Category Everyday Science

               It was the British inventor Joseph Swan who produced the first man-made silk in 1883. The first artificial silk or rayon manufacturing, factory was founded by Hilaire de Chardonnet in 890. However, his manufacturing process was unsafe. A safer viscose process of making rayon was patented by C. S. Cross in 1892.

               Wallace Carothers, a chemist from the American chemical company DL Pont, developed the very first all-synthetic fibre. In 938, the company chose the name nylon for the product.

               Though nylon was used to make toothbrushes in the early days, the principles used in the making of nylon were soon adapted to create other synthetic fibres.

               Polyester was discoverer it 1941 by the British chemists James Dickson and Rex Whinfield, Later, many synthetic fibres with better qualities were made, Lycra is the best example, marketed by Du Pont in 1959.

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               The oldest cotton balls were found in the caves of Mexico by some scientists. Those cotton balls were proven to be more than 7,000 years old. From 3000 BC onwards cotton had been grown, spun, and woven into fabric in the Indus River Valley in modern-day Pakistan. At about the same time, natives of Egypt’s Nile valley were making and wearing cotton clothing.

               Around 800 AD, Arabs introduced cotton clothes in Europe. Columbus found cotton growing in the Bahamas Islands in 1492, during his voyage. Varieties of coloured cotton produced in India were imported by the British from 1612. It was in 1730 that cotton was first spun by machinery in England. The industrial revolution in England, and the invention of the cotton gin in the US, gave a push to cotton production all over the world.

               Cotton was expensive in the early days due to its rarity, but the mechanization of cotton trade made it less expensive than wool by the 19th century.

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               It is certain that it was the Chinese who discovered silk. The tale about the origin of silk goes like this – the mythical Chinese emperor Huang Ti once asked his wife Xi Lingshi to see what was eating the leaves of the mulberry trees in the palace garden. She saw a silkworm cocoon, which accidentally fell into hot water. When she picked it up, and pulled it out, she realized that it turned into a thin soft thread.

               Around 3000 BC, the Chinese found that a silkworm could wrap itself in a cocoon made from a single, continuous silk filament some 600-900 m long. The Chinese were very secretive about this valuable commodity they had discovered themselves.

               Silk was introduced in the Mediterranean only around 500 BC. East and West were linked by trade. The route along which the material was exported was known as the Silk Road. By 206 BC, Chinese silk was being exported to the Middle East. The European silk industry began functioning around AD 552, when two Persians smuggled mulberry seeds and silkworm eggs out of Persia, and passed it into the Byzantine Empire.

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               The oldest fabric discovered was a piece of linen dating from around 6500 BC. It was found inside a cave in the Judean Desert, preserved by the dry air. Linen is made from fibrous flax plants. Ancient Egyptians collected dried and bundled flax plants from the banks of the Nile River.

               The process of making the fabric was lengthy. First, the seeds were removed before the plants were soaked in water. Later, they would be beaten, washed, spun, and woven. To bleach their linen, Egyptians used sunlight. The natural state of the fabric is a dull grey-brown. White linen was considered a symbol of purity for the Egyptians, and later for the Romans.

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               Many years before pasteurisation was discovered, the French inventor Nicolas Appert found a method of sterilizing foods by keeping them in glass Jars and heating them. It was actually a form of pasteurization as he heated the food to kill bacteria in it.

               Appert’s jars were soon replaced by cans made out of tin plate. Peter Durand received the first patent for the idea of canned food. First it was introduced in the UK, and later in 1818 it was introduced in the US.

              Initially cans were completely sealed except for a small opening knob on the top. Before soldering the food was heated to boiling point. Then the cans were reheated. The earlier versions of cans were not safe at that time. However, canning food was cheap and convenient. It gained popularity very easily.

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               Even primitive cave men used to eat dried meat. They hung mammoth carcasses to dry in the wind, and then took them inside for cool storage. Syrians, Iranians, and Palestinians started using dried cereals, figs, and grapes by 8000 BC.

               It was during the 3rd millennium BC that salt was first used to preserve game birds and fish in the Nile valley. During the Iron Age itself, Britons started salting their foods in order to preserve them during the intense winter.

               A special brine of salt was made and used by the Egyptians to pickle meat. Sauerkraut, made by fermenting shredded cabbage, was the first form of pickle in Europe. However, sauerkraut lost its demand in Europe gradually. Later, the Chinese introduced the famous pickled cabbage called kimchi.

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