Review: Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik

A nice exploration of the materials that make modern life possible. We take things like glass and stainless steel for granted now, but in reality, these are extraordinary technologies, and this book helps you appreciate that.

The main drawback to the book is that the various materials it covers, and the stories about them, are all fairly disconnected, so the information doesn’t stick particularly well. A few highlights stuck out for me, such as:

• How receipts work, especially those printed from tiny credit card machines. You’ve probably seen a cashier swap out the roll of printer paper in those machines, but have you ever seen them change the printer ink? No? Well, it turns out that’s because the ink is embedded in the paper itself! In its default state, the ink is not visible, and it’s only when the printer puts an electric charge through the ink that it becomes visible.

• How wondrous glass is. It’s completely see through, which allows us to have a wall that protects us from the elements and intruders, but still allows in light. It’s largely inert, so it’s the perfect material for chemical experiments, and brought about massive advances in the field of chemistry. It’s tasteless, and it was only when we developed the technology to create thin, glass containers that humans were finally able to drink out of something that didn’t affect the flavor of what we were drinking (before glasses, we drank out of metal, wood, or bone vessels that all have their on flavor).

• How far material science has come already, but how much further we have to go. In particular, while we are able to create amazing materials from a few atoms in size to many kilometers in size, we have not figured out how to have materials interact across those different scales. Biology, on the other hand, has been able to do this, and it’s one of the wonders that makes life possible: e.g., photos bounce off a lion and into your eye, are processed by tiny rods and cons in the retina, then converted to electrical signals processed by thousands of neurons, which then trigger a reaction in an organ, which releases adrenaline, which enters the blood stream, is absorbed by cells, and causes the¬†muscles in your body to pump harder as you run away. This is an extraordinary coordination across many different scales that is far beyond what our technology can do today. But maybe some day!

Other than that, I only remember tiny bits and pieces. There was a chapter on concrete; something about stainless steel; a discussion of paper; lots of talk about carbon, carbon fiber, and graphene; probably more. So, a fun read, but not particularly sticky.

Rating: 4 stars