Oreo Book Club – May 2015 Update

We reviewed the book Stuff Matters—Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World, by Mark Miodownik. Mr. Miodownik thinks we should know about the innards and outers of variety materials and takes us from the surface of materials to the underlying crystal or atomic structure. It was a facilitating tour and the discussion was led by Barbara Milner. Barbara also was the hostess and, in addition to Oreos, provided chocolate covered mangos. In addition to talking about the materials in the book, we covered the advances of science in robotics and the ethical and theoretical dilemma of how much control a programmer should leave to the robot and how much control the human director should maintain. The next meeting will again be the third Wednesday of the month and will review the book Nothing to Envy, by Barbara Demick, concerning the North Korean people.
—Norton Schwartz