The need to know

Much of the world's wealth is the product of manufacturing industry. Even in instances where a valuable commodity is not specifically shaped into a manufactured product, as, for example, oil, minerals, diamonds or gold, nevertheless elements of engineering thought go into their processing and final presentation to a customer. However, the vast majority of manufactured goods represent the fruits of teamwork in industry, involving activity by planners as well as by machine operators. The artifacts with which we are all surrounded have been manufactured industrially on the basis of ideas from a variety of people. Being made of materials of one kind or another, it follows that the materials must have been selected by somebody. One purpose of this book is to help that somebody, be he a designer, a practising engineer, a student or whoever, to become more aware of the world of materials technology with which he has to be concerned.

In the twentieth century, no man can be an expert on all those aspects of a saleable article. Even though a craftsman whittling a wooden object may have a deep knowledge of the characteristics of wood as it responds to a sharpened carving tool, he will probably know little of the complex chemistry and biology of the material on which he is working.