Made to measure : new materials for the 21st century / Philip Ball.

Made to Measure introduces a general audience to one of today's most exciting areas of scientific research: materials science. Philip Ball describes how scientists are currently inventing thousands of new materials, ranging from synthetic skin, blood, and bone to substances that repair themselves and adapt to their environment, that swell and flex like muscles, that repel any ink or paint, and that capture and store the energy of the Sun. He shows how all this is being accomplished precisely because, for the first time in history, materials are being "made to measure": designed for particular applications, rather than discovered in nature or by haphazard experimentation.

Now scientists literally put new materials together on the drawing board in the same way that a blueprint is specified for a house or an electronic circuit. But the designers are working not with skylights and alcoves, not with transistors and capacitors, but with molecules and atoms.

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [1997], ©1997.

458 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm

The art of making -- Light talk : photonic materials -- Total recall : materials for information storage -- Clever stuff : smart materials -- Only natural : biomaterials -- Spare parts : biomedical materials -- Full power : materials for clean energy -- Tunnel vision : porous materials -- Hard work : diamond and hard materials -- Chain reactions : the new polymers -- Face value : surfaces and interfaces.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [429]-444) and index.