Category Everyday Science

               Oil and natural gas were formed from the remains of prehistoric plants and animals, and that’s why they’re called fossil fuels.

               This happened millions of years ago when plant and animal remains settled into the sea bed along with salt, silt and rocks.

               In AD 300, while drilling for brine, the Chinese accidentally came across natural gas, and learned how to extract it and use it.

               From the 9th century BC, people of the Middle East burned tarry bitumen, which they found seeping from the Earth’s surface. In 1908, oil was found near the city of Masjed Soleiman, in Iran by a British prospecting team funded by William D’Arcy. This event significantly changed the history of the Middle East.

               The demand for petrol increased after the invention of the combustion engine and vehicles driven by petrol engines.

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               The Indians discovered diamonds before the 4th millennium BC. The name diamond is derived from the Greek word ‘adamas’, which means impenetrable. This valued gem was traded between India and Mesopotamia. They have been used as a display of prosperity ever since.

               The first diamond discoveries in South Africa were alluvial. Diamonds were found on volcanic rocks in farms in Kimberley, South Africa in 1870. Till then, diamonds were always dug from sand and gravel. For a long time the world’s most important rough diamond producers were South Africa, Congo, and the former Soviet Union.

               In the 15th century, tools were invented to cut facets into diamonds. Until then, the stones were simply polished, or shaped into a dome, known as a cabochon. The largest diamond in the world is the ‘Star of Africa I’, or ‘Cullinan I’, which is a colourless diamond, set in the British monarch’s sceptre.

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               Gold has always been one of the most valued metals of all time.

               Gold’s malleability and non-decaying properties made it popular in the Middle East about 6000 years ago.

               Gold was found on riverbeds, and was filtered from sand.

               Because gold is dispersed widely throughout the geologic world, its discovery occurred to many different groups in many different locales.

               Early civilizations equated gold with gods and rulers, and gold was sought in their name, and dedicated to their glorification.

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               It was after 1856 that the mass production of steel began, when English inventor Henry Bessemer found a way to convert pig iron to steel, a stronger and more malleable metal.

               To make steel, iron ore is first mined from the ground. It is then smelted in blast furnaces where the impurities are removed, and carbon is added. In fact, steel is nothing but iron alloyed with carbon. Today, it is generally accepted that stainless steel was manufactured in Europe sometime in the early 20th century.

               The car manufacturer Henry Ford pioneered the use of high tensile sheet metal for car bodies in 1908. He discovered that any steel containing 15 per cent chromium does not rust.

                From the 1920s, this steel was used in refrigerators and washing machines.

 

               The story of iron’s origins is astronomical; with the element being born from the explosion of stars. In Egypt, they called it the metal from heaven. The Bronze Age ended with the beginning of the Iron Age in 1500 BC, about the time the Hittites may have started working with iron, and discovered a way of smelting iron from local ores. Around 600 BC, cast iron was made by the Chinese by melting iron containing phosphorous.

             In the West, the first cast iron was a 14th century material. When fired with charcoal, the iron absorbed a significant amount of carbon, which lowered its melting point. Cast iron cannons and medieval iron changed the face of warfare.

              In Britain, the iron from furnaces was known as pig iron, as it was a mass of iron roughly resembling the shape of a reclining pig. However, pig iron was too brittle for most heavy industrial uses.

               It was the people from the south-eastern part of Turkey who discovered copper for the first time, more than 9000 years ago. They found that copper could be obtained from the shiny rocks of the region. However, copper’s name comes from Cyprus, which supplied much of the metal to the ancient world.

               Though copper was a popular metal its value was noted only since the 17th century, when it was realized that the metal is a great conductor of heat. Later, in the 19th century, copper was proved to be the second best conductor of electricity after silver.

               Use of the metal bronze became widespread in Europe during the Bronze Age, around 2000 BC. Bronze was made by heating the metals tin and copper, and mixing them together. Bronze objects are highly resistant to decay, and are still found in many ancient sites around the world.

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