelines for the discovery and synthesis of new ones. Under the stimulus of Perkin~s discovery and others, the natural dyes, such as indigo, were soon replaced by synthetic ones.
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It was, however, dangerously inflammable, Synthetic fibers did not become commercial until the advent of cellulose acetate, "artificial silk," in the 1920's. 58 The background of artificial organic materials in the form of fibers reaches back to suggestions of the great scientists Robert Hooke and R
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It seems certain, however, that in the future, the basic sciences of metals, ceramics, and organic materials will mutually enrich one another, no matter how diverse the manufacturing industries may remain. Emulating the earlier German chemical industry, scientists and engineers in the American plastics industry today work together in large research laboratories.
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From page 40... ...
An extremely fertile period of interaction between metallurgists and physicists resulted, now, fortunately extending to those who work with ceramics and organic materials as well.'' 6 i Perhaps the major conceptual change was the new way in which physicists began to look at matter. If they thought of the structure of matter at all, l9th-century physicists did so in terms of Daltonian atoms and molecules, finding therein the foundation of the superb kinetic theory of gases and all of the stereological variability they needed.
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Neither a metallurgist nor a polymer chemist nor a solid-state physicist working in the field of MSE tends to think of himself primarily as a materials scientist or engineer. Why is this?
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Materials engineering is more analogous to the geographic discovery of new continents and cultures than it is to the discovery of the principles of gravitation, navigation, or meteorology. To be sure, materials engineers have to work within the laws of nature, but they are also at home in areas too complex for exact fundamental theory and have J earned to combine basic science and empiricism.
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From page 43... ...
Moreover, the availability of special properties means special uses, and the more specialized the material the more the materials engineer must know the effect of all production variables on successful application One man cannot possibly encompass all aspects with equal detail, but the validity of MSE lies in the recognition that a certain commonality of problems exists. The new structure-property viewpoint has served to bind together and to enrich the many strands of pure science which interact in the field of MSE.
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From page 44... ...
and Eaton Hodgkinson (1789-1861) carried out tests on beams and other shapes of wrought iron and cast iron, and iron-framed buildings became common.
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In the 1890's, metallurgists were beginning to study microstructure in relation to mechanical properties, and other properties were becoming important, especially in connection with the electrical engineering industry. Another kind of man investigated electrical and magnetic properties of materials for their scientific interest.
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6 6 On the other hand, scientists often do engineering in the development of their instruments -- as in the building of telescopes, in the improvement of high vacuum techniques, and the production of high voltages in particle accelerators -- and pure science is often conducted by those with practical aims' for example, the basic studies of recrystallization which came out of work on tungsten lamp filaments and the semiconductor research inspired by wartime radar needs. Early in the 19th century, Faraday's work on optical glass was classic (though not industrially fruitful)
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From page 47... ...
The major advances in both theory and practice were made in 1947-49 in an industrial laboratory -the Bell Telephone Laboratory -- where the transistor was developed by a combination of theoretical and experimental scientists and technologists, doing .. 6 FEW, David Lewis, "Industrial Research and Development," Technolo~v in Western Civilization, Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll W
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7 i W Hume-Rothery, "The Development of the Theory of Alloys," Sorby Centennial Symposium on the History of Metallurgy, C
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At the same time, this industrial utilization of science fostered a degree of cooperation, first between business units themselves and then among various types of business, governmental, and private organizations, that expanded and deepened over the course of time, Included among the institutions carrying on R & D was the university laboratory; it became involved in a variety of external relationships through the consultative activities of its staff members, and later through governmental sponsorship of R & D A substantial part of the latter support was through the medium of interdisciplinary laboratories (IDL's)
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Clauser, "Materials Effectiveness, Materials Engineering, and National Materials Policy," in Problems and Issues of a National Materials Policy. Committee Print, Committee on Public Works, U.S.
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Other sophisticated materials requirements also made themselves felt. The decision to build a supersonic transport gave added urgency to titanium technology, a field that had been heavily supported by the Department of Defense since the late 1950's.
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The problems that now face the materials engineer are technically soluble if properly tackled. Fuel and raw materials can be produced without destruction of the environment, and processes can be developed for the efficient collection and distribution of waste materials of all kinds.
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From page 53... ...
The readiness of old industries to do new things, the appearance of many scientifically-oriented small industries, the growing awareness among scientists of the challenge lying at the peripheries of their professions, and the 75We are indebted for much of the following material to an unpublished seminar paper by Joseph Leo, for the Case Western Reserve University Program in Science, Technology, and Public Policy; the paper (May 1971) was entitled "Government-Sponsored Research and the University Materials Community." 76A.
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From page 54... ...
Yet the decade from 1947 to 1957 was precisely the time when exciting developments in quantum theory of solids and dislocation theory, as well as electron microscopy and other research techniques, were bringing the metallurgist and physicist together for interdisciplinary studies of materials. It was also a time when interdisciplinary activity already flourishing in industrial research laboratories began to place demands upon the universities for the training of research scientists who could work in this newly-evolving environment.
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Huggins, "Accomplishments and Prospects of the Interdisciplinary Laboratories," in Problems and Issues of a National Materials Policy, pp.
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promoting interdisciplinary mixing in research areas of interest common to various materials-related disciplines Interdisciplinary laboratories under this program were established at seventeen universities; twelve were funded by ARPA, three by NASA, and two by the AEC. This was a truly unique program, "aimed at producing a massive upgrading of both quality and quantity in a specific field of basic science of national interest." From its inception in 1960 until the end of fiscal year 1972, ARPA had spent $157.9 million on the IDL program.
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In this, it was pointed out that "frequently knowledge exists in one branch of science and technology, but the application needs occur in another, and the flow of information between the two is not adequate." The Committee, therefore, recommended ''that consideration be given to the problem of insuring that the best available understanding of the behavior of materials be put to use in all phases of their processing, fabrication, and application." Although ARPA's coupling program might not have originated in direct response to the CCMRD recommendation, it was directed to the same end, namely, the application of materials research via a closer relationship between university research and the materials requirements of the Department of Defense, and to stimulate a higher level of applied research activity in academia' Accordingly? ARPA initiated a series of joint contractual relationships for cooperative research in special areas of materials technology between a number of universities and industrial organizations and/or a DoD laboratory In the original IDL program,the universities had been the prime contractors, but in the coupling program industrial organizations became the prime contractors.
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. NSF, on its part, immediately began a review and evaluation of the ARPA/IDL program in order to decide on the proper level of continued support.
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It was observed that materials scientists and engineers did not yet share a common sense of identity; they still thought of themselves as physicists, ceramists, metallurgists, electrical engineers, and the like, not as materials professionals. Roy suggested that the feeling of belonging to a single community of scientists and engineers engaged in the same line of work could only come through the institutionalization of MSE, perhaps through the development of materials-related sections within existing scientific and engineering professional societies and their grouping together across disciplinary boundaries.
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W Wiener, "The History of Soft-Magnetic Materials," Sorby Centennial Symposium, C
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The development of composite materials provides another example of payoff in MSE? and also of some beneficial spillover from military to civilian technology.
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Some ascribed the inability of Rolls-Royce to meet its goals to managerial shortcomings; others blamed the deficiencies of materials scientists and engineers, who themselves still quarrel over whose fault it was. Others claim that too great reliance was placed upon the promise of a single materials development -- albeit a
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From page 63... ...
There is an international community of materials scientists and engineers, and it happens that many of the leaders in the materials field in the U
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From page 64... ...
COSMAT relies on the proposition that science and technology represent rational means of coping with the human condition and on the further proposition that MSE can make a great contribution, if wisely applied and utilized, to that end, In retrospect, it can now be discerned that the various strands of MSE took form quite separately -- the discovery and development of many different kinds of materials, the approaches of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs with quite different aims and methods, the individual specialized techniques for materials fabrication and utilization,and, by no means least, the educational, industrial,and social organization to weave together all of these strands. Now that interrelationship of these things has been recognized, one can perceive within MSE a pattern of approach toward complex problems that may be transferable to other areas, It uses every bit of knowledge obtained by rigorous analytical thinking, but it applies this to real situations that have arisen as a result of a long and unique history.
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