100 posts down...

Huzzah! I've made it to my 100th post! Only took me 6 months (exactly!). I'm still finding my "blogging voice", but I'm amazed I've made it this far.

There have been discussion of serious(ish) science. We've talked about wedding planning, alternative uses for cosmetic remover, stress, stress, STEMmoms and grandmothers, and occasionally, the perpetual internet favorite, kittens.

What's next?

I have no idea, I'm still making it up as I go.

MSE 101: Introductory References

FSP has an interesting post today about introductory textbooks.  While several such books exist for MSE, by far the most popular is Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction by Callister, or his other book, Fundamentals of Materials Science and Engineering. To me, these are a solid example of how to do an introductory textbook well. The focus is on presenting the breadth of MSE, with enough detail that almost all MSE majors I know kept their copy as a reference.

It deals with jargon by including a glossary at the end of each chapter, as well as actively defining terms. It is largely about the concepts, with just enough examples to make it seem relevant. While the actual text isn't particularly casual, the typesetting is a bit more free and open, and the illustrations look less like paper figures and more like really well done doodles.

In graduate school, many students in MSE Ph.D programs have a BS in a different discipline, typically physics. I consistently recommend and lend this book to students switching to MSE. However, it is ultimately a general, conceptual book, and falls short in presenting certain critical formulas (stress-based failure criterion, for example). But I have other books for getting into the details of particular areas. In fact, I have three different textbooks entitled "Mechanical Behavior of Materials".

Is there a textbook you would recommend for anyone starting in your field?

MSE Fundamentals

Somewhat uniquely among graduate program with a similar undergraduate degree, a very large fraction of MSE grad students majored in something else as an undergrad (usually physics or chemistry). However, in most programs, there's not a good review class covering the things all your other classes will assume you know already.  Taking the undergraduate overview class can be frustrating for many grad students, with a lot of overlap with material they do know, and little depth in areas they don't. Consequently, those of us with a BS in MSE often end up tutoring our peers in the major-specific basics.

I'm going to try and run two different types of posts on materials science fundamentals. MSE 101 posts will be aimed towards those with a background in general chemistry and basic calculus, but not much beyond that. MSE 501 posts will be aimed at explaining topics to someone with a BS degree in science or engineering. If nothing else, I want to have these written down somewhere I can find them later when asked.

If there's a particular aspect of materials science you'd like me to address, please free to leave it in the comments.