Summary about material science

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Materials science has almost prehistoric antecedents. Since prehistory man must have already had some knowledge of the making of matter. The tendency to make tools arose very soon, because of which the three-era modern classification system of prehistory also names the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age based on the characteristic material used.

The material science was developed in ancient Europe. In Middle Eastern and Far Eastern societies such as Persia, Egypt, and the Greek and Roman Empires.

The first goal of material science is to improve machining methods. Modern materials science is tied to the American physicist named Josian Willard Gibbs. He pointed out that the thermal properties resulting from the atomic structure of materials affect their properties, a very important step in the scientific study of materials.

Sometime in the 20th century, several scientific and technical processes influenced this discipline, including space racing, the arms race during the Cold War, new physical principles, and the knowledge and application of semiconductors. These have all led to the discovery of new materials and technologies. The first Department of Materials Science was established in 1958.

With the help of materials science, we can develop materials that can make the technologies we use in our everyday lives easier and better. Interestingly, the global market for materials is 3.5 trillion euros a year.

Aware of this, and at the end of its history, let us finally turn to what material science is and what we can do with it. Material science is nothing but a branch of the physical sciences. The primary purpose of which is to characterize known materials or to know how to create new materials, and to develop tests and measurement methods, and theories for these purposes. The so-called interdisciplinary field of science, which combines various topics, is closely related to disciplines such as nanotechnology, thermodynamics and, last but not least, atomic and molecular physics. As a result, its subject matter is wide.

Continuing, let’s take a look at what topics it has. First of all, the structure of the material can be included here, which is embedded in other topics, as well as the atomic scale, nanostructure, and microstructure and crystallology. Another interesting topic is physical characterization, which includes electrical and optical characterization as well as thermodynamics and equilibrium.

According to them, the characterization of any material falls within its scope, but in practice we mainly mean the characterization and testing of solids. In materials science, four main aspects are used in the characterization of matter, which are related to each other and follow each other in a meaningful way. These are by name, material structure, material properties, production, and material quality. Thus, solids generally mean the arrangement of the building blocks of the materials. These can be interpreted on different size scales, as clearly as the order of the structure may be different depending on the scale. For example, structure is characterized by how elements are arranged on an atomic scale and what chemical bonds they form with each other.

As can be seen, the structure of matter is studied at different levels, atomic structure, which deals with the atoms of substances, their molecules, and the arrangement of crystals. Much of the electrical, magnetic, and chemical properties of materials can be interpreted from this level of structure. The atomic structure even includes bonding and crystallography. Bonding is the process of bonding the surface of solids using an adhesive, which are precious metal materials that bond the surface of solids with adhesion and their own strength (cohesion) without substantially altering the structural structure of the bonded materials. The other process mentioned is crystallography, or crystal drawing, which examines the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids.

With these in mind, let’s talk about what this whole material science is all about. What materials scientists are studying. So, materials scientists look at how materials perform and why they fail. Clearly, by understanding the structure of matter and inventing the atomic scale to the millimeter scale, new ways are being found to combine chemical elements with substances with unprecedented functional properties.

Materials science has had enormous consequences in science. For example, a smartphone today, if built in the 1980s, would cost $ 110 million and would require nearly 200 kilowatts of power, needed for today’s 2 kilowatts, and the device itself would be 14 meters high. This is due in any way to the evolution of materials. Thus, nowadays this device is present in the pockets of more than 3.5 million people today. But in the future, too many of these materials' science will be at the center of countless breakthroughs. Just to name a few in the areas of future cities, transit, and medicine. Also, materials scientists are moving forward with research into nanotechnology and biomaterials.

As a final thought, there were plenty of opportunities with the discovery of materials science, which isn’t really a discovery, but came by itself with the help of logic, if that weren’t likely to still be at the level where it all started.