Have a look at some change in your pocket and you’ll see that mostly coins have ribbed edges as if they are scarred. Such textured surface can be observed in almost every coin of the world no matter where it came from. Such coins appeared several centuries ago. So why are all of them ribbed?
Have you ever wondered why the letters on any keyboard (of your PC, tablet or laptop) aren’t situated in alphabetical order? The location of letters goes back to 19th century typewriter. The principle of its work is very simple. When you push the button with the letter, it activates a small type lever with a cast matrix of this letter on its top. This type lever hits the ribbon soaked with ink, which occupies the position between lever and paper. This is how we get the print. While typing a text, levers hit the paper one by one. Continue reading
Steel may well turn to be applied more widely than any other material, present in lots of familiar items starting from your fridge and cell-phone and ending up with details of ocean liners, planes and space craft. You probably know that by steel we mean an alloy mainly composed of iron and carbon. Due to the presence of the latter, in contrast to pure iron, steel acquires higher strength characteristics. Have you ever wonder why carbon is contained in steel and, besides, how it alters properties of iron so substantially? Actually, this was the question of our visitor, it sounded as “why steel has carbon in its structure? is there any simple explanation?” We provided the short answer and, as the topic is unquestionably interesting, decided to consider it in detail in our blog.
Humans started to use iron a long time ago. The oldest item made of meteoric iron was found on the territories of modern Iran, Iraq and Egypt, and is referred to the period XI-IV BC. Approximately starting from the first millennium BC usage of iron is wide-spreading continuously. Primarily because of the transition from bronze to iron civilization growth got more intensive. Continue reading
