| Abstract from DBPedia | Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of designing and improving materials, and finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials science stem from the Age of Enlightenment, when researchers began to use analytical thinking from chemistry, physics, and engineering to understand ancient, phenomenological observations in metallurgy and mineralogy. Materials science still incorporates elements of physics, chemistry, and engineering. As such, the field was long considered by academic institutions as a sub-field of these related fields. Beginning in the 1940s, materials science began to be more widely recognized as a specific and distinct field of science and engineering, and major technical universities around the world created dedicated schools for its study. Materials scientists emphasize understanding how the history of a material (processing) influences its structure, and thus the material's properties and performance. The understanding of processing-structure-properties relationships is called the materials paradigm. This paradigm is used to advance understanding in a variety of research areas, including nanotechnology, biomaterials, and metallurgy. Materials science is also an important part of forensic engineering and failure analysis – investigating materials, products, structures or components, which fail or do not function as intended, causing personal injury or damage to property. Such investigations are key to understanding, for example, the causes of various aviation accidents and incidents.材料工学（ざいりょうこうがく、英語：materials science and engineering）または材料科学（ざいりょうかがく、英語：materials science、マテリアルサイエンス）は、工学の一分野であり、物理学、化学等の知識を融合して新しい材料（素材）やデバイスの設計と開発、そして評価をおこなう学問である。 プロセス技術（結晶の成長、薄膜化、焼結、鋳造、圧延、溶接、イオン注入、ガラス形成など）、分析評価技術（電子顕微鏡、X線回折、熱量計測など）および産業上の材料生産での費用対利潤の評価などを扱う。 (Source: http://dbpedia.org/resource/Materials_science) |
