Why is the study of thermodynamics so important for materials science?

Crystallography is the science that examines the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids. Crystallography is a useful tool for materials scientists. In single crystals, the effects of the crystalline arrangement of atoms is often easy to see macroscopically, because the natural shapes of crystals reflect the atomic structure. Further, physical properties are often controlled by crystalline defects. The understanding of crystal structures is an important condition for understanding crystallographic defects. Mostly, materials do not occur as a single crystal, but in polycrystalline form, i.e., as an aggregate of small crystals with different orientations. Because of this, the powder diffraction method, which uses diffraction patterns of polycrystalline samples with a large number of crystals, plays an important role in structural determination.

Most materials have a crystalline structure, but some important materials do not exhibit regular crystal structure. To obtain a full understanding of the material structure and how it relates to its properties, the materials scientist must study how the different atoms, ions and molecules are arranged and bonded to each other. When classifying a material it is useful to decide whether it is crystalline (conventional metals and alloys), non-crystalline (glasses) or a mixture of these two types of structure. The critical distinction between the crystalline and non-crystalline states of matter can be made by applying the concept of ordering. Polymers display varying degrees of crystallinity, and many are completely non-crystalline. Glass, some ceramics, and many natural materials are amorphous, not possessing any long-range order in their atomic arrangements. The study of polymers combines elements of chemical and statistical thermodynamics to give thermodynamic and mechanical descriptions of physical properties.

5. Join the halves of the sentences in the columns:

6. Answer the questions: