Seven Elements That Have Changed the World (48 page)

8.
Norman Polmar,
Cold War Submarines
(Virginia: Potomac Books, 2004), p. 136.

9.
Ibid., p. 139.
K-162
was an ‘interceptor’ submarine. Using a titanium alloy hull enabled
K-162
submarines to have a fifth less mass and to move a tenth faster than if steel had been used. It could accelerate to a speed of 45 knots.

10.
The metallic parts of the world’s first implanted artificial heart in 2001 were made from titanium.

11.
Around two-thirds of all titanium metal is consumed by the aerospace industry. The use of titanium alloys in commercial Boeing aircraft continues to rise. Between 1960 and 1995 titanium’s percentage of the aircraft’s empty weight rose from virtually nothing to around 9 per cent and that used in the engine’s weight rose to over 30 per cent.

12.
Titanium is most commonly bound in its ore with oxygen but, unlike iron, this
oxygen cannot be removed using carbon. Titanium is so reactive that it will also bond with the carbon atoms, forming useless titanium carbide. Kroll solved this problem using a two-step chemical process in which titanium is first chlorinated to produce titanium tetrachloride (titanium atoms with four chlorine atoms attached) and then mixed with molten magnesium, which produces titanium sponge metal and magnesium chloride. The sponge metal then has to be further processed to produce titanium ingots. The process is very expensive because each stage is energy- and capital-intensive. Moreover, the hardness of titanium metal makes it very costly to machine and much metal is wasted in the process. New methods of separation by electrolysis (similar to the way that aluminium is extracted from its ore) are currently under development, but none have yet been commercially successful.

13.
Lance Phillips and David Barbano, ‘The Influence of Fat Substitutes Based on Protein and Titanium Dioxide on the Sensory Properties of Low-fat Milks’,
Journal of Dairy Science
, Vol. 80, No. 11, November 1997, pp. 2726–31.

14.
In June 1946, the world’s largest ilmenite deposit was found in the Lake Allard area of Quebec. Quebec Iron and Titanium Corporation formed in August 1948 between Kennecott Copper and the New Jersey Zinc Company. Titanium most commonly occurs in nature as either ilmenite (titanium iron oxide) or rutile (titanium oxide).

15.
Newton had a working theory by January 1666, but didn’t publish his ‘New theory about light and colours’ in
Philosophical Transactions
until 1672.

16.
According to Benjamin Haydon, the nineteenth-century historical painter and writer, during an ‘immortal dinner’ on 28 December 1817 hosted by Haydon and attended by William Wordsworth, Charles Lamb, John Keats, and Keats’s friend Thomas Monkhouse, Keats joked that Newton ‘has destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow, by reducing it to the prismatic colours’. He then proposed a toast to ‘Newton’s health, and confusion to mathematics’. Based on this story, Richard Dawkins entitled his book on the relationship between science and the arts
Unweaving the Rainbow
(London: Penguin Books, 1998). Benjamin Robert Haydon,
The Autobiography and Memoirs of Benjamin Robert Haydon
: Vol. 1 (London: Peter Davies, 1926, edited by Tom Taylor), p. 269.

17.
Bernard Cohen,
Cambridge Companion to Newton
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 230.

18.
The Sun emits electromagnetic radiation of different wavelengths (for visible light, a type of electromagnetic radiation, these correspond to different colours) in different intensities. As well as visible light, the Sun emits electromagnetic radiation of longer and shorter wavelengths that are not detectable by the eye. Our eyes have developed so that the range of wavelengths they can detect are those that the Sun emits with maximum intensity.

19.
The Sun appears golden because the Earth’s atmosphere acts like a filter, scattering
longer, bluer wavelengths of light (making the sky appear blue) and leaving behind the shorter yellow and red wavelengths.

20.
Pilkington Glass produced the first commercial self-cleaning windows in 2001.

21.
Deyong Wu and Mingce Long, ‘Realizing Visible-Light-Induced Self-Cleaning Property of Cotton through Coating N-TiO2 Film and Loading AgI Particles’,
ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces
, 2011, 3 (12), pp. 4770–74.

22.
These solar cells, called Grätzel cells after their inventor Michael Grätzel, are a type of ‘dye-sensitized solar cell’ (DSC). However, most solar cells are of another type, made from silicon, which will be discussed in the next chapter. Michael Grätzel and Brian O’Regan, ‘A low-cost, high-efficiency solar cell based on dye-sensitized colloidal TiO2 films’,
Nature
, Vol. 353, pp. 737–40 (24 October 1991).

23.
Titanium’s use in cutlery sets was revealed to me by a former British intelligence officer based in Moscow, who recounted his surprise at being asked to go out and purchase one for analysis.

1.
Vannoccio Biringuccio,
Pirotechnia
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966), p. 126. Biringuccio was a contemporary of Georgius Agricola. In
De re metallica
Agricola writes: ‘Recently Vannoccio Biringuccio of Sienna, a wise man experienced in many matters, wrote … on the subjects of the melting and smelting and alloying of metals … by reading his directions, I have refreshed my memory of these things which I saw in Italy.’ He did rather more than refresh his memory, extensively copying (but also extending) sections of Biringuccio’s work. Yet
De re metallica
and
Pirotechnia
are distinct texts. Agricola writes in great detail on mining practices, which are only briefly considered in
Pirotechnia.
Biringuccio instead focuses on the extraction of metals from ore and the fabrication of metallic objects. For example, he writes at length on the fabrication of guns and bells (he was employed later in life to cast arms and construct fortresses for, among others, the Venetian Republic). Agricola can be considered the ‘father of the mining industry’, while Biringuccio is the ‘father of the foundry industry’. Agricola,
De re metallica
, p. xxvii.

2.
Biringuccio,
Pirotechnia
, p. 126. The story of the discovery of glass, retold by both Agricola and Biringuccio, originated with Pliny the Elder (
Natural History
, c.
AD
79).

3.
The first glass objects were beads, which imitate gemstones, from Egypt in the third millennium
BC
; Near Eastern glass was developed around 1600
BC.

4.
Biringuccio,
Pirotechnia
, pp. 126–7.

5.
Viscosity is the friction between the molecules of a liquid.

6.
Glass easily breaks because it does not have a rigid crystal structure.

7.
‘Black elephant in
pastra vitrea
with deep blue eyes, tusks and legs’. Purchased from Claudio Gianolla, Antiquario, San Marco 2766, 30124 Venezia.

8.
Cappellin Venini and Company was founded in 1921 and the following year its first glass objects were exhibited at the Venice Biennale. In 1925 the company split up and Martinuzzi became the director of the new Venini and Co.

9.
The glassmaking industry was not the only one to be concentrated in a specific area; the move was part of a broader Venetian economic plan for consolidation.

10.
Biringuccio,
Pirotechnia
, p. 130.

11.
Agricola,
De re metallica
, p. 592.

12.
Agricola,
De Natura Fossilium
(New York: Geological Society of America, 1955. Translated from the first Latin edition of 1546 by Mark Chance Bandy and Jean A. Bandy), p. 111.

13.
Cristallo glass was first produced around 1450 by Angelo Beroviero. The presence of iron oxide in sand and plant ash, which was often used as a fluxing agent, gave poor-quality glass a blue or green colour. Adding the right amount of manganese oxide would largely take out the colour of the glass, but a weak yellow or grey tint would persist. Muranese glassworkers used very pure silica and purified the plant ash into a white salt to remove most of the iron oxide from the glassmaking ingredients. Only a small amount of manganese oxide then needed to be added, reducing the chance of unwanted yellow tints. The result was a product that resembled quartz rock crystal. Quartz is atomically very similar to glass, as both are made from oxygen and silicon in a roughly 2:1 ratio. But in quartz the atoms are arranged in a rigid lattice, while the atoms in glass are disordered and resemble a liquid.

14.
To produce a clear reflection, a flat, thin and clear piece of glass is needed. The difficulty in producing this meant that for a long time polished metal mirrors produced a clearer image than those made from glass. In ancient Greece and Rome, a mixture of copper and tin, or sometimes bronze, was used to make small mirrors, usually for personal grooming.

15.
Sabine Melchior-Bonnet,
The Mirror
:
A History
(New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 16–17.

16.
Vannoccio Biringuccio in Melchior-Bonnet,
The Mirror
, p. 20.

17.
Mark Pendergrast,
Mirror
,
Mirror
(New York: Basic Books, 2003 [ebook]), location 1813/5102.

18.
Ibid., location 1818/5102.

19.
Melchior-Bonnet,
The Mirror
, p. 47.

20.
Pendergrast,
Mirror
,
Mirror
, location 1844/5102.

21.
In 1674 George Ravenscroft invented lead crystal glass by adding lead oxide to silica. The clear, heavy glass refracts light at a greater angle than normal glass, resulting in diamond-like sparkling when it is cut in facets. English lead crystal made Venetian
glasswork unfashionable. In 1674, Ambassador Alberti noted that the glassworkers of Murano residing in London ‘ … are unemployed; they die of hunger or emigrate’. Patrick McCray,
Glassmaking in Renaissance Venice
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), p. 163.

22.
James Chance was one of few graduates to receive first-class honours at Cambridge to go into a career in business. Many continued in academia, while those leaving the University would go into the Church, the armed forces or a career in law. All were more highly regarded than business. Of those graduating in the top ten in mathematics between 1830 and 1860, only 3 per cent chose business as a career. The same was true at Cambridge when I studied there in the 1960s. A few weeks before I graduated in 1969, I saw Brian Pippard, one of my most distinguished professors, coming towards me along King’s Parade. As he passed, he turned to his colleague and said: ‘This is Browne. He is going to be a captain of industry. Isn’t that amusing?’ A career in business was generally regarded as a waste of potential for students at the University.

23.
Chance had agreed to purchase the rights for Bontemps’ manufacturing techniques in return for five-twelfths of the profits. The development of patent law and the ability to profitably transfer know-how was important to securing a competitive advantage and rewarding innovation. Bontemps was not so certain about the security of patents, writing to Lucas in 1844 that ‘A patent in general is fit only for an inventor, who has no manufactury of his own, and who wishes to sell the use of his invention’.

24.
Lancet
, Vol. 1, 22 February 1845, p. 214 (London: John Churchill, 1845).

25.
Charles Ryle Fay,
Palace of Industry
,
1851
:
A Study of the Great Exhibition and Its Fruits
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951), p. 16.

26.
The Times
, 2 May 1851, in Patrick Beaver,
The Crystal Palace
(Chichester: Phillimore, 1986), pp. 41–2.

27.
Ibid.

28.
The Times
, in Beaver,
The Crystal Palace
, p. 37.

29.
Bessemer invented new methods for the production of glass lenses and plate glass. He also designed a new reverberatory furnace, which was sold to Chance Glass.

30.
Paxton built the glasshouse to house a giant Amazonia lily he had grown. In awe at the sheer size of the plant, which had leaves over a metre and half in diameter, he used the rib structure that supported the leaves as a design for his glasshouse.

31.
Before Paxton submitted his proposal, the Building Committee planned to build a brick and iron building four times the length of St Paul’s cathedral with a huge iron dome placed at the centre. Many considered it a monstrosity. Paxton’s design for the Crystal Palace was as pragmatic as it was aesthetic. Glass was cheaper than brick and could be assembled far more quickly.

32.
Toby Chance and Peter Williams,
Lighthouses
:
The Race to Illuminate the World
(London: New Holland Publishers Ltd, 2008), p. 108.

33.
In 1854 the Crystal Palace was moved, strut by strut, pane by pane, to a new site on Sydenham Hill in south London. But on 30 November 1936, a small fire in the staff lavatory at the Crystal Palace quickly swept through the building, fuelled by the wooden floors and walls. All that remains today are the bare foundations.

34.
Punch,
2 November 1951. The magazine, which also coined the name ‘Crystal Palace’, continued: ‘We shall be disappointed if the next generation of London children are not brought up like cucumbers under glass’ (Chance and Williams,
Lighthouses
, p. 109).

35.
Cylinder-splitting glass was mechanised at the end of the nineteenth century, producing sheets up to 13 metres in length and almost 2.5 metres wide. Machine-blown glass, using compressed gas, was not introduced to Great Britain by Pilkingtons until 1909.

36.
Ribbon glass had been produced for decades prior to Pilkington’s invention. Pilkington Glass had developed the process with Henry Ford early in the twentieth century, who was trying to further reduce the cost of his automobiles. However, this ribbon glass still required grinding and polishing.