Materials Science
Design and discovery of novel materials, especially solids, are at the heart of materials science, an interdisciplinary field that spans many other disciplines as well.Materials physics, which emphasizes the use of physics to describe material properties, and materials science and engineering, which focuses on the engineering aspects of building useful items, are both common names for the field. To make sense of ancient phenomenological observations in metallurgy and mineralogy, researchers in the Age of Enlightenment applied analytical thinking from chemistry, physics, and engineering.Materials scientists continue to draw on their backgrounds in physics, chemistry, and engineering to inform their work. Consequently, the field was traditionally viewed as a sub-field of these related fields by academic institutions.In the 1940s, materials science emerged as a distinct subfield of science and engineering, and leading technical institutions around the world established departments solely devoted to the study of the subject. The investigation of materials, products, structures, or components that fail or do not function as intended and cause personal injury or property damage is an important part of forensic engineering and failure analysis, which relies heavily on the knowledge and expertise of materials scientists.