Metals. Historical....

urirexroth (58)in #technology • 8 years ago

The history of technology takes in time some 48-50 thousand years. Behavior of a person throughout this story is similar to climbing a long staircase with many steps of different heights. Each step is a new generation of people. Let's assume that the width of the steps is the same, that is, the average age of people of one generation is 62-63 years. Then the whole history of our technology "fits" into the lives of only 800 generations of people.

If you look at this ladder numbering 800 steps, you can see such steps, where the rise was steeper, and the steps themselves - larger and higher.

Mankind, having overcome this frontier, began to walk faster. This was the time when metals and stones replaced stone and wood. It is impossible to say exactly the date of this event, nor was it an "event" at all. Judge for yourself: during the life of the first 500-650 generations, that is, for tens of thousands of years, people managed to master only clay, stone and wood. The mastery of this was given to them quite uneasily; with great difficulty a man rose from primitive savagery, invented and gradually perfected his weapons, tools and other technical devices. Generation after generation, century after century, people began to develop metals. It took place 150-200 generations before us and took in the history of the

Earth for thousands of years. But one way or another, while humanity put some metals into service at that time, it renewed the tools and weapons with their help and, without knowing it, ascended to the site that turned out to be a turning point on the historical ladder. "Site" this captures the life of 100-120 generations: almost 5000 years ago a man learned for the first time copper, and after a while - and bronze, sharply increased his power. For 3-3,5 thousand years before we met with iron. The mastery of iron and other metals is, in fact, the first technical revolution in human history that has begun all the others.

Technical knowledge was gradually accumulating; the extraction of metals was also slowly, but surely. All the more widely in the manufacture of objects created by human hands, metals were used; the circle of these subjects became more and more diverse. In 1982, 545 kg of steel were produced per person. They only became one, not to mention other metals, and after all, these metals produce more than seven dozen names: cast iron, aluminum, copper, lead, titanium, cobalt, nickel, chrome, tungsten, etc.
Metals are not only and not so much an instrument that we are making, building, constructing; metals provide an opportunity to get everything we need for life. Metals are the basis of technical and scientific progress.

If we refuse metals, we will condemn ourselves to primitive existence. But even in this case one can confidently state: humanity, for some reason suddenly "forgotten" metals today, tomorrow will open them again. For without search, without new discoveries, human life is unthinkable.

Metals are our present and future, tomorrow's successes. This is the wealth and power of the country. These are our hopes and plans. That's why we need more and more metals every year.
Metals must be known. And not only by name, but primarily by their "nature and behavior" - by properties. Before using metal for any purpose, one must comprehensively imagine the situation in which the metal will have to "manifest" itself, and all possible aspects of its behavior.