technizzel

As you may well know, there are many facets of engineering. Today, I’d like to focus on Materials Science Engineering (MS&E).

Q: So what is MS&E anyway?

MS&E is a growing field within engineering that examines the properties of different existing materials, the development of new materials and the improvement of those we encounter every day. Many high tech industries that have been developing over the past few years (nanotechnology, biotechnology) heavily rely on the research and developments in this field.

Q: What real world applications does MS&E have?

As handheld devices (MP3 players, cell phones, and laptops) continue to get smaller and more powerful, the need for lighter weight, radiation resistant, self cooling materials continues to grow. Materials Science engineers are continuously studying material properties in order to find the right glue to adhere an artificial heart without infecting the body, or the strongest, yet lightest, form of protection to put in bullet proof vests for soldiers. Understanding materials is a crucial part of our society, even if these properties just help us clean our lenses on reading glasses! Here is an example of a water resistant wood currently in development for use on ships, trucks and cabins.

Q: What sort of classes do you take when studying MS&E?

MS&E classes include physics and chemistry, atomic & molecular structures of matter, electronic and magnetic properties of materials, ceramics and many others that deeply the properties of the materials that surround us.

Q: What are typical career paths taken after graduating with a degree in MS&E?

MS&E graduates go into a wide range of fields. Many continue researching new alternative materials, some with the hopes of developing an alternative to silicon computer chips. Others pursue biological applications of MS&E to help build artificial limbs. Those interested in working for large companies go on to work for major companies such as Kodak, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Motorola and Xerox.

An MS&E friend of mine describes the major like so:

Materials Science focuses on the physics and theory of why materials behave the way they do. So for example we learned why metals when bent will keep their form, why plastics when bent will return to their original form, and why ceramics when bent will shatter.

Every now and then, we will take a deeper look into some of our favorite gadgets in order to get a better understanding of how they work and the technology they involve.

To start, let’s examine the iPod craze. Besides their small size, light weight and aesthetic beauty, what is inside the iPod that makes everything click so well? More generally, what allows us to take these MP3 players anywhere and listen to thousands of songs, TV shows or movies in the palm of our hands, or in the iPod shuffle’s case, our fingertips?

To give you some perspective, consider burning a CD from your computer. On average, one CD holds about 15-16 songs, right? Think about that for a second…how can something less than half the size of a CD hold hundreds more songs? MP3 files enable the storage of musical information by squeezing the data into about one twelfth as much space. You can make MP3 files that are smaller or larger by compressing them by different amounts, but the more you compress them the worse they’ll sound.

Inside an MP3 file, music is stored as long strings of binary numbers (zeros and ones) in a series of chunks called frames. Each frame starts with a short header, including the track name, artist, genre, etc, almost like a table of contents. The music data is stored directly afterward. The reason MP3 players, namely iPod’s, have become so popular, is because they can store many many more MP3’s in a smaller space. A normal track from a CD requires about 60 Megabytes of storage space, compared to an average of 5 Megabytes per MP3 file.

An MP3 is just another type of computer file (jpeg, doc to name a few others). Therefore, the iPod, or any MP3 player is essentially a miniature computer. In fact, these handheld “computers” are more powerful than the early desktops from 20 years ago that would fill up an entire room!

All MP3 players have similar components under their pretty shells:

Most MP3 players have another output as well: a little display that tells you what’s playing. It basically just relays the information in the short header discussed earlier.

Next time you turn on your iPod, imagine what’s going on inside the gadget. As you scroll to your favorite song, the processor searches the hard-drive for the desired track, matching the short header. Next, it reads through the frames related to that specific MP3 file. It displays the artist and track name on the display, then begins to turn the digital information stored in each frame as ones and zeros back into sound frequencies that travel through your headphones. Music to your ears!