Materials as Machines

Abstract

This chapter emphasizes the changing perspectives in the molecular world iover the past fifty years. Three major steps are distinguished. (i) with the emergence of materials science in the 1960s, material structures have been functionalized; (ii) in the 1980s a systemic approach to materials prevailed over the conventional linear sequence structure/properties/function; (iii) Finally, with the emergence of nanotechnology the functionalization of individual units tends to prevail over systems approach.