History of materials science

The History of materials science is rooted in the history of the Earth and the culture of the peoples of the Earth.

Wood, bone, stone, and earth are some of the materials which were studied and known intimately from time immemorial. The monumental structures of the Roman empire, for example, were made possible by the character of the land; a volcanic peninsula, with stone aggregates and conglomerates containing crystalline material, is, by its nature, going to produce material which weathers differently from soft, sedimentary rock and silt. That is one of the reasons that the concrete Pantheon of Rome could last for 1850 years, and that the thatched farmhouses of Holland sketched by Rembrandt have long since decayed.

After the thighbone daggers of the early hunter-gatherers were superseded by wood and stone axes, and then by copper, bronze and iron implements of the Roman civilization, more precious materials could then be sought, and gathered together. Thus the medieval goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini could seek and defend the gold which he had to turn into objects of desire for dukes and popes. His autobiography contains one of the first descriptions of a metallurgical process.

Galileo's Two New Sciences (strength of materials and kinematics) includes the first quantitative statements in the science.

References

• Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) Autobiography.
• Galileo, 1638 Two New Sciences. Leiden: Louis Elsevier.