Relation with other fields thumb|311x311px|Google Ngram Viewer-diagram visualizing the search terms for complex matter terminology (1940–2018). Green: "materials science", red: "condensed matter physics" and blue: "solid state physics". Materials science evolved, starting from the 1950s because it was recognized that to create, discover and design new materials, one had to approach it in a unified manner. Thus, materials science and engineering emerged in many ways: renaming and/or combining existing metallurgy and ceramics engineering departments; splitting from existing solid state physics research (itself growing into condensed matter physics); pulling in relatively new polymer engineering and polymer science; recombining from the previous, as well as chemistry, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering; and more.
Relation with other fields thumb|311x311px|Google Ngram Viewer-diagram visualizing the search terms for complex matter terminology (1940–2018). Green: "materials science", red: "condensed matter physics" and blue "solid state physics" Materials science evolved, starting from the 1950s because it was recognized that to create, discover and design new materials, one had to approach it in a unified manner. Thus, materials science and engineering emerged in many ways: renaming and/or combining existing metallurgy and ceramics engineering departments; splitting from existing solid state physics research (itself growing into condensed matter physics); pulling in relatively new polymer engineering and polymer science; recombining from the previous, as well as chemistry, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering; and more.