Stuff Matters

Download or read book Stuff Matters written by Mark Miodownik and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening adventure deep inside the everyday materials that surround us, from concrete and steel to denim and chocolate, packed with surprising stories and fascinating science.

Download or read book Stuff Matters written by Mark Miodownik and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this New York Times Notable Book, "Mark Miodownik, a materials scientist, explains the history and science behind things such as paper, glass, chocolate, and concrete with an infectious enthusiasm."—Scientific American Winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books Why is glass see-through? What makes elastic stretchy? Why does any material look and behave the way it does? These are the sorts of questions that renowned materials scientist New York Times bestselling author Mark Miodownik constantly asks himself. Studying objects as ordinary as an envelope and as unexpected as concrete cloth, he uncovers the fascinating secrets that hold together our physical world. In Stuff Matters, Miodownik explores the materials he encounters in a typical morning, from the steel in his razor to the foam in his sneakers. Full of enthralling tales of the miracles of engineering that permeate our lives, his stories of analysis will make you see stuff in a whole new way. "Stuff Matters is about hidden wonders, the astonishing properties of materials we think boring, banal, and unworthy of attention...It's possible this science and these stories have been told elsewhere, but like the best chocolatiers, Miodownik gets the blend right."—The New York Times Book Review

Download or read book Stuff Matters written by Mark Miodownik and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-06-06 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * * * Winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books * * * FROM THE TEA-CUP TO THE JET ENGINE, STUFF MATTERS IS A UNIQUE, INSPIRING EXPLORATION OF HUMAN CREATIVITY. 'Enthralling. A mission to re-acquaint us with the wonders of the fabric that sustains our lives' Guardian 'I stayed up all night reading this book' Oliver Sacks ____________ Everything is made of something. The everyday objects: paper clips, the textiles that make your clothes and the cups you drink from. The extraordinary new materials: self-healing metals, silicon chips and bionic implants paving the future. Stuff Matters reveals the miracles of craft, design, engineering and ingenuity that surround us every day. From ancient technologies to those shaping our future, this is a book to inspire amazement and delight at mankind's material creativity. ____________ '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 'Insightful, fascinating. The futuristic materials will elicit gasps. Makes even the most everyday substance seem exciting' Sunday Times 'Wonderful. Miodownik writes well enough to make even concrete sparkle' Financial Times 'Expert, deftly written, immensely enjoyable' Observer

Download or read book Stuff written by Ivan Amato and published by . This book was released on 1997-04-17 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much more than a history of the material sciences, Stuff brims with interviews with cutting-edge experts in the field, many of whom are building new materials literally atom by atom, and describes such astounding achievements as artificial diamonds created from peanut butter and how nanotechnologists are building new-age, state-of-the-art machines no thicker than a few hundred atoms.

Download or read book Simple Matters written by Erin Boyle and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2016-01-12 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than a decluttering guide, this book “speaks to the heart and soul of the minimalist lifestyle . . . a must-have manual for serenity in the modern world!” (Anne Sage, author of Sage Living). For anyone looking to declutter, organize, and simplify, author Erin Boyle shares practical guidance and personal insights on small-space living and conscious consumption. At once pragmatic and philosophical, Simple Matters is an essential manual for anyone who wants to bring more purpose and sustainability to their daily lives. Boyle demonstrates how the benefits of “living small” are accessible to us all—whether we’re renting a tiny apartment or purchasing a three-story house. Filled with personal essays, projects, and helpful advice on how to be inventive and resourceful in a tight space, Simple Matters shows that living simply is about making do with less and ending up with more: more free time, more time with loved ones, more savings, and more things of beauty.

Download or read book Vibrant Matter written by Jane Bennett and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-04 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Vibrant Matter the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Toward that end, she theorizes a “vital materiality” that runs through and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. Bennett explores how political analyses of public events might change were we to acknowledge that agency always emerges as the effect of ad hoc configurations of human and nonhuman forces. She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events. Bennett examines the political and theoretical implications of vital materialism through extended discussions of commonplace things and physical phenomena including stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash. She reflects on the vital power of material formations such as landfills, which generate lively streams of chemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can transform brain chemistry and mood. Along the way, she engages with the concepts and claims of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Darwin, Adorno, and Deleuze, disclosing a long history of thinking about vibrant matter in Western philosophy, including attempts by Kant, Bergson, and the embryologist Hans Driesch to name the “vital force” inherent in material forms. Bennett concludes by sketching the contours of a “green materialist” ecophilosophy.

Download or read book Liquid written by Mark Miodownik and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BY THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING, PRIZE-WINNING STUFF MATTERS Sometimes explosive, often delightful, occasionally poisonous, but always fascinating: the secret lives of liquids, from one of our best-known scientists ________________ A series of glasses of transparent liquids is in front of you: but which will quench your thirst and which will kill you? And why? Why does one liquid make us drunk, and another power a jumbo jet? From the bestselling author of Stuff Matters comes a fascinating tour of these surprising or sinister substances - the droplets, heartbeats and ocean waves we all encounter every day. Structured around a plane journey, encountering water, wine, oil and more, Mark Miodownik shows that liquids are agents of death and destruction as well as substances of wonder and fascination. His unique brand of scientific storytelling brings them and their mysterious properties alive in a captivating new way. ________________ 'A truly delightful read' Jim Al-Khalili, author of Paradox 'An exhilarating, eye-opening ride' Philip Ball, science writer and author of H2O 'Exciting, anarchic and surprising' Katy Guest, The Guardian 'A thrilling read, from start to finish' Tim Radford, author of The Consolations of Physics