Natural science is the main characteristic feature distinguishing the present civilization from the other civilizations in the past. From its early beginnings in the sixteenth century, the developments of science have influenced the course of western civilisation more and more until today it plays a most dominant role. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that we live in a world that, materially and intellectually, has been created by science.
From the point of view of the scientific impact on the mind of a man, science is an intellectual enterprise, an attempt to understand the world in a particular way. Over the past 150 years the range of human knowledge has been doubled every decade. For example, by the year 2000 human knowledge was a hundred times higher than it had been in a previous century.
The second half of the 20th century begins an entirely new era – the era of the scientific and technological revolution. In this case a particularly significant role belongs to material science. The success of it depends on developments in physics, chemistry, biology, mineralogy and engineering. Material scientists can often figure out how atoms and molecules should be arranged to meet our needs, and they mix as much material as we want at a price we can afford.