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Seven Elements That Changed The World: An Adventure Of Ingenuity And Discovery (2000)

by John Browne(Favorite Author)

3.52 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1605986917 (ISBN13: 9781605986913)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

review 1: The seven elements the author, a former BP executive, discusses are iron, carbon, gold, silver, uranium, titanium, and silicon. Iron, carbon, and silicon are central to developed economies today and gold used to be the basis for many monetary systems in the western world. Iron is the basis for much of the infrastructure, as since the mid nineteenth century steel can be manufactured inexpensively and is a material strong both in compression and tension, and isn't brittle. Carbon, in the form of coal, oil, or natural gas, is the basis for most of the energy we use. Silicon has been important for longer than one might first realize, because it is the basis for glass as well as computer chips. The invention of telescopes supported challenges against the prevailing Aristot... moreelian view of the universe and eventually resulted in changes in how we view our relationship to the universe. Silicon first became important in electronics in the form of transistors, as a replacement for unreliable and power-hungry vacuum tubes. The miniaturization of these transistors and their combination with other electronic devices as integrated circuits on tiny wafers of silicon made possible the spread of computers, including the miniature variety known as the smart phone. The semiconductor properties of silicon are also the basis for photovoltaic cells.Gold first attracted the attention of humanity for religious reasons, by a process of associative reasoning. Gold resembles the color of the disk of the sun, and does not tarnish; consequently it was often viewed as having divine qualities among widely scattered cultures. The use of gold as money was important in the western world for millennia; the monetization of gold in the western world had terrible consequences for non-western peoples, because this use of gold encouraged a ruthlessness in acquiring it not seen in cultures that valued gold artistically and religiously but not in a monetary sense. Silver was also important in monetary systems, as a basis for small change. In societies which used both silver and gold as money, the varying relative supply of these two metals resulted in monetary crises when the official exchange rate between the two metals at the national mint did not correspond to the relative market valuations, an inconsistency which led to one or other metal being either exported or horded. Until digital photography became common, silver was essential to photography, and the development of photography from about 1840 onwards was the basis for important aspects of mass media, such as cinema. The use of titanium and uranium have changed the world, but have not become ubiquitous in everyday life, as once was expected. Uranium is of course needed to produce nuclear weapons, and thus has modified our politics. The use of nuclear power to generate electricity has not become as commonplace as was expected several decades ago, due to both cost and safety concerns. Titanium is useful in extreme aerospace applications, such as the Blackbird spy plane (and hip replacements.). The high cost of smelting the stuff has kept the use of titanium metal more restricted than was once expected. Titanium dioxide, however, is ubiquitous: it’s used to make white paint.
review 2: REVIEW OF SEVEN ELEMENTS THAT HAVE CHANGED THE WORLDEver since I first came across the periodic table, I have been fascinated by the various elements that have evolved in our universe, into the wonderful array that make our technical world possible. Their interactions with each other and the fact that human beings have developed the intelligence to use these elements in ways that seemed unimaginable only a short time ago are truly miraculous.John Browne has taken seven of these items and produced a history of how they were developed, how their properties were used. If you have electricity, gas, a mobile phone, a computer, an iPad, and the myriad other gadgets available, you will enjoy this extraordinary story of how they came about. less

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