4 ms·
It's interesting how difficult it is to actually make large quantities of quality steel. On the surface it seems like an easy process to make steel, but it req
by toomanybeersies 8y ago
It's interesting how difficult it is to actually make large quantities of quality steel.
On the surface it seems like an easy process to make steel, but it required hundreds of years of gradual technological progress to get to the point where large quantities of consistently decent steel could be manufactured. So many independent inventions and scientific discoveries where required before we could make steel. It's really a material that's taken for granted.
It would be interesting to make a sort of real life tech tree of the inventions required to get to modern steel.
- throwawayjava 8y agoThis is true for even very, very simple technology. My favorite example is gunpowder (the smokey kind we don't even use anymore), which requires potassium nitrate, which without modern (c. 19th century) processes you have to a) get lucky and find a cave you can mine/scrape from; or 2) collect manure, pour urine on it for a year, and then scrape off the top and process. It's actually freaking amazing anyone figured out how to do this, even though with hindsight we understand each reaction.
- mc32 8y agoAluminum as a metal has an interesting history as well[1]. It was flirted with during Pliny the Elder's time, apparently and aluminum salt was known, but an industrial process was not achieved till Napoleon's time --at which time, due to the difficulty in manufacture, was a precious metal. [1]https://aluminiumleader.com/history/industry_history/ https://aluminiumleader.com/history/industry_history/
- int_19h 8y agoConversely, it's amazing just how many possibilities opened up once it became cheap and scalable. Ditto with aluminum, perhaps even more so.