Author: Ken Geiser Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 9780262262811 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 502
Book Description
The products we purchase and use are assembled from a wide range of naturally occurring and manufactured materials. But too often we create hazards for the ecosystem and human health as we mine, process, distribute, use, and dispose of these materials. Until recently, most research has focused on the waste end of material cycles. This book argues that the safest and least costly point at which to avoid environmental damage is when materials are first designed and selected for use in industrial production. Materials Matter presents convincing evidence that we can use fewer materials and eliminate the use of many toxic chemicals by focusing directly on material (chemical) use when products are designed. It also shows how manufacturers can save money by increasing the effectiveness of material use and reducing the use of toxic chemicals. It advocates new directions for the material sciences and government policies on materials. And it argues that manufacturers, suppliers, and customers need to set more socially responsible policies for products and services to achieve higher environmental and health goals.
Author: Seetal Solanki Publisher: National Geographic Books ISBN: 3791384716 Category : Design Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
This visually stunning investigation of natural and man-made materials will change the way you look at the world around you, while offering hope for the future of our planet. What does it mean to live in a material world, and how do materials of the past and present hold the keys to our future? This book tackles these questions by focusing on various issues that human beings face and by discussing potential materials-related solutions. Through the lens of intriguing projects by designers, artists, makers, and scientists, it presents a colorful panoply of ideas, technologies, and creative efforts that focus on the earth's most basic elements, while also showing how these elements can be transformed into entirely new materials. It explores, for example, how ancient practices such as dyeing fabric and making glue may hold the secret to renewable and earth-friendly consumer products, as well as how recycling plastics can tackle food waste, and how a type of light metal being developed may one day make air travel less fuel-reliant. This book also investigates the potential of the digital experience, suggesting how this most ephemeral type of matter can be used to improve our world. Eye-catching and provocative, Why Materials Matter serves as both a stimulating catalog of possibilities and a timely manifesto on how to consume, manufacture, and design for a better future.
Author: Graeme Were Publisher: Berghahn Books ISBN: 1805393871 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 311
Book Description
How does design and innovation shape people’s lives in the Pacific? Focusing on plant materials from the region, How Materials Matter reveals ways in which a variety of people – from craftswomen and scientists to architects and politicians – work with materials to transform worlds. Recognizing the fragile and ephemeral nature of plant fibres, this work delves into how the biophysical properties of certain leaves and their aesthetic appearance are utilized to communicate information and manage different forms of relations. It breaks new ground by situating plant materials at the centre of innovation in a region.
Author: Daniel Miller Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 9780226526003 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 264
Book Description
The field of material culture, while historically well established, has recently enjoyed something of a renaissance. Methods once dominated by Marxist- and commodity-oriented analyses and by the study of objects as symbols are giving way to a more ethnographic approach to artifacts. This orientation is the cornerstone of the essays presented in Material Cultures. A collection of case studies which move from the domestic sphere to the global arena, the volume includes examinations of the soundscape produced by home radios, catalog shopping, the role of paper in the workplace, and the relationship between the production and consumption of Coca-Cola in Trinidad. The diversity of the essays is mediated by their common commitment to ethnography with a material focus. Rather than examine objects as mirages of media or language, Material Cultures emphasizes how the study of objects not only contributes to an understanding of artifacts but is also an effective means for studying social values and contradictions.
Author: Kathleen Stock Publisher: Fleet ISBN: 9780349726625 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
'A clear, concise, easy-to-read account of the issues between sex, gender and feminism . . . an important book' Evening Standard 'A call for cool heads at a time of great heat and a vital reminder that revolutions don't always end well' Sunday Times Material Girls is a timely and trenchant critique of the influential theory that we all have an inner feeling known as a gender identity, and that this feeling is more socially significant than our biological sex. Professor Kathleen Stock surveys the philosophical ideas that led to this point, and closely interrogates each one, from De Beauvoir's statement that, 'One is not born, but rather becomes a woman' (an assertion she contends has been misinterpreted and repurposed), to Judith Butler's claim that language creates biological reality, rather than describing it. She looks at biological sex in a range of important contexts, including women-only spaces and resources, healthcare, epidemiology, political organization and data collection. Material Girls makes a clear, humane and feminist case for our retaining the ability to discuss reality, and concludes with a positive vision for the future, in which trans rights activists and feminists can collaborate to achieve some of their political aims.
Author: Matthew Seibert Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000404633 Category : Architecture Languages : en Pages : 379
Book Description
Atlas of Material Worlds is a highly designed narrative atlas illustrating the agency of nonliving materials with unique, ubiquitous, and often hidden influence on our daily lives. Employing new materialism as a jumping-off point, it examines the increasingly blurry lines between the organic and inorganic, engaging the following questions: What roles do nonliving materials play? Might a closer examination of those roles reveal an undeniable agency we have long overlooked or disregarded? If so, does this material agency change our understanding of the social structures, ecologies, economies, cosmologies, technologies, and landscapes that surround us? And, perhaps most importantly, why does material agency matter? This is the story of the world’s driest nonpolar desert, pink flamingos, and cerulean blue lithium ponds; industrial shipping logistics, pudding-like jiggling substrates, and monuments of mud; galactic bodies, radioactive sheep, and the yellowcake of uranium. Put simply, this book dares readers to see the world anew, from material up. Atlas of Material Worlds offers this new relationship to our host environment in a time of mounting crises—accelerating climate change, ballooning socioeconomic inequality, and rising toxic nationalism—uniquely telling materialist stories for practitioners and students in landscape, architecture, and other built environment disciplines.
Author: Graeme Were Publisher: Berghahn Books ISBN: 1789202027 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
How does design and innovation shape people’s lives in the Pacific? Focusing on plant materials from the region, How Materials Matter reveals ways in which a variety of people – from craftswomen and scientists to architects and politicians – work with materials to transform worlds. Recognizing the fragile and ephemeral nature of plant fibres, this work delves into how the biophysical properties of certain leaves and their aesthetic appearance are utilized to communicate information and manage different forms of relations. It breaks new ground by situating plant materials at the centre of innovation in a region.
Author: Werner Martienssen Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3540304371 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 1143
Book Description
Springer Handbook of Condensed Matter and Materials Data provides a concise compilation of data and functional relationships from the fields of solid-state physics and materials in this 1200 page volume. The data, encapsulated in 914 tables and 1025 illustrations, have been selected and extracted primarily from the extensive high-quality data collection Landolt-Börnstein and also from other systematic data sources and recent publications of physical and technical property data. Many chapters are authored by Landolt-Börnstein editors, including the prominent Springer Handbook editors, W. Martienssen and H. Warlimont themselves. The Handbook is designed to be useful as a desktop reference for fast and easy retrieval of essential and reliable data in the lab or office. References to more extensive data sources are also provided in the book and by interlinking to the relevant sources on the enclosed CD-ROM. Physicists, chemists and engineers engaged in fields of solid-state sciences and materials technologies in research, development and application will appreciate the ready access to the key information coherently organized within this wide-ranging Handbook. From the reviews: "...this is the most complete compilation I have ever seen... When I received the book, I immediately searched for data I never found elsewhere..., and I found them rapidly... No doubt that this book will soon be in every library and on the desk of most solid state scientists and engineers. It will never be at rest." -Physicalia Magazine
Author: M. M. Woolfson Publisher: World Scientific ISBN: 1848164610 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 327
Book Description
This book traces the history of ideas about the nature of matter and also the way that mankind has used material resources that the world offers. Starting with the ideas of ancient civilizations that air, earth, fire and water were the basic ingredients of all matter, it traces the development of the science of chemistry beginning within the ranks of the alchemists. First, the idea of elements grew and then the atomic nature of matter was verified. Physicists had entered the scene, showing the nature of atoms in terms of fundamental particles and then introducing the concept of wave-particle duality that altered the basic concepts of what matter was. Finally the physicists discovered a panoply of fundamental particles, some observed within atom-smashing machines and the existence of others merely postulated. In parallel with the above there is a description of various kinds of matter as it affects everyday life OCo including the nature of matter associated with life itself. The way that early man used the materials directly given by nature, such as stone, wood and animal skins, is followed by the use of materials requiring some process to be employed OCo e.g. metals which include bronze and also concrete. Some important modern materials are discussed, such as synthetic fibres and plastics and semiconductors, and potentially important future products from new developments in nanotechnology. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Introduction (35 KB). Contents: The Elements of Nature; Early Ideas of the Nature of Matter; The Quest for Gold and Eternal Life; The Beginning of Chemistry; Modern Chemistry is Born; Nineteenth Century Chemistry; Atoms Have Structure; Radioactivity and the Plum-Pudding Model; Some Early 20th Century Physics; What is a Nucleus Made of?; Electrons in Atoms; The New Mechanics; Electrons and Chemistry; Electron Spin and the Exclusion Principle; Isotopes; Radioactivity and More Particles; Making Atoms, Explosions and Power; Observing Matter on a Small Scale; Living Matter; Life at the Atomic Level; Materials from Ancient Times; Modern Materials; The Fantastic World of Particles; How Matter Began; Making Heavier Elements. Readership: Accessible to a wide audience including the educated layperson and undergraduates taking science as a subsidiary subject.
Author: Ken Geiser
Author: Seetal Solanki
Author: Graeme Were
Author: Daniel Miller
Author: Kathleen Stock
Author: Matthew Seibert
Author: Kate Franklin
Author: Graeme Were
Author: Werner Martienssen
Author: M. M. Woolfson