Innovation in engineering often means the clever use of a new material - new to a particular application, but not necessarily (although sometimes) new in the sense of ‘recently developed’. Plastic paper clips and ceramic turbine-blades both represent attempts to do better with polymers and ceramics what had previously been done well with metals. And engineering disasters are frequently caused by the misuse of materials. When the plastic tea-spoon buckles as you stir your tea, and when a fleet of aircraft is grounded because cracks have appeared in the tailplane, it is because the engineer who designed them used the wrong materials or did not understand the properties.
