How far can we push materials? That core question defines the discipline that is materials science.

The question implicit in the Materials Genome Initiative is, “must innovation be at the mercy of known materials?” The finite set of raw material compositions and the limited ways that chemistry and processing allow them to be combined impose limitations on the structure, chemistry, and, ultimately, properties of manufactured components. Materials science, in many ways, has been a materials selection and product design problem, not a “materials design” problem.