ABSTRACT
It is common to subdivide the discipline of materials science and engineering into two subdisciplines: materials science and materials engineering. To understand the boundary and relationship of these two subdisciplines, let us start by looking into materials around us and question why we use materials. The world is comprised of materials that play essential roles in virtually all aspects of our everyday life. Our houses are built from stone, concrete, steel, and glass materials; our clothing is produced from natural (e.g., cotton) or synthetic (e.g., nylon) polymers, and even the food we produce is composed of biological polymers. Human beings are also composed of complex biological materials, derived from raw materials in the environment we occupy.
