We specialize in hard to find items
(1)
The Substance of Civilization Materials and Human History from the Stone Age to the Age of Silicon
Share Tweet
*Price and Stocks may change without prior notice
*Packaging of actual item may differ from photo shown
- Electrical items MAY be 110 volts.
- 7 Day Return Policy
- All products are genuine and original
About The Substance Of Civilization Materials And Human
Product Description The story of human civilization can be read most deeply in the materials we have found or created, used or abused. They have dictated how we build, eat, communicate, wage war, create art, travel, and worship. Some, such as stone, iron, and bronze, lend their names to the ages. Others, such as gold, silver, and diamond, contributed to the rise and fall of great empires. How would history have unfolded without glass, paper, steel, cement, or gunpowder? The impulse to master the properties of our material world and to invent new substances has remained unchanged from the dawn of time; it has guided and shaped the course of history. Sass shows us how substances and civilizations have evolved together. In antiquity, iron was considered more precious than gold. The celluloid used in movie film had its origins in the search for a substitute for ivory billiard balls. The same clay used in the pottery of antiquity has its uses in today’s computer chips. Moving from the Stone Age to the Age of Silicon, from the days of prehistoric survival to the cutting edge of nanotechnology, this fascinating and accessible book connects the worlds of minerals and molecules to the sweep of human history, and shows what materials will dominate the century ahead. About the Author Stephen L. Sass is a professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell University, where he has won a number of teaching awards. He currently lives in Ithaca, New York. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Substance of Civilization Materials and Human History from the Stone Age to the Age of Silicon By Stephen L. Sass Skyhorse Publishing Copyright © 2011 Stephen L. Sass All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-61145-401-7 Contents Acknowledgments, Introduction, 1 The Ages of Stone and Clay, 2 The Age of Metals: A Primer, 3 Copper and Bronze, 4 Gold, Silver, and the Rise of Empires, 5 The Age of Iron, 6 A Quick History of Glass, 7 Building for the Ages, 8 Innovations from the East, 9 Stoking the Furnace of Capitalism, 10 The Birth of Modern Metals, 11 Steel: Master of Them All, 12 Exploding Billiard Balls and Other Polymers, 13 Diamond: The Superlative Substance, 14 Composites: The Lesson of Nature, 15 The Age of Silicon, Epilogue: Materials in the Twenty-First Century, Notes, Bibliography, CHAPTER 1 The Ages of Stone and Clay The High Priest of Kulaba formed some clay and wrote words on it as if on a tablet — In those days words written on clay tablets did not exist, But now, with the sun's rising, so it was! The High Priest of Kulaba wrote words as if on a tablet, and so it was! — Enmerkar and the Lord of Arratá Gazing across the stark, sunbaked land- and waterscape of Salmon Creek Reservoir, set in the sagebrush desert of southern Idaho, I was alert to any motion of the tip of my fishing pole, propped up by rocks. My family and I often visit my in-laws in Twin Falls, Idaho, and we always go fishing for rainbow trout. Erik, my younger son, back from exploring the barren cliffs, came running up to me, clutching a black stone different in appearance from the slabs of lava rock scattered along the shore about us. "Dad, what's this?" Turning the dull stone over in my hand, I told him it was obsidian. "It's glass — different from most rocks. More like a frozen liquid than a crystalline solid." When I started to explain that it had a different atomic structure than many other minerals, his gaze drifted away. I turned and threw the piece of obsidian against a nearby rock, shattering it into shiny, razor-edged chunks. "Native Americans around here and people in the ancient Near East used obsidian to make axes and arrowheads, because it splits into lots of sharp pieces." Glass is one of many materials that craftspeople used thousands of years ago that we still employ, albeit in very different ways. I told Erik that today phone companies were replacing copper wires with optical fibers made of very pure and ultra-clear
