Tag: melt

Civilizations Mastery of Metal By Manipulating Fire

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The more carbon rich a fuel is, the more heat it produces. Typical wood fires burn at 700 degrees Celsius, however 6000 years ago, ancient people discovered the adaptation of burning wood in a low oxygen environment, only partially burning, but in doing so creating a much purer carbon rich fuel; charcoal. Charcoal can burn at temperatures upwards of 1100 degrees Celsius, hot enough to melt ore out of rock. The mastering of metal produced tools, finance, and weaponry, forever changing the evolutionary story of human beings. By the Middle Ages, the production of charcoal for metal smelting and metal work was a major industry

The First Mass Produced Items of the Ancient World

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The first mass produced pieces of artwork were the ancient Egyptians shabtis which were essentially miniature mummies that the ancient Egyptians believed had magical powers and were therefore buried with the dead. Shabtis were comprised of Egyptian faience which is a type of glass ceramic material made from sand. Egyptian faience is referred to as such in order to distinguish it from faience, which is a tin glazed pottery associated with Faenza, Italy. The idea of Egyptian faience was to replicate semiprecious stones like turquoise lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, which at the time was more expensive than gold. The recipe for Egyptian faience is 90% crushed silica, crushed fine natron salt to act as a flux, crushed limestone, and then the coloring with blue being the most popular, a color achieved through the use of pure copper oxide. Water was introduced to turn this composition from a granular mix into a dough like substance. Natron salt which is a type of baking soda, is the key ingredient to this recipe as it rises to the surface when baked and lowers the overall temperature at which sand melts and becomes glass. The statues are left to stand for 24 or more hours as this helps the salt grow on the surface through a chemical reaction process as oxygen within the ambient environment mixes with the ingredients inside the Egyptian faience

Ancient Stained Glass Manufacturing

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The manufacturing of stained glass is an ancient technology which dates back so far that the ancient Egyptians knew how to do it 2000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. Medieval Europe inherited this form of technology but did not invent it as is common belief. Deep, rich blue glass was very difficult to make and therefore needed to be imported from southern Italy. The deep blues which the Chartres Cathedral in Chartres, France is so famous for can historically be traced through documentation to fragments coming from the Byzantine Empire as well as the Roman Empire. These imports were melted down and used to create new glass. Most colors and dyes came from the natural world in the forms of roots, berries, barks, leaves, minerals, and crushed insects, but the most prized colors were imported into Europe from the east, specifically India and China using Ottoman trade routes. The simple luck of geography made Venice, Italy an incredibly wealthy city as it acted as a nexus between the east and west. The blue hue referred to as “ultramarine” was the most expensive color to acquire and therefore it was almost always saved for depictions of the Virgin Mary, typically in her cloak or some other form of clothing, as Mary was depicted as the focal point of every painting she appeared within. Ultra Marine came from the mineral of lapis lazuli and when it was ground up into powder, some parts would inevitably become smaller than others which allowed these particles to reflect more light and provide a deeper, richer color to work with and appreciate. Vermillion Red was almost as precious as ultramarine, and has been used in Europe for hundreds of years in various illuminated manuscripts. Made from the mineral cinnabar, vermillion was adopted in places outside of Europe like meso-America for painting, India for bindi dots, and China to create lacquerware

Effects of the Atomic Bomb Dropped Upon Nagasaki, Japan During World War II

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The atomic bomb dropped upon Nagasaki, Japan on August 6, 1945 was detonated a few thousand feet above the ground as the bomb would have primarily been absorbed by the Earth if it were permitted to touch down. Because the detonation occurred within the air, the force of the first and second blast waves flattened everything within its path. The blast was so bright that atomic shadows were left from anything casting a shadow during the detonation as the light and heat which were the primary components given off during detonation, did not shine as brightly upon the shadows as they did upon everything else. For a few short seconds, the highly enriched uranium created temperatures of tens of millions of degrees Celsius, as if reaching into the core of the sun and dropping that power into the Earth’s atmosphere for a brief moment. The blast emitted was hot enough to melt and fuse anything in touched including granite, steel, iron, glass, clay, and tile

The Greek Mythology of Icarus

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In Greek mythology, Icarus, the son of the master craftsperson Daedalus, is the creator of the Labyrinth. Icarus and his father attempt to escape from Crete by means of crafted wings which Icarus’ father constructs from feathers and wax. Daedalus warns Icarus of complacency and hubris, instructing that he fly neither too low nor too high, so that the seas dampness would not clog his wings but also so that the sun’s heat would not melt them. Icarus ignored his father’s instructions not to fly too close to the sun and when he did, the wax in his wings melted causing him to tumble out of the sky and into the sea where he drowned

The Possibility of Terraforming Mars

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In order to terraform Mars, scientists have theorized that by blasting the polar ice caps on the north and south poles of the planet with lasers, the ice could be melted, turned into water, and used to grow vegetation. Terraforming has been successfully performed in the past, as 1600 kilometers off the coast of Africa is Ascension Island, a place in which nothing grew or lived (as far as scientists are aware of) because there was no fresh water or vegetation due to the top soil being prone to volcanic activity. Charles Darwin visited the island with his good friend Sir Joseph Hooker. Darwin and Hooker terraformed the destitute island by introducing approximately 220 different plants, transplanted by ship, on a Noah’s Ark of sorts. The experiment worked. Ascension Island is now home to hundreds of plant species and the lifeforms which go alongside vegetation

The Fallacy of Recycling Plastics

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Recycling is less of a reasonable solution to the plastics problems and more of a myth, shrouded in uncertainty towards the general public in terms of how effective it truly is. Polyethylene terephthalate plastic labeled as a “number 1” plastic and high-density polyethylene labeled as “number 2” are the main recyclable plastics. Most plastic isn’t recycled as is the case with glass or metal which can be melted down and used over and over again, but instead downcycled, in that they are used to create lower grade plastics used in things like park benches and plastic decking. Most plastics destined to be recycled which are produced in North America and Europe are shipped to China for processing. Recycling will not offset the plastic pollution being produced currently, as the rate of recycled plastic is approximately 30% meaning that for every plastic item we use, 70% of it is newly manufactured plastic, a value which will continue to grow for as long as human beings decide to continue to dump their wasted plastics in areas which are not publicly viewed (e.g. the ocean). Most plastic waste comes from plastic bags and plastic bottles. Collectively the world consumes 1,000,000 (1 million) plastic bags per minute and 28,300,000 (28.3 million) plastic bottles per minute. The plastics industry is the 3rd largest industry in the U.S., behind steel and vehicles, and is responsible for more than $400,000,000,000 ($400 billion) in product shipments per year. It is estimated that the average North American uses 300 – 700 plastic bags per year. By 2050, worldwide plastic production is projected to quadruple, reaching nearly 2,000,000,000,000 (2 trillion) lbs. per year