Greatest Moments in Materials Science & Engineering

The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society is holding a vote, open through January 7th, to decide what the Greatest Materials Science & Engineering moments of all time are:

A Great Materials Moment is defined as a pivotal or capstone event of human observation and/or intervention that led to a paradigm shift in humanity's understanding of materials behavior, that introduced a new era of materials utilization, and/or that yielded significant materials-enabled socio-economic changes.

What makes a material? The definition goes like this: "Materials are everywhere!"

The list used to be 600 moments long. Now it's 100 and ranges from the earliest ceramics some 28,000 years ago to 1991 when Eli Yablonovich produced photonic crystals, the first step towards photonic transistors. I'm most intrigued by the seven meter high iron pillar in Delhi, India, that iron smiths forged in 400. The same pillar "defies deleterious environmental effects for more than one and a half millennia, creating an artifact of long-standing materials science and archaeological intrigue." Now that's a tall order.

In anycase. Take a look at the list. And vote for your favorites. And keep an eye out the winning moments 26 February 2007.

Comments

[The Pedant-General]

Buckminsterfullerene.

Has to be.

[Anthony Thornton]

The great iron pillar of India has been a
favorite of mine for many years. You see,
it's like this: "The pillar wrought iron
was mixed with an ancient element
referred to as the EMO (Eye Matrix Origin).
The EMO is the metal which was spoken about
in the ancient biblical text (Bible) by the
Semite prophet Ezekiel who referred to it as
having human-like eyes all over it's surface
(body). The metal absorbs solar-like heat
temperatures within it's internal composition.
Very little was known of the
EMO until recently...see www.yifii.com
Research is on-going at this stage and will
be for quite sometime. The author states
that it (India Iron Pillar) was mixed with
the element to give it it's anticorrosive
character. Don't plan to participate in
your contest just adding to the natue of
ancient lost (secret) artifacts...