Stuff Matters: The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-made World

* * * Winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books * * * FROM THE TEA-CUP TO THE JET ENGINE, STUFF MATTERS IS A UNIQUE, INSPIRING EXPLORATION OF HUMAN CREATIVITY. 'Enthralling. A mission to re-acquaint us with the wonders of the fabric that sustains our lives' Guardian 'I stayed up all night reading this book' Oliver Sacks ____________ Everything is made of something. The everyday objects: paper clips, the textiles that make your clothes and the cups you drink from. The extraordinary new materials: self-healing metals, silicon chips and bionic implants paving the future. Stuff Matters reveals the miracles of craft, design, engineering and ingenuity that surround us every day. From ancient technologies to those shaping our future, this is a book to inspire amazement and delight at mankind's material creativity. ____________ 'A certain sort of madness may be necessary to pull off what he has attempted here, which is a wholesale animation of the inanimate: Miodownik achieves precisely what he sets out to' The Times 'Insightful, fascinating. The futuristic materials will elicit gasps. Makes even the most everyday substance seem exciting' Sunday Times 'Wonderful. Miodownik writes well enough to make even concrete sparkle' Financial Times 'Expert, deftly written, immensely enjoyable' Observer

About the Author :
A Financial Times Master of Science and chosen by The Times as one of the 100 most influential scientists in the UK, Mark Miodownik is Professor of Materials and Society at University College London, where he is also Director of the Institute of Making. He is the author of the book Stuff Matters – a New York Times bestseller which won the Royal Society Winton Prize – and Liquid, which was shortlisted for the same prize. He presents BBC TV and radio programmes on science and engineering such as Everyday Miracles and How It Works.

Review :
Utterly captivating. Every piece of 'stuff' we take for granted in our daily lives has a rich story to tell. A real delight Wonderful. Miodownik writes well enough to make even concrete sparkle Insightful, fascinating. The futuristic materials will elicit gasps. Makes even the most everyday substance seem exciting Enthralling ... a mission to re-acquaint us with the wonders of the fabric that sustains our lives Expert, deftly written, immensely enjoyable A certain sort of madness may be necessary to pull of what he has attempted here, which is a wholesale animation of the inanimate: Miodownik achieves precisely what he sets out to The Master of Materials strikes again. Professor Miodownik has a gift for exciting us with his unique combination of the science and the sensuality of the stuff that the world around is made from Written with such informed and infectious zeal ... Stuff Matters doesn't just reveal the hidden and amazing structures behind much of what our world is made of, it tells the hidden and fascinating stories too Stuff Matters has reminded me that historians can spend too much time looking at what people have said and written, and not enough on the materials with which we have built modern society. I now understand why epochs in human history are defined by the stuff we have used An ode to material science. Miodownik delves into the molecules and history of metal, paper, concrete and chocolate, finding poetry and beauty in the details. It's also about the ingenuity of humankind, the unique ability of humans to understand the materials around us, and to manipulate them