Category: Mark Miodownik – Stuff Matters

The Strength of Concrete

Posted on by jabittan
Mark Miodownik explains our planets dependence on concrete in his book, Stuff Matters, which is an exploration of the built world and the materials that make the world what we see.  Miodownik explains that the first concrete developed on our planet came from the Romans, but the technology was not perfected until more recent times.  He also tells the story of how reinforced concrete came to be when a potter found that he could produce cheap concrete pots and boost their durability by setting the concrete around a steel internal skeleton. The strength provided allowed his pots to hold up to dropping, shipping, and the general wear and tear of the gardening world.
I find Miodownik’s section on concrete fascinating. Prior to reading his book I had never stopped to consider what truly went into producing concrete and concrete structures.  from our sidewalks, to buildings, to dams and barriers, we see concrete everywhere and Miodownik reflects on our perceptions when we see things everywhere.  He writes about our normal tendency to see those common and everyday things as simple and unimportant, when oftentimes, as in concrete, they are complex, crucial, world altering innovations.
While most of us may not appreciate just how important concrete is and we may not understand just how complex concrete is, there is an understanding in our country that our infrastructure needs some TLC.  And it is not just people in the United States who know their structures need some love, “To prevent stone or concrete structures being similarly affected, maintenance of their fabric needs to be carried or every fifty years or so.” In this quote Miodownik is explaining the effect of general wear and tear on concrete.  As materials heat up or cool down, as happens yearly due to the temperature changes of the seasons and days, they expand and contract. Reinforced concrete is a wonderful material in respect to contraction and expansion because the concrete itself and the internal steel skeleton expand and contract at almost identical rates.  This prevents the steel from busting out of the concrete and keeps the steel protected and the concrete free from cracks.  But overtime the concrete does develop micro-fractures, which grow into visible fractures, which allow more water in, and become clear chips and breaks in the concrete.  This erodes and breaks down the concrete structures we build in the same way that nature breaks down the mountains around us (or at least around me living in Reno Nevada at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains).
I think what I like about Miodowniks quote is that it shows the impermanence of what feels like our most robust building materials.  We may look at concrete structures and imaging their hulking frames will last forever, but what material science shows us is that they are constantly in a battle to be broken down. Even the mountains which define borders and seem to be natural strongholds of the earth are not permanent as weather batters them down.  If you cannot enjoy the science behind the concrete, hopefully you can at least appreciate the brevity of its existence in the long term life of the planet, or appreciate our perspective on the material, seeing it as an unyielding monolith which ultimately is brought down by some water and wind.

A Science Fiction Message

Posted on by jabittan
Larry Niven wrote a letter to James Harmon for Harmon to publish in his book, Take My Advice, and in his letter Niven offers his 19 “Niven Laws” which are his observations of how the world works. I highlighted law number 14 because it brings to life the idea that other people do not think the same way that we do, and it does so in a fun way. “14. The only universal message in science fiction: There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently.”  I think that once we have graduated from high school or college our 12 to 16 years of the academic world can leave us in a place where we look for right answers and assume that there is one correct way to look at everything in the world.  Standardized tests, teachers who push a single viewpoint, and competitions to see who can have the highest grades and GPA create a world where we constantly rank our intelligence and compete to see who can have the answers that are the most in tune with the ideas of the person grading our tests.  Niven uses science fiction to show that there are incredible thinkers in this world who can use their mind as well as anyone, but who can apply it in innovative ways. The diversity of science fiction is simply a reflection of the diversity of thought in the human mind, and in todays Age of Superheroes that diversity is being celebrated despite the fact that 24 hour news networks chariot single viewpoints and commercials direct materialistic views of happiness into our homes.

 

Perhaps we can look at Niven’s understanding of what science fiction is, a collection of thoughts that differ from the every day, to explain why superhero movies and shows have come to dominate lately.  We want to see the world in new ways and imagine what the world could be if we adopted new view points.  This whole notion could be a counter reaction to the media surrounding what happens in the “real world”.

 

What first drew me in to Niven’s quote was the idea that we compare the way that we think to others.  Academics puts a mark on who thinks well, an who does not think well, and it teaches us to identify ourselves based on the quality of our thought as graded by a professor or as outlined by a series of multiple choice questions.  Years of schooling can force an individual into pre-set manners of thinking and can encourage the assimilation towards a single viewpoint.  Niven’s quote uses science fiction to show that  we do not have to judge the way other thing or the quality of their thoughts based on how aligned they are with what we consider to be normal or standard.  The idea in the quote above shows that we can celebrate other ways of thinking without judgment.

 

It may be argued that those who study creative subjects such as literature or art throughout school will be more open to the idea of looking at multiple perspectives while those who study science, math, or engineering are more shut out to the possibility of multiple answers.  For me this is too simple of an explanation for differences in thought and education.  My first venture into the world of quantum physics was by reading the book, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, by Gary Zukav.  Zukav explains that the science of quantum mechanics, what happens at the sub-atomic level inside the atom of every element, is a shifting science with our interactions in the experiments we perform providing us with mixed results.  The most famous example of this is how we study light. Depending on the test we run and how we measure our tests, we can show light particles to behave as a wave or as an individual particle.  There is no right answer with identifying exactly what light is, and the problem can only be solved with creative people who do not accept a single right answer but can look for answers in new directions.  Another example of people abandoning the idea of a single right answer in science comes from the book I am currently reading, Stuff Matters, by Mark Miodownik.  In his book Miodownik dives into the world of material science and shows us how new thinking and applications of materials has changed our world in ways that are often hidden to most of us.  He explains how complex concrete is and how modern day concrete was created in part through the innovations of a gardener who simply wanted to build stronger pots.  It took the unique viewpoint of someone outside the world of material science to find an answer to concrete’s tendency to crack and crumble. Luck provided that concrete and steel have very similar coefficients of expansion, which allows for concrete to be poured around steel to give it extra tension and strength when poured in unique shapes.

 

If we stick to the idea that there is only one correct answer for everything, and if we assume that others think like us, then we are left in a world where we cease to innovate.  We must remember, and science fiction helps us to do so, that we do not think “better” than anyone else.  We simply all think in different ways, and combining our different ways of thinking is what builds a better world.  Science fiction today has come to celebrate unique thoughts and ideas, and there is plenty of room to expand our celebration of unique thought to areas of the world where the dominate ideas is that there is “one right answer”.