Finished my phD in History, and now I'm basically a NEET for the time being. How's everyone going? Haven't active;y used this site for a while, and it's cool to see the same familiar faces are still here. So, I'd like to ask everyone: on what subjects do you consider yourself most knowledgeable in, and is there anything about it that you think is the most interesting to know?
I'm edumacateded in chemistry and know stuff about metals. A chunk of a transition metal like gold is kinda one big molecule of metal. The atoms are all linked. It's why metals fuse when there's nothing between them. Industries call it contact welding.
I think that's neat.
Didn't even know that was a thing. Honestly, metallurgy is probably one of the most underrated areas of advancement in human history - I was impressed to the importance of it when learning about how crucial metallurgy is to the production of quality warships.
Yep, two clean polished pieces of metal, suck out all the air, put the pieces together and you now have one chunk of metal. The atoms don't know they're supposed to be separate.
It's also neat how some civilizations got away with poor iron deposits, like the Aztecs or Japanese. The Aztecs used glass and obsidian instead. Japan developed a bunch of folding methods and shoving in whatever other metals they could find, like silver and nickel.
Oh yeah, I remember reading about the metal folding in my Grandfather's kids books as I was unfortunately born and raised in Japan. Never really grasped how that was supposed to help until much later, though.
Could you possibly recommend any books on the history of metallurgy or a broad outline on the subject? Something not super advanced?
I mostly know about the chemistry, not really the history. If that's still your thing then Chemistry of the Elements by N. N. Greenwood and A. Earnshaw is very good and broad, not too advanced. The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean is fun pop science stuff that gets into broad histories of elemental metals.
Thanks!
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Excellent, thank you.
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Me too.
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is Hoover a yay or nay for his definitive English translation to De re metallica
I've only read parts of that and I know there's controversy on it, but not enough to say if anything's wrong with it.