III. THE PERIOD OF TECHNICAL CHEMISTRY AND IATROCHEMISTRY (CHEMISTRY IN THE AGE OF THE RENAISSANCE) THE AGE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN EUROPE The development of crafts and trade, the rise of the role of cities, as well as political events in Western Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries. led to significant changes in the whole way of life

The "blue pantries" of the oceans and seas store practically inexhaustible reserves of many chemical elements. Thus, one cubic meter of water in the World Ocean contains an average of about four kilograms of magnesium. In total, more than 6·10 16 tons of this element are dissolved in the waters of our planet.

To show how grandiose this value is, we give the following example. Since the beginning of the new chronology, mankind has lived only a little over 60 billion (ie 6 10 10) seconds. This means that if from the very first days of our era people began to extract magnesium from sea water, then in order to exhaust all the water reserves of this element by now, one million tons of magnesium would have to be extracted every second!

As you can see, Neptune can be calm for his wealth.

The earth's crust contains approximately 10 15 tons of nickel. Is it a lot? Is there enough nickel to, say, nickelize our entire planet (including the surface of the World Ocean)?

A simple calculation shows that not only will it be enough, but it will also remain for about ... 20 thousand of the same "balls".

Who does not know the masterpieces of foundry art located on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin: "Tsar Bell" and "Tsar Cannon". But about the other cast "kings" probably know a few.

More than a thousand years ago, a cast-iron "king-lion" was cast in China, about six meters high and weighing almost 100 tons. A cart with horses could pass between the legs of this huge statue.

One of the most ancient "ancestors" of the Moscow "Tsar Bell" is considered to be a Korean 48-ton bell, cast back in 770. Its sound is amazingly beautiful. According to legend, the daughter of the master, in order to save her father from numerous failures in the smelting of metal, threw herself into the molten metal, and her death cry froze in it.

A new exhibit has recently appeared in the Museum of the History of the Peoples of Uzbekistan - a huge cast-iron cauldron discovered during excavations of a burial mound near Tashkent. The diameter of this cauldron, cast by ancient craftsmen, is about one and a half meters, and its weight is half a ton. Apparently, the "king-cauldron" in ancient times served the whole army: from it it was possible to feed almost five thousand people at once.

A unique casting weighing 600 tons - a cast-iron chabot (base) for the most powerful hammer at that time - was made in Russia in 1875. To cast this giant shabot, a huge foundry was built at the Motovilikha plant in Perm. Twenty cupolas continuously melted the metal for 120 hours. The shabot cooled down for three months, then it was taken out of the mold and, with the help of only levers and blocks, moved to the location of the hammer.

In England there is the city of Ironbridge, which in translation into Russian means "Steel Bridge". The city owes its name to the steel bridge across the River Severn, which was built two hundred years ago. This bridge is the firstborn of the steel industry not only in England, but throughout the world. There are other sights of the British industry of the past in Ironbridge. The specialized museum contains many exhibits on the history of technology, demonstrating the successes of English metallurgy in the 18th and 19th centuries.

According to modern ideas, a person got acquainted with metals (copper, gold, iron) only a few millennia ago. And earlier on our planet for almost two million years, stone reigned supreme as the main material for the manufacture of tools and weapons.

However, historians sometimes encounter mention of amazing facts, which (if only they are reliable!) indicate that our civilization may have had predecessors who reached a high level material culture.

In the literature, for example, there is a message that supposedly in the 16th century, the Spaniards, who set foot on the lands of South America, found an iron nail about 20 centimeters long in the silver mines of Peru. This find would hardly have aroused interest if not for one circumstance: most of the nail was tightly cemented in a piece of rock, which could mean that it had lain in the bowels of the earth for many tens of millennia. At one time, an unusual nail was supposedly kept in the office of the viceroy of Peru, Francisco de Toledo, who usually showed it to his guests.

Mentions are also made of other similar finds. So, in Australia, an iron meteorite with traces of processing was discovered in coal seams dating back to the Tertiary period. But who processed it in the Tertiary period, remote from our time by tens of millions of years? After all, even such ancient fossil ancestors of man as Pithecanthropes lived much later - only some 500 thousand years ago.

About a metal object found in the thickness of coal in the mines of Scotland, wrote the journal "Messages of the Scottish Society ancient history". Another similar find also has a "miner's" origin: we are talking about a gold chain, allegedly discovered in 1891 in coal seams. Only nature itself is capable of "immuring" it into a piece of coal, and this could happen in those distant times when coal was being formed.

Where are they, these items - a nail, a meteorite, a chain? After all, modern methods of analyzing materials would allow at least to some extent shed light on their nature and age, and therefore reveal their secret.

Unfortunately, no one knows this today. And were they really?

On July 14, 1789, the rebellious people of France stormed the Bastille - the Great French Revolution began. Along with many decrees and resolutions of a political, social, economic nature, the revolutionary government decided to introduce a clear metric system of measures. At the suggestion of the commission, which included authoritative scientists, as a unit of length - a meter - one ten-millionth part of a quarter of the length of the Paris geographic meridian was adopted. For five years, the leading French experts in the field of astronomy and geodesy meticulously measured the arc of the meridian from Dunkirk to Barcelona. In 1797, the calculations were completed, and two years later the first standard of the meter was made - a platinum ruler, called the "archive meter", or "archive meter". The unit of mass, the kilogram, was taken to be the mass of one cubic decimeter of water (at 4 °C) taken from the Seine. The platinum cylindrical weight became the standard of the kilogram.

Over the years, however, it became clear that the natural prototypes of these standards - the Parisian meridian and the waters from the Seine - are not very convenient for reproduction, and besides, they do not differ in exemplary constancy. Such "sins" were considered unforgivable by metrological scientists. In 1872, the International Metric Commission decided to refuse the services of a natural prototype of length: this honorary role was entrusted to the "archival meter", according to which 31 standards were made in the form of bars, but not from pure platinum, but from its alloy with iridium (10%). After 17 years, a similar fate befell the water from the Seine: a weight made of the same platinum-iridium alloy was approved as the prototype of the kilogram, and 40 of its exact copies became international standards.

Over the past century, "in the realm of weights and measures" there have been some changes: the "archive meter" was forced to retire (the length equal to 1650763.73 wavelengths of the orange radiation of the krypton isotope 86 Kr became the standard of the meter). But the "most important in the world" kilogram of platinum-iridium alloy still remains in service.

The rare metal indium played an important role in ... protecting London from massive German air raids during the Second World War. Due to the extremely high reflectivity of indium, mirrors made from it allowed air defense searchlights in search of air pirates to easily "pierce" with powerful beams the dense fog that often envelops the British Isles. Since indium is a low-melting metal, the mirror constantly needed to be cooled during the operation of the searchlight, but the British military department willingly went to additional expenses, counting with satisfaction the number of enemy aircraft shot down.

In the spring of 1942, the English cruiser Edinburgh, escorted by a convoy, left Murmansk, carrying more than five tons of gold - the payment of the USSR to the allies for military supplies.

However, the cruiser did not arrive at the destination port: it was attacked by fascist submarines and destroyers, which inflicted serious damage on it. And although the cruiser could still stay afloat, the command of the English convoy decided to sink the ship so that the enemy would not get the most valuable cargo.

A few years after the end of the war, an idea was born - to extract gold from the belly of a sunken ship. But it took more than one decade before the idea came to life.

In April 1981, an agreement was reached between the USSR and Great Britain on the lifting of the gold cargo, and soon the British company, with which the corresponding contract was concluded, began to work. A specially equipped rescue vessel "Stefaniturm" arrived at the place of death of "Edinburgh".

To combat the sea elements, the company attracted experienced and brave divers from different countries. The difficulties were not only that the gold rested under a 260-meter water column and a layer of silt, but also that there was a compartment with ammunition next to it, ready to explode at any moment.

Days passed. Replacing each other, divers step by step cleared the way to the gold bars, and finally, late in the evening of September 16, a diver from Zimbabwe, John Rose, brought a heavy black blank to the surface.

When his colleagues wiped off the dirt and oil that covered the surface of the metal with gasoline, everyone saw the long-awaited yellow sheen of gold. Down and Out trouble started! The ascent continued for 20 days, until the raging Barents Sea forced the divers to stop working. In total, 431 ingots of gold of the highest standard (9999) weighing almost 12 kilograms were extracted from the abyss. Each of them at the current rate is estimated at 100 thousand pounds sterling. But 34 ingots still remained at the bottom to wait in the wings.

All the gold raised from the Edinburgh was delivered to Murmansk. Here it was carefully weighed, “credited” and then divided in accordance with the agreement: part was transferred as a reward to the “miner” company, and the rest of the gold was divided between the Soviet and British sides in a ratio of two to one.

At the end of World War II, an American submarine sank the Japanese ship Awa Maru in the East China Sea. This ship, disguised as a floating hospital, was actually on a responsible mission to transport valuables looted in East and Southeast Asia. On board, in particular, there were 12 tons of platinum, a large amount of gold, including 16 tons of antique gold coins, 150 thousand carats of rough diamonds, about 5 thousand tons of rare metals.

Gone in the abyss of wealth for almost four decades, haunted many treasure seekers. With the support of the Japanese government, an expedition was recently organized to raise a ship "stuffed" with precious metals. However, the task is complicated by the fact that the location of "Awa Maru" has not yet been established. True, there are reports in the press that the Japanese were ahead of the Chinese, who allegedly discovered the vessel and have already begun to "clean up" the seabed.

On the northeastern coast of the Caspian Sea there is the Buzachi Peninsula. Long ago, industrial oil production began here. In itself, this event would not have caused a great resonance if it had not turned out that the Buzachi oil is characterized by a high content of ... vanadium.

Now scientists of the Institute of Chemistry, Oil and Natural Salts, as well as the Institute of Metallurgy and Enrichment of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR are developing an effective technology for extracting valuable metal from oil "ore".

Some marine plants and animals - holothurians, ascidians, sea urchins - "collect" vanadium, extracting it from the water in some way unknown to man. Some scientists believe that vanadium, which is present in living organisms of this group, performs the same functions as iron in the blood of humans and higher animals, that is, it helps to absorb oxygen, or, figuratively speaking, "breathe." Other scientists believe that vanadium is necessary for the inhabitants of the seabed not for breathing, but for nutrition. Which of these scientists is right, further research will show. So far, it has been possible to establish that the blood of holothurians contains up to 10% of vanadium, and in some varieties of ascidians, the concentration of this element in the blood is billions of times higher than its content in sea water. Real "piggy banks" of vanadium!

Scientists became interested in the possibility of extracting vanadium from these "piggy banks". In Japan, for example, ascidian plantations occupy entire kilometers of seashores. These animals are very prolific: up to 150 kilograms of ascidians are removed from one square meter of blue plantations. After harvesting, live vanadium "ore" is sent to special laboratories, where the metal needed by the industry is obtained from it. There was a message in the press that Japanese metallurgists had already smelted steel, which was alloyed with vanadium, "extracted" from ascidians.

Biologists are increasingly discovering that processes can take place in living organisms that normally require high temperatures or pressures. So, recently the attention of scientists was attracted by sea cucumbers - representatives of an ancient genus that has existed for 50 million years. It turned out that in the gelatinous body of these animals up to 20 centimeters long, which usually live in silt at the bottom of the seas and oceans, ordinary iron accumulates right under the skin in the form of tiny balls (no more than 0.002 mm in diameter). It is still unclear how sea cucumbers manage to “extract” this iron and why they need such a “stuffing”. A series of experiments with iron isotopes may provide an answer to these questions.

Ever since the Stone Age gave way to the era of copper and the dominant position among the materials used by man was occupied by metal, people have constantly searched for ways to increase its strength. In the middle of the 20th century, scientists faced the problems of space exploration, the conquest of the ocean depths, mastering the energy of the atomic nucleus, and to successfully solve them, new structural materials were needed, including heavy-duty metals.

Shortly before this, physicists calculated by calculation the maximum possible strength of substances: it turned out to be tens of times greater than actually achieved. How can the strength characteristics of metals be brought closer to the theoretical limits?

The answer, as so often in the history of science, came quite unexpectedly. Even during the Second World War, many cases of failure of various electronic devices, capacitors, marine telephone cables were recorded. Soon it was possible to establish the cause of the accidents: the culprits were the smallest (one to two microns in diameter) crystals of tin or cadmium in the form of needles and fibers, which sometimes grew on the surface of steel parts coated with a layer of these metals. To successfully deal with whiskers, or "whiskers" (as the harmful metal "vegetation" was called), they had to be carefully studied. Whisker crystals of hundreds of metals and compounds have been grown in laboratories in various countries. They became the object of numerous studies, as a result of which it turned out (indeed, there is a blessing in disguise) that the "mustache" has an enormous strength, close to theoretical. The amazing strength of whiskers is due to the perfection of their structure, which, in turn, is due to their miniature size. The smaller the crystal, the less likely it is to have various defects - internal and external. So, if the surface of ordinary metals, even polished, at high magnification resembles a well-ploughed field, then the surface of whiskers under the same conditions looks almost even (roughness was not found in some of them even at a magnification of 40,000 times).

From the point of view of the designer, it is quite appropriate to compare the "whiskers" with an ordinary web, which, in terms of strength to weight or length, can be considered a "record holder" among all natural and synthetic materials.

Recently, the attention of scientists has been riveted to the problems of protecting the environment from industrial pollution. Numerous studies indicate that not only in industrial areas, but also far from them, the atmosphere, soil, trees contain many times more toxic elements such as lead and mercury.

Curious data obtained from the analysis of the Greenland firn (dense snow). Firn samples were taken from different horizons corresponding to one or another historical period. In samples dated to 800 BC. e., for every kilogram of firn there is no more than 0.000 000 4 milligrams of lead (this figure is taken as the level of natural pollution, the main source of which is volcanic eruptions). Samples dating back to the middle of the 18th century (the beginning of the industrial revolution) already contained 25 times more of it. Later, a real “invasion” of lead began on Greenland: the content of this element in samples taken from the upper horizons, that is, corresponding to our time, is 500 times higher than the natural level.

Even richer in lead are the eternal snows of European mountain ranges. Thus, its content in the firn of one of the glaciers of the High Tatras has increased by about 15 times over the past 100 years. Unfortunately, earlier samples of firn were not analyzed. If we proceed from the level of natural concentration, then it turns out that in the High Tatras, located next to industrial areas, this level is exceeded by almost 200 thousand times!

Relatively recently, centuries-old oaks growing in one of the parks in the center of Stockholm became the object of research by Swedish scientists. It turned out that the content of lead in trees that are up to 400 years old has increased dramatically in recent decades, along with an increase in the intensity of car traffic. So, if in the last century oak wood contained only 0.000001% lead, then by the middle of the 20th century the lead "reserve" had doubled, and by the end of the 70s it had increased by about 10 times. Particularly rich in this element is the side of the trees that faces the roads and, therefore, is more exposed to exhaust gases.

In some ways, the Rhine was lucky: it turned out to be the only river on our planet, after which the chemical element, rhenium, is named. But on the other hand, other chemical elements bring a lot of trouble to this river. Recently an international seminar, or "consilium on the Rhine," as the Western press called it, took place in Düsseldorf. The members of the council made a unanimous diagnosis: "The river is near death."

The fact is that the banks of the Rhine are densely "populated" with plants and factories, including chemical ones, which generously supply the river with their sewage. Not bad help them in this numerous sewer "tributaries". According to West German scientists, every hour 1250 tons of various salts enter the Rhine waters - a whole train! Every year the river is "enriched" with 3150 tons of chromium, 1520 tons of copper, 12300 tons of zinc, 70 tons of silver oxide and hundreds of tons of other impurities. Is it any wonder that the Rhine is now often referred to as "the gutter" and even "the chamber pot of industrial Europe". And they say that the Rhine was lucky ...

Studies by American physicists have shown that even in areas where there are no industrial enterprises and heavy traffic, and, consequently, sources of atmospheric pollution, there are microscopic amounts of heavy non-ferrous metals in it.

Where do they come from?

Scientists believe that the underground ore layer of the Earth containing these metals is gradually evaporating. It is known that some substances under certain conditions can turn into vapor directly from the solid state, bypassing the liquid state. Although the process proceeds extremely slowly and on a very small scale, a certain number of "runaway" atoms still manage to reach the atmosphere. However, they are not destined to stay here: rains and snows constantly purify the air, returning the evaporated metals to the land they left behind.

Since ancient times, copper and bronze have been liked by sculptors and chasers. Already in the 5th century BC. e. people learned to cast bronze statues. Some of them were gigantic. At the beginning of the III century BC. e. was created, for example, the Colossus of Rhodes - a landmark of the ancient port of Rhodes on the coast of the Aegean Sea. The statue of the sun god Helios, towering 32 meters at the entrance to the inner harbor of the port, was considered one of the seven wonders of the world.

Unfortunately a great creation. ancient sculptor Kharosa existed for only a little more than half a century: during the earthquake, the statue collapsed and was then sold to the Syrians as scrap metal.

Rumor has it that the authorities of the island of Rhodes, in order to attract more tourists, intend to restore this wonder of the world in their harbor according to the surviving drawings and descriptions. True, the resurrected Colossus of Rhodes will no longer be made of bronze, but of aluminum. According to the project, inside the head of the revived wonder of the world it is planned to place ... a beer bar.

Not so long ago, French scientists, conducting underwater research in the Red Sea, discovered a kind of pit more than 2,000 meters deep off the coast of Sudan, and the water at this depth turned out to be very hot.

The researchers descended into the sinkhole on the bathyscaphe "Siana", but soon they had to return, because the steel walls of the bathyscaphe quickly heated up to 43 ° C. Water samples taken by scientists showed that the pit was filled with ... hot liquid "ore": the content of chromium, iron, gold, manganese and many other metals in the water turned out to be unusually high.

For a long time, the inhabitants of Tuva noticed that droplets of a shiny liquid appeared from time to time on the stone slopes of one of the mountains. It is no coincidence that the mountain was called Terlig-Khaya, which in translation from Tuvan means "sweaty rock". As geologists have established, mercury, which is contained in the rocks that make up Terlig-Khai, is "to blame" for this. Now, at the foot of the mountain, the workers of the Tuvakobalt plant are exploring and extracting "silver water".

There is Lake Ushki in Kamchatka. Several decades ago, four metal mugs were found on its shore - ancient coins. Two coins are poorly preserved, and numismatists of the Leningrad Hermitage were only able to establish their eastern origin. But two other copper mugs told the experts a lot. They were minted in the ancient Greek city of Panticapaeum, which stood on the shore of the strait, which was called the Cimmerian Bosporus (in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bpresent-day Kerch).

It is curious that one of these coins can rightfully be considered a contemporary of Archimedes and Hannibal: scientists dated it to the 3rd century BC. The second coin turned out to be "younger" - it was made in 17 AD, when Panticapaeum became the capital of the Bosporus kingdom. On its front side, the image of King Riskuporides the First is minted, and on the reverse side - the profile of the Roman emperor, most likely Tiberius, who ruled in 14-37 AD. The joint “residence” on the coin of two royal persons at once was explained by the fact that the Bosporan kings bore the title “Friend of the Caesars and friend of the Romans”, and therefore images of Roman emperors were placed on their money.

When and in what ways did the little copper wanderers get from the shores of the Black Sea to the hinterland of the Kamchatka Peninsula? But ancient coins remain silent.

Assumption Cathedral - the most beautiful building of the Moscow Kremlin. The interior of the cathedral is illuminated by several chandeliers, the largest of which is made of pure silver. During the war of 1812, this precious metal was looted by Napoleonic soldiers, but "due to technical reasons" it was not possible to take it out of Russia. Silver was recaptured from the enemy, and in memory of the victory, Russian craftsmen made this unique chandelier, consisting of several hundred parts, decorated with various ornaments.

During a yacht trip along the rivers of Europe in the summer of 1905, the great French composer Maurice Ravel visited a large factory located on the banks of the Rhine. What he saw there literally shocked the composer. In one of his letters, he says: “What I saw yesterday stuck in my memory and will remain forever. This is a giant foundry, where 24,000 people work around the clock. How can I convey to you the impression of this realm of metal, these flaming temples fire, from this wonderful symphony of whistles, the noise of drive belts, the roar of hammers that fall on you from all sides ... How musical it all is! I will definitely use it! .. "The composer realized his plan only after almost a quarter of a century. In 1928 he wrote the music for the short ballet Bolero, which became Ravel's most significant work. Industrial rhythms are clearly heard in the music - more than four thousand drum beats in 17 minutes of sound. Truly a symphony of metal!

If the ancient Greeks had known the metal titanium, then it is likely that they would have used it as a building material in the construction of the buildings of the famous Athenian Acropolis. But, unfortunately, the architects of antiquity did not have this "eternal metal". Their wonderful creations were exposed to the destructive influence of centuries. Time ruthlessly destroyed the monuments of Hellenic culture.

At the beginning of our century, the noticeably aged Athenian Acropolis was reconstructed: individual elements of the buildings were fastened with steel reinforcement. But decades passed, the steel was eaten away by rust in some places, many marble slabs sagged and cracked. In order to stop the destruction of the Acropolis, it was decided to replace the steel fasteners with titanium ones, which are not afraid of corrosion, since titanium practically does not oxidize in air. To do this, Greece recently bought a large batch of "eternal metal" from Japan.

It is unlikely that there will be at least one person who has not lost anything in his life. According to the British Treasury, the British annually lose two million pounds of gold and silver jewelry alone, and about 150 million coins worth almost three million pounds. Since so much is lost, so much can be found. That is why there have been many "happiness seekers" in the British Isles lately. Modern technology came to their aid: special devices such as a mine detector went on sale, designed to search for small metal objects in thick grass, in bushes and even under a layer of soil. For the right to "test the soil" the Ministry of Internal Affairs of England collects from everyone who wishes (and there are about 100 thousand of them in the country) a tax of 1.2 pounds sterling. Someone managed, apparently, to justify these expenses; several times there were reports in the press that ancient gold coins were found, the cost of which on the numismatic market is very high.

In recent years, various tests have come into fashion to determine the intellectual abilities of a person. However, as an American professor believes, one can completely do without tests, replacing them with an analysis of the hair of the individual being examined. After analyzing more than 800 assorted curls and strands, the scientist revealed a clear, in his opinion, the relationship between mental development and the chemical composition of hair. In particular, he claims that in the hair thinking people contains more zinc and copper than the hair on the heads of their mentally retarded counterparts.

Is this hypothesis worth considering? Apparently, an affirmative answer can be given only if the content of these elements in the hair of the author of the hypothesis is at a sufficiently high level.

As you know, many chemical elements are necessary for the normal functioning of living and plant organisms. Usually trace elements (they are called so because they are required in microdoses) enter the body with vegetables, fruits and other foods. Recently, the Kiev Confectionery Factory began producing an unusual type of sweet product - sugar, to which necessary to a person trace elements. The new sugar contains manganese, copper, cobalt, chromium, vanadium, titanium, zinc, aluminum, lithium, molybdenum, of course, in trace amounts.

Have you tried molybdenum sugar yet?

As you know, bronze has never been considered a precious metal. However, the Parker firm intends to make a small batch of souvenir fountain pens (only five thousand pieces) from this widespread alloy, which will be sold at a fabulous price - 100 pounds sterling. What grounds do the company's leaders have to hope for the successful sale of such expensive souvenirs?

The fact is that bronze will serve as the material for the feathers, from which parts of the ship equipment of the famous English transatlantic superliner Queen Elizabeth, built in 1940, were made. In the summer of 1944, the Queen Elizabeth, which became a transport ship during the war years, set a kind of record by ferrying 15,200 military personnel across the ocean in one flight - the largest number of people in the history of navigation. Fate was not kind to this largest passenger ship in the history of the world fleet. The rapid development of aviation after the Second World War led to the fact that in the 60s the Queen Elizabeth was left practically without passengers: the majority preferred a swift flight over the Atlantic Ocean. The luxury liner began to make losses and was sold in the United States, where it was supposed to be laid up, equipping it with fashionable restaurants, exotic bars, and gambling halls. But nothing came of this idea, and the Queen Elizabeth, sold at auction, ended up in Hong Kong. Here the last sad pages of the biography of the unique giant ship were written. In 1972, a fire broke out on it, and the pride of English shipbuilders turned into a pile of scrap metal.

It was then that the Parker company had a tempting idea.

Huge areas of the ocean floor are covered with iron-manganese nodules. According to experts, the time when industrial mining of underwater ores will begin is not far off. In the meantime, experiments are underway to develop a technology for producing iron and manganese from nodules. There are already first results. A number of scientists who have made a significant contribution to the development of the oceans were awarded an unusual commemorative medal: the material for it was iron smelted from ferromanganese nodules, which were raised from the ocean floor at a depth of about five kilometers.

Toponymy (from the Greek words "topos" - place, area, and "onoma" - name) is the science of the origin and development of geographical names. Often the area was named due to some characteristics characteristic of it. That is why, shortly before the war, geologists became interested in the names of some sections of one of the Caucasian ridges: Madneuli, Poladeuri and Sarkineti. Indeed, in Georgian "madani" means ore, "lady" - steel, "rkina" - iron. Indeed, geological exploration confirmed the presence of iron ore in the depths of these places, and soon ancient adits were discovered as a result of excavations.

... Perhaps sometime in the fifth or tenth millennium, scientists will pay attention to the name ancient city Magnitogorsk. Geologists and archaeologists will roll up their sleeves, and work will begin to boil where steel once boiled.

Nowadays, when the inquisitive gaze of scientists penetrates deeper and deeper into the depths of the Universe, the interest of science in the microworld, full of secrets and curious facts, does not weaken. Several years ago, for example, one of the employees of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (USA, Massachusetts) managed to discover bacteria that can navigate in the Earth's magnetic field and move strictly in a northerly direction. As it turned out, these microorganisms have two chains of crystalline iron, which, apparently, play the role of a kind of "compass". Further research should show for what "journeys" nature provided the bacteria with this "compass".

One of the most interesting exhibits of the Nizhny Tagil local history museum- a massive table-monument, made entirely of copper. Why is he remarkable? The answer to this question is given by the inscription on the lid of the table: "This is the first copper in Russia, found in Siberia by the former commissar Nikita Demidov according to the letters of Peter I in 1702, 1705 and 1709, and this table was made from this original copper in 1715." The table weighs about 420 kilograms.

What collections the world does not know! Postage stamps and postcards, old coins and watches, lighters and cacti, match and wine labels - these are no surprises today. But Z. Romanov, a foundry master from the Bulgarian city of Vidin, has few competitors. He collects figures made of cast iron, but not artistic items, such as the famous Kasli casting, but those "works of art" of which he is the author. molten iron. During pouring, metal spatters, while solidifying, sometimes take on bizarre shapes. In the collection of the cast iron, which he called "Jokes of cast iron", there are figurines of animals and people, fabulous flowers and many other curious objects that cast iron has created and noticed by the keen eye of the collector.

Somewhat more cumbersome and, perhaps, less aesthetically pleasing are the exhibits from the collection of one of the inhabitants of the United States: he collects cast-iron covers from sewer wells. As the saying goes, “whatever the child is amused by…” However, the wife of the happy owner of numerous lids apparently reasoned differently: when there was no more free space left in the house, she realized that the lid had come to the family hearth and filed for divorce.

Silver coins were first minted in ancient Rome as early as the 3rd century BC. For more than two millennia, silver has done an excellent job with one of its functions - to serve as money. And today silver coins are in circulation in many countries. But here's the problem: inflation and rising prices for precious metals, including silver, on the world market have led to a noticeable gap between the purchasing power of a silver coin and the value of the silver contained in it, which is growing every year. So, for example, the value of the silver contained in the Swedish krona, issued between 1942 and 1967, today has actually turned out to be 17 times higher than the official rate of this coin.

Some enterprising people decided to take advantage of this discrepancy. Simple calculations showed that it is much more profitable to extract silver from one-crown coins than to use them for their intended purpose in stores. Melting the crowns into silver, the businessmen "earned" about 15 million crowns in a few years. They would have smelted silver further, but the Stockholm police stopped their financial and metallurgical activities, and the smelting businessmen were brought to justice.

Long years in the weapons department of the State Historical Museum, a hilt of a sword made by Tula craftsmen at the end of the 18th century and presented by them to Catherine II was exhibited. Of course, the hilt, intended as a gift to the Empress, was not simple and not even gold, but diamond. More precisely, it was strewn with thousands of steel beads, which the craftsmen of the Tula Arms Plant gave the appearance of diamonds with the help of a special cut.

The art of cutting steel appeared, apparently, at the beginning of the 18th century. Among the numerous gifts received by Peter I from Tula, an elegant safe box with faceted steel balls on the lid attracted attention. And although there were few facets, metal "precious stones" played, attracted the eye. Over the years, the diamond cut (16-18 facets) is replaced by the brilliant cut, where the number of facets can reach hundreds. But it took a lot of time and labor to turn steel into diamonds, so often steel jewelry turned out to be more expensive than real ones. At the beginning of the last century, the secrets of this wonderful art were gradually lost. Alexander I also had a hand in this, categorically forbidding gunsmiths to engage in such "knick-knacks" at the factory.

But back to Ephesus. During the renovation of the museum, the hilt was stolen by crooks, who were seduced by a lot of diamonds: it never occurred to the robbers that these “stones” were made of steel. When the "fake" was discovered, the frustrated kidnappers, trying to cover their tracks, committed another crime: they broke the priceless creation of Russian craftsmen and buried it in the ground.

Nevertheless, the hilt was found, but corrosion dealt ruthlessly with man-made diamonds: the vast majority of them (about 8.5 thousand) were covered with a layer of rust, and many were completely destroyed. Almost all experts believed that it was impossible to restore the hilt. But nevertheless, there was a person who undertook this most difficult task: he became the Moscow artist-restorer E. V. Butorov, who already had many revived masterpieces of Russian and Western art.

"I was well aware of the responsibility and complexity of the work ahead," says Butorov. “Everything was unclear and unknown. The principle of assembling the hilt was incomprehensible, the technology for making a diamond facet was unknown, there were no tools necessary for restoration. Before starting work, I studied the era of creating a hilt, the technology of weapons production of that time for a long time.”

The artist was forced to try different ways of cutting, combining restoration work with a research search. The work was complicated by the fact that "diamonds" differed markedly both in shape (oval, "marquise", "fantasy", etc.), and in size (from 0.5 to 5 millimeters), "simple" cutting (12 –16 facets) alternated with "royal" (86 facets).

And now behind ten years of intense jewelry work, crowned with great success by a talented restorer. The newly born hilt is on display at the State Historical Museum.

Mayakovskaya is rightfully considered one of the most beautiful stations of the Moscow Metro. It charms Muscovites and guests of the capital with its amazing lightness of forms and grace of lines. But, apparently, few people know that this soaring openwork of the underground vestibule was achieved due to the fact that during its construction, for the first time in the practice of domestic metro construction, steel structures were used that managed to perceive the monstrous load of many meters of soil.

The builders of the station also used steel as a finishing material. According to the project, corrugated stainless steel was required for facing the arched structures. Specialists of "Dirizhablestroy" rendered a great help to the metro builders. The fact is that this enterprise had the latest technology for that time, including the only wide-strip profiling mill in the country. At that time, an all-metal folding airship designed by K. E. Tsiolkovsky was being assembled at this enterprise. The shell of this airship consisted of metal "shells" connected into a movable "lock". For rolling such parts, a special mill was built.

The honorary order of the metro builders "Airship system" completed on time; for reliability, this organization sent its installers to the metro station, who, even deep underground, turned out to be on top.

In 1958, in Brussels, an unusual building, the Atomium, majestically towered over the territory of the World Industrial Exhibition. Nine huge (diameter 18 meters) metal balls seemed to be hanging in the air: eight - along the tops of the cube, the ninth - in the center. It was a model of the crystal lattice of iron, magnified 165 billion times. The atomium symbolized the greatness of iron - a hard-working metal, the main metal of industry.

When the exhibition closed, small restaurants and viewing platforms were placed in the balls of the Atomium, which were visited by about half a million people annually. It was assumed that the unique building would be dismantled in 1979. However, taking into account the good condition of the metal structures and the considerable income brought by Atomium, its owners and the Brussels authorities signed an agreement extending the life of this "monument" to iron for at least another 30 years, i.e. until 2009.

On August 18, 1964, at the pre-dawn hour, a space rocket was launched on Prospekt Mira in Moscow. This starship was not destined to reach the Moon or Venus, but the fate prepared for it is no less honorable: forever frozen in the Moscow sky, the silvery obelisk will carry through the centuries the memory of the first path laid by man in space.

The authors of the project could not choose the facing material for this majestic monument for a long time. First, the obelisk was designed in glass, then in plastic, then in stainless steel. But all these options were rejected by the authors themselves. After much thought and experimentation, the architects decided to opt for polished titanium sheets. The rocket itself, which crowned the obelisk, was also made of titanium.

This "eternal metal", as titanium is often called, was also preferred by the authors of yet another monumental structure. At the competition of monument projects in honor of the centenary of the International Telecommunication Union, organized by UNESCO, the first place (out of 213 submitted projects) was taken by the work of Soviet architects. The monument, which was supposed to be installed in the Place des Nations in Geneva, was supposed to be two concrete shells 10.5 meters high, lined with polished titanium plates. A person passing between these shells along a special path could hear his voice, steps, the NOISE of the city, see his image in the center of circles going to infinity. Unfortunately, this interesting project was never implemented.

And recently, a monument to Yuri Gagarin was erected in Moscow: a twelve-meter figure of cosmonaut No. 1 on a high column-pedestal and a model of the Vostok spacecraft, on which the historic flight was made, are made of titanium.

A few years ago, the French company Interforge announced its desire to purchase a heavy-duty press for stamping complex large-sized parts for aviation and space technology. Leading firms from many countries took part in a kind of competition. Preference was given to the Soviet project. Soon an agreement was signed, and at the beginning of 1975, at the entrance to the ancient French city of Issoire, a huge production building appeared, built for one machine - a hydraulic press of unique power with a force of 65,000 tons. The contract provided for not just the supply of equipment, but the turnkey delivery of the press, that is, installation and commissioning by Soviet specialists.

On November 18, 1976, exactly on time, established by the contract, the press stamped the first batch of parts. French newspapers called it the "machine of the century" and cited curious figures. The mass of this giant - 17 thousand tons - is twice the mass of the Eiffel Tower, and the height of the workshop where it is installed is equal to the height of the cathedral Notre Dame of Paris.

Despite its huge size, the process is characterized by a high stamping speed and unusually high precision. On the eve of the start-up of the unit, French television showed how a two-thousand-ton traverse of the press gently splits walnuts without damaging their core, or pushes a matchbox put "on the butt" without leaving the slightest damage on it.

At the ceremony dedicated to the transfer of the press, V. Giscard d "Estaing, then President of France, spoke. Final words In his speech, he delivered in Russian: "Thank you for this excellent achievement, which does honor to Soviet industry."

A few years ago, a new Light Metals Research Institute was established in Cleveland, USA. At the opening ceremony, the traditional ribbon stretched in front of the entrance to the institute was made of ... titanium. To cut it, the mayor of the city had to use a gas burner and goggles instead of scissors.

A few years ago, a new exhibit appeared in the Museum of the History and Reconstruction of Moscow - an iron ring. And although this modest ring could not be compared with luxurious rings made of precious metals and precious stones, the museum workers gave it a place of honor in their exposition. What attracted this ring to their attention?

The fact is that the material for the ring was the iron shackles, which were worn in Siberia for a long time by the Decembrist Yevgeny Petrovich Obolensky, who was sentenced to eternal hard labor, the chief of staff of the uprising on Senate Square. In 1828, the highest permission came to remove the shackles from the Decembrists. Brothers Nikolai and Mikhail Bestuzhev, who were serving their sentences at the Nerchinsk mines, together with Obolensky, made commemorative iron rings from his shackles.

More than a hundred years after the death of Obolensky, the ring was kept along with other relics in his family, passing from generation to generation. And today, the descendants of the Decembrist gave this unusual iron ring to the museum.

For more than a century, people have been using shaving blades - thin, sharpened plates made of different metals. All-knowing statistics claim that today about 30 billion blades are produced in the world every year.

At first they were made mainly of carbon steel, then it was replaced by "stainless steel". In recent years, the cutting edges of the blades are covered with a thin layer of high-molecular polymer materials that serve as a dry lubricant in the process of cutting hair, and to increase the resistance of the cutting edges, atomic films of chromium, gold or platinum are sometimes applied to them.

In 1974, a discovery was registered in the USSR, which is based on complex biochemical processes that take place. bacteria. A long-term study of antimony deposits showed that antimony in them is gradually oxidized, although under normal conditions such a process cannot proceed: this requires high temperatures - more than 300 ° C. What causes antimony to violate the laws of chemistry?

Examination of samples of oxidized ore showed that they were densely populated with previously unknown microorganisms, which were the culprits of oxidative "events" in the mines. But, having oxidized antimony, the bacteria did not rest on their laurels: they immediately used the energy of oxidation to carry out another chemical process - chemosynthesis, i.e., to convert carbon dioxide into organic substances.

The phenomenon of chemosynthesis was first discovered and described back in 1887 by the Russian scientist S. N. Vinogradsky. However, until now, only four elements were known to science, the bacterial oxidation of which releases energy for chemosynthesis: nitrogen, sulfur, iron and hydrogen. Now antimony has been added to them.

Which of the Muscovites or guests of the capital has not been to the State Department Store - GUM? Built almost a hundred years ago, the shopping arcade building is experiencing its second youth. Specialists of the All-Union Production Research and Restoration Plant performed a great deal of work on the reconstruction of GUM. In particular, the galvanized iron roof that has worn out over the years has been replaced with a modern roofing material - "tiles" made of sheet copper.

For many years, scientists have been arguing about the unique creation of the ancient Egyptian masters - the golden mask of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Some claimed that it was made from a whole bar of gold. Others believed that it was assembled from separate parts. To establish the truth, it was decided to use a cobalt gun. With the help of an isotope of cobalt, or rather the gamma rays emitted by it, it was possible to establish that the mask really consists of several parts, but so carefully fitted to one another that it was impossible to notice the joint lines with the naked eye.

In 1980, the famous art collection ancient egypt exhibited in West Berlin. In the center of attention, as always, was the famous mask of Tutankhamen. Unexpectedly, on one of the days of the exhibition, experts noticed three deep cracks on the mask. Probably, for some reason, the "seams", i.e., the junction lines of the individual parts of the mask, began to diverge. Alarmed in earnest, representatives of the commission for culture and tourism of Egypt hastened to return the collection to Egypt. Now it's up to the expert, which should answer the question, what happened to the most valuable work of art of antiquity?

As on Earth, pure metals are relatively rare on the Moon. Nevertheless, particles of metals such as iron, copper, nickel, and zinc have already been found. In a sample of lunar soil taken by the automatic station "Luna-20" in the continental part of our satellite - between the Sea of ​​Crises and the Sea of ​​Abundance - native aluminum was discovered for the first time. When studying the lunar fraction with a mass of 33 milligrams at the Institute of Geology of Ore Deposits, Petrography, Mineralogy and Geochemistry of the USSR Academy of Sciences, three tiny particles of pure aluminum were identified. These are flat, slightly elongated grains measuring 0.22, 0.15 and 0.1 mm with a matte surface and silver-gray in a fresh fracture.

The crystal lattice parameters of native lunar aluminum turned out to be the same as those of pure aluminum samples obtained in terrestrial laboratories. In nature, on our planet, native aluminum was found by scientists only once in Siberia. According to experts, on the Moon, this metal should be more common in its pure form. This is explained by the fact that the lunar soil is constantly "shelled" by streams of protons and other particles of cosmic radiation. Such a bombardment can lead to a violation of the crystal lattice and to breaking the bonds of aluminum with other chemical elements in the minerals that make up the lunar rock. As a result of the "break in relations" particles of pure aluminum appear in the soil.

Three quarters of a century ago, the Battle of Tsushima took place. In this unequal battle with the Japanese squadron, the depths of the sea swallowed up several Russian ships, among them the cruiser Admiral Nakhimov.

Recently, the Japanese company Nippon Marine decided to raise the cruiser from the bottom of the sea. Of course, the operation to raise the "Admiral Nakhimov" is explained not by love for Russian history and its relics, but by the most selfish considerations: there is evidence that there were gold bars on board the sunken ship, the cost of which in current prices can range from 1 to 4.5 billion dollars.

We have already managed to determine the place where the cruiser lies at a depth of about 100 meters, and the company is ready to start lifting it. According to experts, this operation will last several months and cost the company about one and a half million dollars. Well, for the sake of billions, you can risk millions.

Products made of wood or stone, ceramics or metal, made hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of years ago, adorn the stands of the largest museums in the world, take pride of place in numerous private collections. Fans of antiquity are ready to pay fabulous money for the works of ancient masters, and some enterprising lovers of money, in turn, are ready to create a wide range and profitably sell "deep antiquities."

How to distinguish genuine rarities from finely crafted fakes? Previously, the only "instrument" for this purpose was the experienced eye of a specialist. But, alas, it is not always possible to rely on it. Today, science allows you to fairly accurately determine the age of various products from any materials.

Perhaps the main object of falsification are gold jewelry, figurines, coins of ancient peoples - Etruscans and Byzantines, Incas and Egyptians, Romans and Greeks. Methods for establishing the authenticity of gold items are based on technological examination and analysis of the metal. For certain impurities, old gold can be easily distinguished from new, and the methods of metal processing used by ancient masters, and the nature of their work, are so original and unique that the chances of counterfeiters to succeed are reduced to zero.

Experts recognize copper and bronze fakes by the features of the metal surface, but mainly by its chemical composition. Since it has changed many times over the centuries, each period is characterized by a certain content of the main components. So, in 1965, the collection of the Kunsthandel Museum in Berlin was replenished with a valuable exhibit - a late antique bronze watering can in the shape of a horse. It was believed that this watering can, or rhyton, is a "Coptic work of the 9th-10th centuries." Exactly the same bronze rhyton, the authenticity of which was not in doubt, is kept in the Hermitage. A careful comparison of the exhibits led scientists to the idea that the Berlin horse is nothing more than a skillfully made fake. Indeed, the analysis confirmed the fears: the bronze contained 37-38% zinc - a bit too much for the 10th century. Most likely, experts believe, this rhyton was born only a few years before it came to the Kunsthandel, that is, approximately in 1960 - at the "rush hour" of fashion for Coptic products.

To determine the authenticity of ancient pottery, scientists successfully use the method of archeomagnetism. What is it? When the ceramic mass is cooled, the iron particles contained in it have a "habit" to line up along the lines of force of the Earth's magnetic field. And since it changes over time, the nature of the arrangement of iron particles also changes, due to which, through simple studies, it is possible to determine the age of the “suspected” ceramic product. Even if the forger managed to select the composition of the ceramic mass, similar to the ancient compositions, and skillfully copy the shape of the product, then he, of course, cannot arrange the iron particles in an appropriate way. This is what will give him away with his head.

As you know, metals have a rather high coefficient of thermal expansion.

For this reason, steel structures, depending on the time of year, and, consequently, on the ambient temperature, become either longer or shorter. So, the famous Eiffel Tower - "Iron Madame", as Parisians often call it - is 15 centimeters higher in summer than in winter.

Our planet is not very hospitable to celestial wanderers: upon entering the dense layers of its atmosphere, large meteorites usually explode and fall to the earth's surface in the form of so-called "meteorite showers".

The most abundant such "rain" fell on February 12, 1947 over the western spurs of the Sikhote-Alin. It was accompanied by a roar of explosions, within a radius of 400 kilometers a fireball was visible - a bright fireball with a huge luminous smoky tail.

An expedition of the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences soon arrived in the fall zone of the space alien to study such unusual "atmospheric precipitation". In the wilds of the taiga, scientists found 24 craters with a diameter of 9 to 24 meters, as well as more than 170 funnels and holes formed by particles of "iron rain". In total, the expedition collected over 3,500 iron fragments with a total weight of 27 tons. According to experts, before meeting with the Earth, this meteorite, called the Sikhote-Alin, weighed about 70 tons.

Geologists often use the "services" of many plants, which serve as a kind of indicators of certain chemical elements and, thanks to this, help to detect deposits of the corresponding minerals in the soil. And a mining engineer from Zimbabwe, William West, decided to involve as assistants in the geological search representatives not of flora, but of fauna, more precisely, ordinary African termites. When building their cone-shaped "dormitories" - termite mounds (their height sometimes reaches 15 meters), these insects penetrate deep into the ground. Returning to the surface, they carry building material with them - "samples" of soil from various depths. That is why the study of termite mounds - the determination of their chemical and mineral composition - makes it possible to judge the presence of certain minerals in the soil of a given area.

West conducted many experiments, which then formed the basis of his "termite" method. The first practical results have already been obtained: thanks to the method of engineer West, rich gold-bearing seams have been discovered.

Discovered in 1820, Antarctica still remains a continent of mysteries: after all, almost its entire territory (by the way, almost one and a half times the area of ​​​​Europe) is encased in an ice shell. The thickness of the ice is on average 1.5–2 kilometers, and in some places reaches 4.5 kilometers.

It is not easy to look under this "shell", and although scientists from a number of countries have been conducting intensive research here for more than a quarter of a century, Antarctica has not revealed all its secrets. In particular, scientists are interested in the natural resources of this continent. Many facts indicate that Antarctica has a common geological past with South America, Africa, Australia and, therefore, these regions should have approximately similar spectra of minerals. Thus, Antarctic rocks apparently contain diamonds, uranium, titanium, gold, silver, and tin. In some places, layers of coal, deposits of iron and copper-molybdenum ores have already been discovered. So far, mountains of ice stand as an obstacle on the way to them, but sooner or later these riches will come at the disposal of people.