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Yep. Metallic aluminum used to be so difficult to extract (in spite of being the third most common element in the Earth's crust) that it was a precious metal.
by da_chicken 9y ago
Yep. Metallic aluminum used to be so difficult to extract (in spite of being the third most common element in the Earth's crust) that it was a precious metal. Then we discovered the Hall/Heroult and Bayer methods of extracting aluminum, and it became one of the most important metals of the 20th century leading to advanced aviation and a thousand other uses. Steel used to be comparatively scarce, expensive to produce, and variable in quality. Once we discovered the Bessemer process, we had the [edit: Second] Industrial Revolution.
- jcranmer 9y agoStrictly speaking, the Bessemer process was developed in the 1850s, and the traditional dates for the Industrial Revolution is ~1750-1850.
- da_chicken 9y agoTrue enough. I was thinking of the Second Industrial Revolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Industrial_Revolution). I just didn't phrase myself that well.