Stuff Matters: The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-made World

Imagine that everything around you — every material, building and object — was actually alive... This is the world of Stuff Matters, a place where you will meet concrete and metals that heal themselves, ceramics that become living bone, solids that look like sky — and where everything we have ever made, however normal and familiar, has its individual personality, a marvellous story to tell and a staggering history of scientific ingenuity. From the humble piece of string to the jet-engine and on into the future, Stuff Matters reveals a wonderful new world — and it's all around you.