Some of the mundane materials most of us take for granted—plastic, paper, glass—are miraculous when you think about them. Glass’s strength, for instance, protects us from the elements as its transparency allows light to shine through; without such a material houses and buildings would be decidedly dreary. Just what gives glass these properties? It’s all in the chemistry, materials scientist Mark Miodownik of University College London explains in his new book Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World (May 2014, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
