The Structure of Materials, the Catholic Way

Our text looks at one aspect of our field, the structure of materials, and attempts to define it and present it in a generic, "materials catholic" way. With this introductory note the authors of The Structure of Materials point to the methodology they chose in this textbook. Structure is perhaps the single most important determinant of a materials property, and is deserving of an integrated textbook. In the traditional approach various types of materials, e.g., ceramics, metals or polymers, are treated separately. Recognizing that there is a substantial amount of overlap in the description of the structure for such material classes, the authors adopted the more generic approach developing structural descriptors for the various states of condensed matter. This is certainly reflective of modern thought in materials research and development.