Materials Science vs Material Science

Is it 'material science' or 'materials science'?

According to English Language & Usage Stack Exchange, it's primarily materials science because material science already meant something else when the field of study came into being in the 1910s.

In an answer submitted by user Peter Shor...

It's materials science because material is also an adjective. The phrase material science, as opposed to, say, spiritual science, was used before people started studying the science of materials. Consider this Ngram:

If you search in Google Books for "material science" before 1910, you get hits like

What does material science know about things of the soul? The world of spirit outside material science. Material science takes up the objects of the world and interprets them. 

Presumably, the science of materials was named materials science to avoid confusion with this phrase.

I don't know what Peter Shor's bona fides are, but it sounds like a good answer to me. 

Careers in Materials Science and Engineering

There aren't a lot of parts of science that couldn't use some help from a material scientist.

That's pretty much what I got from this 2:24 video.

Material science can get you to space (conducting experiments in space), the ocean (soaking up oil from spills), the surgical suite (developing heart valves, bone plates, and more), wind farms, industry for apprenticeships, and even the universities of Britain (Swansea, Southhampton, Sheffield, and more).

There are a few academic requirements mentioned toward the end, and those are pretty specific to Great Britain, but the equivalent requirements still exist here in the US in different details.

What is Materials Science?

Ah, the Brits and their wacky, variable accents.

Most of the video is understandable even by non-British folks. Admittedly, it is helpful to know that The Shard mentioned at 0:25 is a tall, glass-covered building in London.

This video would fit in nicely when we talk in our summer workshops when we ask the 'students' to define material science. It goes through a nice overview of what material science covers - properties of different material categories (metal, ceramics, polymer, corrosion). We also get the idea that it's a bridge between technology and science as well as how material scientists try to improve and change the properties of the materials under study as well as development of new materials.

Nice vid

Materials Selection

Back to the Brits and their accents.

I've no clue, by the way, who the Advanced Metallic Systems CDT is, though a brief bit of research tells me that the CDT is for the Centre (their spelling, not mine) for Doctoral Training.

Here we get an overview of some of the concerns that go into material selection - cost, performance, lifespan, corrosion, wear-resistance - as well as a few examples of materials used and why they were chosen (car windshields, ties, car bodies) and general mentions that new materials must be developed to meet new requirements for assemblies.