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Unit 7
Everything is made of something. Take away concrete, glass, textiles, metal, and the other materials from our lives and we are left naked, shivering in a muddy field. The sophistication of our lives is in a large part best owed by material wealth, we would quickly revert to animal behavior without the stuff of our civilization: What makes us human is our clothes, our homes, our cities, our things, which we animate through our customs and language. This becomes very apparent if you ever visit a disaster zone. Thus, the material world is not just a display of our technology and culture, it is part of us, we invented it, we made it and it makes us who we are.
【一切都是由某物构成的。如果把混凝土、玻璃、纺织品、金属和其他材料从我们的生活中拿走，我们就会赤身裸体，在泥泞的田野里瑟瑟发抖。 我们生活的复杂性在很大程度上是由物质财富赋予的，如果没有文明的东西，我们很快就会回归动物行为：使我们成为人类的是我们的衣服、我们的家、我们的城市、我们的东西，我们通过它们赋予生命 我们的习俗和语言。 如果您曾经访问过灾区，这一点就会变得非常明显。 因此，物质世界不仅仅是我们技术和文化的展示，它是我们的一部分，我们发明了它，我们制造了它，它造就了我们。】
The fundamental importance of materials is made clear from the naming of ages of civilizations - the stone, iron and bronze ages - with each new era being brought about by a new material. Iron and steel were the defining materials of the Victorian（维多利亚） era, allowing engineers to give full rein to their dreams of creating suspension bridges, railways, steam engines and passenger liners. Isambard Kingdom Bruna（伊桑巴德·金德姆·布鲁恩） used them as a manifest to transform the landscape and sow the seeds of modernism. The 20th century is often hailed as the age of silicon, after the break through in materials science that ushered（迎来了）in the silicon chip and the information revolution. Yet a kaleidoscope（万花筒） of other new materials also revolutionized modern living. Architects took mass-produced sheet glass and combined it with structural steel to produce skyscrapers that invented a new type of city life. Plastics transformed our homes and dress. Polymers（聚合物） were used to produce celluloid（赛璐珞） and ushered in a new visual culture, the cinema. The development of aluminum alloys and nickel superalloys enabled us to fly cheaply and accelerated the collision（碰撞）of cultures. Medical and dental ceramics allowed us to rebuild ourselves and redefine disability and ageing - and as the term "plastic surgery, implies, materials are often the key to new treatments used to repair our faculties (hip replacements) or enhance our features (silicone implants for breast enlargement)
【材料的根本重要性从文明时代的命名——石器时代、铁器时代和青铜时代——中就可以清楚地看出，每个新时代都是由一种新材料带来的。 钢铁是维多利亚时代的决定性材料，使工程师能够充分实现他们建造吊桥、铁路、蒸汽机和客轮的梦想。 伊桑巴德·金德姆·布鲁恩（Isambard Kingdom Bruna）将它们作为改变景观并播下现代主义种子的宣言。 20 世纪经常被誉为硅时代，材料科学的突破带来了硅芯片和信息革命。 然而，其他新材料的万花筒也彻底改变了现代生活。 建筑师采用大规模生产的平板玻璃，并将其与钢结构结合起来，建造出摩天大楼，创造了一种新型的城市生活。 塑料改变了我们的房屋和服装。 聚合物被用来生产赛璐珞并开创了一种新的视觉文化——电影。 铝合金和镍高温合金的发展使我们能够廉价飞行，也加速了文化的碰撞。 医疗和牙科陶瓷使我们能够重建自己并重新定义残疾和衰老——正如“整形手术”一词所暗示的那样，材料往往是用于修复我们的能力（髋关节置换术）或增强我们的功能（用于修复我们的功能的硅胶植入物）的新疗法的关键。乳房增大）】
My obsession with materials started as a teenager, I was puzzled by their obscurity, despite being all around us. How many people can spot the difference between aluminum and steel? Woods are clearly different from one another, but how many people can say why? Plastics are confusing; who knows the difference between polythene（聚乙烯）and polypropylene（聚丙烯）? Eventually I enrolled in a degree at Oxford University's material science department, went on to do a PhD in jet engine alloy sand am now professor of materials and society and director of the Institute of Making at University College London. On my journey I have found a hidden world of makers who create the stuff on which we all rely, from aircraft manufacturers to clothing makers. Materials are at the heart of every company I visit and it is hard not to conclude that although Google and Twitter may dominate technology headlines, and cosmologists may be most popular with the media, materials transformation is still what makes the world go around.
【我对材料的痴迷始于青少年时期，尽管它们就在我们身边，但我对它们的默默无闻感到困惑。 有多少人能看出铝和钢的区别？ 伍兹显然与其他人不同，但有多少人能说出原因呢？ 塑料令人困惑； 谁知道“聚乙烯”和“聚丙烯”之间的区别？最终我在牛津大学材料科学系攻读学位，继续攻读喷气发动机合金砂博士学位，现在是材料与社会学教授和制造研究所所长 伦敦大学学院。在我的旅程中，我发现了一个隐藏的制造商世界，他们创造了我们所有人所依赖的东西，从飞机制造商到服装制造商。材料是我参观的每家公司的核心，很难不得出这样的结论： 尽管谷歌和推特可能占据科技头条新闻，宇宙学家可能最受媒体欢迎，但材料转变仍然是世界运转的动力。】
Starting next week in a new series of columns for Observer Tech Monthly I am going to tell the story of stuff. Each month I will pick a different material and uncover the human needs and desires that brought it into being, and decode the materials science and engineering behind it. Along the way, we will find that the real differences between materials are deep below the surface, a world that is shut off from most unless they have access to sophisticated scientific equipment. So, to understand materiality is necessarily a journey into the inner space of materials. Pretty much the whole of materials science is concerned with the microscopic worlds. Doing so explains why some materials smell and others are odorless（无味）; why some can last for 1000 years and others crumble（崩溃）in the sun; how some glass can be bulletproof, while a wine glass shatters at slightest impact. The journey into this microscopic world reveals the science behind our food, our clothes, our gadgets, our jewelry, and of course our bodies.
【从下周开始，我将在观察者科技月刊的一系列新专栏中讲述一些东西的故事。 每个月我都会选择一种不同的材料，揭示其产生的人类需求和欲望，并解读其背后的材料科学和工程。 一路走来，我们会发现材料之间的真正差异深藏在表面之下，除非他们能够使用先进的科学设备，否则大多数人都无法接触到这个世界。 因此，理解物质性必然是进入材料内部空间的旅程。 几乎整个材料科学都与微观世界有关。 这样做可以解释为什么有些材料有气味，而另一些则无味； 为什么有些可以持续 1000 年，而另一些则在阳光下崩溃； 有些玻璃杯可以防弹，而酒杯却会在轻微的撞击下破碎。进入这个微观世界的旅程揭示了我们的食物、我们的衣服、我们的小玩意、我们的小玩意、我们的珠宝，当然还有我们的身体背后的科学。】
Take for example, a piece of thread, which exists at the same scale as hair. It is a synthetic structure at the limit of our eyesight that has allowed us to make ropes blankets, carpets, but most importantly, clothes. Textiles are one of the earliest synthetic materials; when we wear a pair of jeans, we are wearing a miniature woven structure, the design of which is older than Stonehenge. Clothes have kept us warm and protected for all of recorded history, as well as keeping us fashionable. But they are hi-tech too. In the 20th century we learnt how to make space suits from textile strong enough to protect astronauts on the moon as well as solid textiles for artificial limbs called carbon fiber composites.
【以一根线为例，它的大小与头发相同。 它是一种在我们视力极限下的合成结构，使我们能够制作绳索、毯子、地毯，但最重要的是，可以制作衣服。 纺织品是最早的合成材料之一； 当我们穿着牛仔裤时，我们穿着的是微型编织结构，其设计比巨石阵还要古老。 自古以来，衣服一直让我们保持温暖和受到保护，同时也让我们保持时尚。 但它们也是高科技的。在 20 世纪，我们学会了如何使用强度足以保护月球上宇航员的织物制作太空服，以及用于假肢的固体织物（称为碳纤维复合材料）。】
But there is more to materials than the science. Those who make things all have a different understanding of the practical, emotional and sensual aspect of their materials. For instance, we know the sounds of the doors in our houses, and can distinguish between someone leaving or entering from the subtle differences in keys rattling（嘎嘎声）and hinges creaking. As a child I could always tell whether it was my mother or my father coming up the stairs, from the subtle differences in the sound of the creaky stairs. These acoustic personalities of buildings are often overlooked during the design process. Carpet makes a room feel warmer but also changes the acoustic signature of the room. The clickity-clack of high heels and the party they announce are muted; the squeak of rubber tennis soles and the sport they anticipate is banished; the comforting solid thump of sensible shoes on their way to work is no longer proclaimed. Installing carpet is a kind of auditory gag, which may of course be used intentionally for that purpose such as when designers want to create a sense of intimacy and calm. It is this diversity of material knowledge that I intend to capture in these columns.
【但材料不仅仅只是科学。那些制作东西的人对其材料的实用性、情感性和感性方面都有不同的理解。 例如，我们知道房屋门的声音，并且可以通过钥匙嘎嘎声和铰链吱吱声的细微差别来区分有人离开或进入。 小时候，我总能从楼梯吱吱作响的声音的细微差别中辨别出上楼梯的是我的母亲还是我的父亲。 在设计过程中，建筑物的这些声学特性常常被忽视。 地毯使房间感觉更温暖，但也会改变房间的声学特征。 高跟鞋的咔哒声和它们宣布的派对都安静了； 橡胶网球鞋底的吱吱声和他们所期待的运动都消失了；上班路上穿着实用的鞋子发出的令人舒适的踏实声响不再被宣扬。安装地毯是一种听觉上的恶作剧，当然可以故意用于此目的，例如当设计师想要营造一种亲密和平静的感觉时。 我打算在这些专栏中捕捉到这种材料知识的多样性。】
Because materials are built from atoms, we cannot avoid talking about the rules that govern them, which are described by quantum mechanics. This means that as we enter the atomic world, we must abandon common sense, and talk instead of waved functions and electron states. More materials are being designed from scratch at this scale, and can perform seemingly impossible tasks. Silicon chips designed using quantum mechanics have already brought about the information age. Silicon is now changing the way we light our homes (light emitting diodes) and harvest energy from the sun (solar cells).
【由于材料是由原子构成的，因此我们无法避免谈论量子力学所描述的控制它们的规则。 这意味着，当我们进入原子世界时，我们必须放弃常识，用谈论代替波函数和电子态。 更多的材料正在以这种规模从头开始设计，并且可以执行看似不可能的任务。 利用量子力学设计的硅芯片已经带来了信息时代。硅现在正在改变我们照亮房屋（发光二极管）和从太阳获取能量（太阳能电池）的方式。】
The central idea behind materials science is that changes at invisibly small scales manifest themselves as changes in a material's behavior at the human scale. It is this process that our ancestors stumbled upon to make bronze and steel, even though they did not have the microscopes to see what they were doing - an amazing achievement. When you hit a piece of metal you are not just changing its shape, you are changing the inner structure of the metal, which is why metals get harder when you hit them. Our ancestors knew this from experience but didn't know why. Nevertheless, this gradual accumulation of knowledge got us to the 20th century before any real appreciation of the structure of materials was understood. In these columns I will be championing this skill of making. This is not just because it is the hallmark of human civilization but because the deindustrialization of the developed world has devalued making.
【材料科学背后的中心思想是，看不见的小尺度的变化表现为人类尺度上材料行为的变化。 我们的祖先偶然发现了这个过程来制造青铜和钢铁，尽管他们没有显微镜来观察他们在做什么——这是一项惊人的成就。当您击打一块金属时，您不仅会改变其形状，还会改变金属的内部结构，这就是为什么金属在击打时会变得更硬。 我们的祖先从经验中知道这一点，但不知道为什么。 然而，这种知识的逐渐积累让我们进入了 20 世纪，当时人们还没有真正理解材料的结构。在这些专栏中，我将倡导这种制作技巧。 这不仅因为它是人类文明的标志，而且因为发达国家的去工业化已经贬低了制造的价值。】
Making is not just an economic activity, it is the equal of literature, performance or mathematics as a form of human expression. By eschewing material knowledge, we cease to understand the world around us. We wring our hands about climate change or urban sprawl（城市扩张）without any recognition that our ignorance of materiality might be the cause. We feel proud of the technological marvel that is a smartphone, and yet we upgrade - ditch one for a newer model - at the first opportunity. We may assuage our conscience by hoping that they are recycled with some technology equal in sophistication to their fabrication techniques but they are not; most are disposed of in industrial blenders.
【制作不仅仅是一种经济活动，它与文学、表演或数学一样，是人类表达的一种形式。 通过回避物质知识，我们将无法理解周围的世界。 我们对气候变化或城市扩张感到束手无策，却没有意识到我们对物质性的无知可能是原因。 我们为智能手机这一技术奇迹感到自豪，但我们会一有机会就进行升级——放弃智能手机，换上更新的型号。 我们可能会安抚自己的良心，希望它们能通过某种与制造技术同等复杂的技术进行回收，但事实并非如此； 大多数都被丢弃在工业搅拌机中。】
The ages of civilization are named after materials precisely because they transformed and shaped society. By distancing ourselves from the act of making, by buying and consuming stuff but never having any experience of their manufacture, the developed world finds itself not to be the illiterate society that education ministers fear, but an unmaker society. In my view this practical ignorance is every bit as dangerous to a modern democracy as a lack of literacy. By swopping a material and industrial understanding of the world for one based on facts and information, we find ourselves uncivilized in a different way.
【文明时代以物质命名，正是因为它们改变和塑造了社会。 通过远离制造行为，通过购买和消费物品但从未获得任何制造经验，发达国家发现自己不是教育部长担心的文盲社会，而是一个无法制造的社会。 在我看来，这种实际的无知对于现代民主制度来说与缺乏识字能力一样危险。 通过将对世界的物质和工业理解转变为基于事实和信息的理解，我们发现自己以一种不同的方式不文明。】
This series of columns won't be an exhaustive survey of materials, nor a catalogue of the most important ones. But I will aim to capture the fabric of our lives through materiality. After all, everything is made of something.
【本系列专栏不会对材料进行详尽的调查，也不会列出最重要的材料的目录。 但我的目标是通过物质来捕捉我们生活的结构。 毕竟，一切都是由某种东西构成的。】
思考题：According to Mark Miodownik, cite material world has become part of humanity: “we invented it, we made it and it makes us who we are.” Please illustrate how the evolution of materials comes to influence your experience in either academy pursuit, person a development, or other daily business.
【马克·米奥多尼克 (Mark Miodownik) 表示，物质世界已成为人类的一部分：“我们发明了它，我们制造了它，它造就了我们。” 请说明材料的演变如何影响您在学术追求、个人发展或其他日常业务中的体验。】
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