Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World

by Mark Miodownik

While glazing prevents water from getting into fired clay, it doesn’t solve the problem of porosity within the body of the ceramic, which is how the cracks start in the first place. So tiles are still relatively weak, as are glazed terra cotta cups and bowls. This problem was also solved by the Chinese, but it involved the creation of a completely new type of ceramic altogether. Two thousand years ago, while looking for a way to improve their ceramics, the potters of the Eastern Han Dynasty started experimenting not just with different kinds of clays but with clays of their own concoction, mixing into them minerals that might never end up in a river. One such additive was the white mineral kaolin. Why? No one knows. Perhaps it was purely in the spirit of inquiry, perhaps because they liked the color.