There are many interesting facts related to metal. Even the ancient inhabitants of Norway believed that the poisoning of the smelting workers, which were observed during the melting of silver - this is the trick of Cobolt - the evil spirit. And it's true, during the roasting process of cobaltic arsenic-containing minerals, arsenic oxide, hazardous to health, is released.
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A completely different spirit, Nickel, angered the medieval miners of Germany.
It was he who prevented the extraction of copper, outwardly similar to copper, from copper ore. And only in the eighteenth century from this ore was isolated metal, nicknamed nickel.
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For many centuries, gold was considered the most expensive materials in the world.
For centuries, alchemists have sought ways to extract it from all sorts of components. This happened in 1941, when a method for bombarding mercury atoms with fast neutrons was developed, and as a result, radioactive gold was obtained.
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It is interesting that if you calculate the gold produced in the world in the history of mankind, then the total amount of this metal will be 165 thousand tons.
At the same time, half of this number is from South Africa. And if one ingot is poured from this gold, it will be a cube, whose side is 20 m.
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The most expensive cutlery of Napoleon III was aluminum, only open and unusual for those times metal. They were served during solemn meals exclusively to the emperor and to the most distinguished guests. All the other guests used conventional instruments, made of silver and gold.
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The sea water contains the entire table of Mendeleev's chemical elements, including uranium and gold. However, for industrial purposes even today we can use only bromine, magnesium and sodium chloride.
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The relative concentration in stars and galaxies of elements heavier than helium in astrophysics is called metallicity. It is this parameter that determines the age of the stellar system. It is known that the very first stars did not contain metals. But every next generation was more rich than the previous generation.
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Only seven percent of titanium produced in the world is used in engineering. Thirteen percent is used in the paper industry, twenty goes for plastic production and sixty percent for the production of colorants.
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Mercury excellently destroys the surface film inherent in aluminum oxide, without which aluminum is oxidized in air for a short time. This is the main reason why mercury is forbidden to be carried in airplanes. In the event of a spill, it can disrupt the integrity of the fuselage.
