The New Science of Strong Materials: Or Why You Don't Fall Through the Floor - Softcover

Gordon, J E

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140135979 ISBN 13: 9780140135978

Publisher: Penguin, 1991

Synopsis

Why isn't wood weaker that it is? Why isn't steel stronger? Why does glass sometimes shatter and sometimes bend like spring? Why do ships break in half? What is a liquid and is treacle one? All these are questions about the nature of materials. All of them are vital to engineers but also fascinating as scientific problems. During the 250 years up to the 1920s and 1930s they had been answered largely by seeing how materials behaved in practice. But materials continued to do things that they "ought" not to have done. Only in the last 40 years have these questions begun to be answered by a new approach. Material scientists have started to look more deeply into the make-up of materials. They have found many surprises; above all, perhaps, that how a material behaves depends on how perfectly—or imperfectly—its atoms are arranged. Using both SI and imperial units, Professor Gordon's account of material science is a demonstration of the sometimes curious and entertaining ways in which scientists isolate and solve problems.

About this title

About the Author

J E Gordon took a degree in naval architecture at Glasgow University and worked in wood and steel shipyards. On the outbreak of World War II he moved to the Royal Aircraft Establishment. He later became head of the plastic structures sections and developed a method of construction in reinforced plastics which is now used for a number of purpose in aircraft and rockets. For several frustrating years he worked in industry on the strength of glass and the growth of strong "whisker" crystals. In 1962 he returned to government service as superintendent of an experimental branch at Waltham Abbey concerned with research and development of entirely new structural materials. He was Industrial Fellow Commoner at Churchill College, Cambridge, and became Professor of Materials Technology at the University of Reading, where he was later Professor Emeritus. He was awarded the British Silver Medal of the Royal Aeronautical Society for work on aircraft plastics and also the Griffith Medal of the Materials Science Club for contributions to material science. He is the author of Structures or Why Things Don't Fall Down. Professor Gordon died in 1998.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140135979
• ISBN 13: 9780140135978
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 288