Stuff Matters

“As I stood on a train bleeding from what would later be classified as a thirteen-centimeter stab wound, I wondered what to do.” That’s the opening sentence of the introduction in Stuff Matters, a book by materials science professor Mark Miodownik. In the police station, he found himself staring at the razor blade that his assailant had used, because he was interested in its steel edge may, perhaps portending his future profession. So yes, this is a book about materials, and not about hoarding. And Miodownik is a very engaging writer! (I also really like the title of his book because the opening question in my introductory chemistry classes every year is "What is Matter and Why Does it Matter?")

The book is subtitled “exploring the marvelous materials that shape our man-made world”. Ten chapters will cover ten common materials or substances, but he makes them so much more interesting. I don’t think I will look at concrete in the same way again. To truly savor his book I have decided to limit myself to just reading one chapter a day. I’ve now read the first three chapters which covered steel, paper and concrete. They are titled Indomitable, Trusted, and Fundamental, respectively.

Even though I was quite familiar with the material (pun intended) discussed in his first chapter on steel, Miodownik is a marvelous story-teller. The chapter opens with “I had never been asked to sign a non-disclosure statement in the bathroom of a pub before.” I won’t give away the story, only to say that I learned why top-quality samurai swords were unmatched for centuries, and that he circles back to razor blades, an entrepreneur named King Camp Gilette, and the Bessemer process.

The third chapter on concrete comes to life with his almost daily witnessing the construction of the Shard in London. However, he interposes his experience with historical vignettes starting with the Romans. Apparently the Pantheon is the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, still standing 2000 years later. Even more interesting was that for a thousand years after the Romans, no one else was making concrete structures. One fascinating speculation is that concrete being “industrial in nature needed an industrial empire to support it.” Miodownik doesn’t elaborate on that one, but provides another more salient possibility: “Or perhaps it was lost because Roman concrete, good as it was, did have one crucial flaw, a flaw that the Romans knew all about but could not solve.” The problem it turns out is that in a compression situation, “concrete remains strong even when cracks form.” However, in other situations, cracks severely compromise the entire edifice. Who discovered steel-reinforced concrete? A Parisian gardener. (Read Miodownik’s book to learn more!)

So far the second chapter on paper was the one I found most fascinating. Miodownik explains the different processes involved in manufacturing paper. I did not know that chalk dust (good old CaCO₃) was sometimes used to whiten the paper, nor that carefully laid chemical coatings were needed to prevent ink from “being sucked too far into the cellulose mesh, which is what causes ink to bleed.” The aging process of paper results in the release of volatile organics (giving that old book smell), but more interestingly, librarians are interested in the chemistry because it might lead to a technique that helps to “monitor and preserve large collections of books”. I found fascinating the operation of thermal paper and printing. This inkless method nevertheless results fading because of how the pigments fade. I had never thought about how electronic ink worked until Miodownik explained how electrostatic particles are used, which then explains why changing the text requires a short lag time. The switching back and form gives the particles an apt name – Janus particles.

My appetite is whetted to learn more about materials and substances. I’m looking forward to chapter 4, appropriately titled Delicious because it is about chocolate!