"Nature designs everything from atoms; hence, we should be able to create any feasible kind of material and device with foresight, if we understood the Periodic System in all its implications. Yet--like weather forecasters--we find ourselves still members of the gambling profession." This was the tenor of the third summer session on modern materials research sponsored by the Laboratory for Insulation Research at MIT in 1963. Its program--organized by Arthur R. von Hippel, Institute Professor and one of the pioneers of modern materials research--ranged from the electronic structure of atoms...