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Data Compilation, Analysis, and Access: The Role of the Computer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2013

J.H. Westbrook
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Extract

History is replete with examples of the enormous impact of data compilations in all fields of science and technology. The advantages and opportunities such aggregations confer include:

• convenience of access,

• condensation and homogenization of raw data,

• formats tailored for the application,

• perception of patterns,

• detection of errors,

• definition of gaps and inconsistencies, and

• basis for formulating and testing theories.

The opportunities in materials science, and specifically in the subfield of alloy design, are no fewer than in other fields of science. Indeed, as I have remarked in a review of the history of the development of understanding and application of intermetallic compounds, breakthroughs in this field have usually come about not from “a new technique, a unique experimental observation, or an abstruse theory… Rather it was the amassing of a critical volume of experimental data in the literature which permitted an individual with great insight to perceive an underlying pattern not previously apparent.”

Type
Trends in Materials Data: Regularities and Predictions
Information
MRS Bulletin , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , February 1993 , pp. 44 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1993

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References

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