‘I stayed up all night reading this book’ Oliver Sacks — What is the secret life of the materials that make up our world? Mark Miodownik’s Stuff Matters — winner of the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books — sets out to answer that question with wit, expertise and contagious wonder. From the humble paper clip to the jet engine, from ancient ceramics and woven textiles to self-healing metals and bionic implants, Miodownik takes the fabric of everyday existence apart and reassembles it as something astonishing. Each chapter peels back the surface of a familiar material to expose the millennia of craft, ingenuity and engineering that brought it into being. ‘Enthralling. A mission to re-acquaint us with the wonders of the fabric that sustains our lives’ Guardian ‘Insightful, fascinating. The futuristic materials will elicit gasps. Makes even the most everyday substance seem exciting’ Sunday Times ‘A certain sort of madness may be necessary to pull off what he has attempted here, which is a wholesale animation of the inanimate: Miodownik achieves precisely what he sets out to’ The Times ‘Wonderful. Miodownik writes well enough to make even concrete sparkle’ Financial Times ‘Expert, deftly written, immensely enjoyable’ Observer Mark Miodownik is Professor of Materials and Society at UCL, Director of the UCL Institute of Making — home to one of the most extraordinary materials libraries on earth — and scientist-in-residence on Dara O Briain’s Science Club (BBC2). He has presented several documentaries including The Genius of Invention (BBC2), delivered the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures broadcast on BBC4 in 2010, and collaborated on interactive projects with institutions including Tate Modern, the Hayward Gallery and the Wellcome Collection.
ISBN 13: 9780241955185
Author: Mark Miodownik
