Trends shaping the materials revolution

• Published in: Technological forecasting & social change Vol. 113; pp. 26 - 28
• Main Author: Coates, Joseph F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Elsevier Inc 01.12.2016; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Alloy steels; Automation; Flexible manufacturing systems; Housing; Materials science; Neolithic; Prehistoric era; Social change; Steel alloys; Stone Age; Trends; United States > US
• DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2016.10.056
• ISSN: 0040-1625

Throughout history, from the neolithic through the bronze and iron ages into the industrial era, human enterprises, in making, designing, building, and constructing the structures and artifacts of the world, found the designer constrained by the characteristics of the materials at hand. Whether these were the few kinds of stone and bone of the neolithic era or the hundreds of varieties of steel alloys of the late industrial period, everything had to be designed within the fixed characteristics of the available materials. The primary consequence of that limitation has been a sharp and near universal distinction between structure and function in human artifacts. The functions to be achieved often had to be achieved with materials that called for an extensive housing or support structure in order to become usable. The central new development in materials science is the expanding capability to produce materials to order, combining arbitrary characteristics.