Materials Science Rules Our Prosperity

Huggies overnight diapers - a marvel of modern science

Modern materials are amazing magical devices to create a prosperous society. They are ever-present to a degree that we have normalized their existence but they have transformed the lives of normal people. The Huggies overnight diapers that Astra wears are so skinny that I could effortlessly squeeze them in the gap between two fingers, and yet they absorb and swell up to absorb fluid while being soft to the touch. There are many components to this all, but it all came to diapers in the 1990s being built with Sodium polyacrylate. What a marvel!

Electronics are obviously the thing that most people are familiar with these improvements on, and yes LED technology has moved to a point where the OLED sci-fi future arrived super fast and we've got bendable and transparent screens. But one thing that we don't really think about as much these days is the massive power brick that laptops of the past used to require. You'd have this massive brick, and that would have a massive plug at the end that you'd put into the wall. These days a tiny GaN-based charger can power a powerful Macbook pro.

An infant Astra asleep on me while I look through four massive glass windows

Contrast the top-left with the other panes

Old glass wasn't affordably flat. It was the origin of Float glass at scale that allowed the kind of even flat windows that we have today. And even then, insulation wasn't very good. Top of the line glass windows have thermal insulation properties equivalent to mid-century insulated stud walls! By about the year 2000 this is a pretty standard, minimum quality window that we have. But once upon a time it was ultra-lux!

There's a whole bunch of other things like this:

• single-use disposal contact lenses
• small-batch canning with sleever printers - this is why we have such nice can sleeves
• LEDs and the resulting energy efficiency
• cheap brushless motors mean we have drills and blowers and little tools
• aluminosilicate glass for phones

Humanity has advanced so rapidly even in just the span of my life. Everywhere we go, we use less material better, and things are lighter and things are stronger. What an amazing time to live!