Week 12: Inverse Material Design

The capstone design problem — given a target texture, work backward through the course's models to choose a formulation and a process.

17 May 2027

Outline#

• Recap: every prior module ran a forward model — process in, outcome out. This lecture, and the course’s final design problem, runs the course backward instead.
• Naming the distinction precisely: a forward model predicts an outcome from a process; an inverse problem starts from a target outcome and asks which process would produce it — a fundamentally different, usually harder, question.
• Working a stated crispness-shelf-life design target back through the specific pair of models it depends on — Module 11’s state diagram for where the target sits, Module 10’s fitted models for how confidently a candidate process gets there.
• Proposing a formulation or process change live and tracing it back through the exact equation it acts on, rather than justifying it by intuition alone — the standard this course has held every module to.
• Closing the course: twelve modules, two instruments, one running claim — a food’s texture is a measurable material property — tested one more time against a problem the course never showed you the answer to.