Stuff: The Materials the World Is Made Of.

Each year 15 billion tons of raw materials are transformed by the efforts of material scientists into useful "stuff." Sand becomes silicon becomes microelectric chips. Drilled petroleum becomes chemical feedstock becomes synthetic rubber becomes car tires, etc. This compelling book gives information and insights into how these things happen.

Ivan Amato, journalist and freelance science writer, begins his story about 2.5 million years ago, when hominid progenitors in the East Rift Valley of Africa first hit one stone against another to produce a sharp cutting edge, thereby turning raw stone into a more useful and empowering form. Humanity remained trapped in the Stone Age because we did not have the scientific knowledge to smelt iron from rocky ores. The Industrial Revolution was largely brought about because inventors figured out how to make great amounts of steel. Also at that time John Wesley Hyatt, a printer and mechanic, gave us the first commercially successful plastic - celluloid. (He was trying to find a substitute for billiard ball ivory, which was coming into short supply.)

These days the key to technological progress depends on the ability of material scientists to take apart and transfigure the physical stuff of nature into more desired materials. This book explains how artificial diamonds are made from peanut butter (both are made of carbon atoms) and how nanotechnologists are building machines no thicker than a few hundred atoms. Amato believes that America's future in the twenty-first century may depend on how far ahead we remain in the development of "smart" materials.

The author's enthusiasm for materials science leads him to not examine in detail some of the potential downsides of the field. For example, chlorofluorocarbons seemed quite useful as refrigerants and aerosol propellants but they have endangered the world by damaging the ozone layer. Amato does not really let us know how concerned the current generation of materials scientists are about such risks. However, we do learn, in many interviews with leading experts, about the latest theories and methods that will enable them "to understand, control and manipulate the material world." For many of these experts, who are more used to quietly developing their inventions in the laboratory, this book provides an opportunity to "strut their stuff."

ALL REVIEWS BY MARTIN H. LEVINSON, PH.D.