Alfred Bortz's Techno Matter (1469-5) covers the materials scientists and engineers use to transform natural resources into manmade materials. Ceramics, super magnets and other materials receive scientific focus. An excellent basic reference.

There wasn't too much interesting, or new material in this book. It was a long, futuristic analysis of things that are pretty obvious. The only interesting thing in the book was a picture of a tinkertoy cube that plays tic tac toe flawlessly. Some of the ideas presented were outdated, like equating human vision to a camera. The issue of retinal patterns having a role in vision was not addressed at all. This is a book for young children, it is not meant for serious researchers.

The other customer reviewer is unfair to this book. It is published by a children's and Young Adult publisher and was not intended for serious researchers. It invites teens into the field, and has a bibliography that suggests other sources. Even though it was published in 1992, it is still relatively current, and its interviews of the field's founding fathers Herbert Simon and Allen Newell, now both deceased, provide useful insights, especially when they speak directly to the teenagers to whom this book is targeted.