In this Very Short Introduction, Christopher Hall shows how material science combines physics, chemistry, and biology with engineering to understand and exploit materials and create new ones, often with extraordinary optical and electrical properties.

• 1: Gold, sand, and string


• 2: Close observation


• 3: Tough but slippery


• 4: Electric blue


• 5: Making stuff and making things


• 6: Such quantities of sand


• Further reading


• Index

Christopher Hall is Professor Emeritus and Professorial Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, where he was previously Professor of Materials. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.