In conclusion, the emergence of MSE was neither the outcome of the growth of academic disciplines nor a response to "man's needs". Materials science was created thanks to a close cooperation between different kinds of agents: governmental agencies and universities working together to outline a new interdisciplinary research field. Then, while on the academic stage MSE became a discipline with its own curricula, industrial companies took over in the 1970s and 1980s.With the reorientation of the field towards processing and performance, a conceptual framework emerged along with new strategies for designing materials.
This brief historical survey reveals two major characteristics of MSE.
From the outset, from x-ray diffraction to the AFM, instrumentation acted as a driving force. Not only instrumental techniques opened the way to microstructures and nanostructures, but also they helped create a scientific community. Whatever their different topics, aims and cultures, the users of instrumental facilities meeting in specific buildings embody materials science.
Industrial and academic researches are equally important. Materials scientists do not only present their results in publications but also in patents. They are equally active on the academic stage - writing articles, books and textbooks to promote the field in engineering - and on the industrial stage where they often hold positions in companies or start-ups.
The recent evolution of MSE suggests a booming field of researches moving in many different directions. The shift from the microscale to the nanoscale acted as a diverging rather than converging force. The field's coherence can no longer be secured through the leadership of physics and metallurgy. Although chemistry played a key role in the dynamics of MSE, it did not create a new coherence. Other disciplines, computer science and biology in particular, also brought their own techniques, interests and traditions into the field. This ongoing process of hybridization shapes the identity of MSE and distinguishes it among other recent fields such as computer science or cognitive science.
Finally a major characteristic of MSE is that its dynamics is such that the future is still wide open. Despite repeated efforts to stabilize the field as an autonomous discipline, MSE remains out of equilibrium, with temporary unstable states of equilibrium from time to time. Far from gaining more and more stability the field is really exploding rather than imploding. Maybe, like physical chemistry, materials science will become a fundamental hybrid discipline with its its own concepts and a strong identity. Or, like radioactivity, it will be absorbed into physics, chemistry and biology. Maybe the promotion of an interdisciplinary science will eventually feed back into and reinforce the disciplinary structure of conventional disciplines such as physics and chemistry.
Back to Introduction.
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