The study of materials and their properties -- their strength, optical and electrical properties, for example -- forms a major and heavily funded area of research which supports both innovation and technology. Using modern scientific techniques, material scientists can explore and manipulate materials even at the atomic level, and can create new materials with remarkable properties, for example the way the reflect and refract light, their hardness combined withflexibility, their ability to store digital data, to respond to their environment, and to be scaffolds for the growth of new biological tissue. In this Very Short Introduction Christopher Hall begins with some familiar examples -- gold, sand, and string, representing the big families of metals, ceramics, and polymers -- and considers the properties, the making of materials, and the processes involved in their fabrication into objects, to show how materials science brings together engineering and technology with physics, chemistry, and biology. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.