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Renaissance Potters Were Nanotechnologists
Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article, Nature says that "tiny metal particles give 15th century Italian ceramics lustre." Nature adds that iridescent glazes -- changing colour when viewed from different perspectives -- were achieved by using "particles of copper and silver of between 5 and 100 billionths of a metre across." And the story becomes even more interesting. Nanotechnology meets alchemy! "The ability to change colour was regarded as an alchemical property, making iridescence magic too." Read this summary for more details. And for more information, you can read the abstract of this research paper, "Copper in glazes of Renaissance luster pottery: Nanoparticles, ions, and local environment," published by the Journal of Applied Physics."
"The ability to change colour was regarded as an alchemical property, making iridescence magic too."
Yep, I can attest to that. Just take a look at all of the magical leftovers in my refrigerator.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
...the first caveman to figure out how to throw a spear an "Aerospace Engineer?" :)
That's not really nanotech. They weren't using the nanomaterials directly, or intentionally. The particles just happened to be the right size.
-- Bill "Houdini" Weiss
... In other news, we're all 'Nanotechnologists'!
Seriously; we all use nanoproperties of materials to achieve macro results; just this morning I used nanotechnology in the form of nano-molecular-structure surface tension in my coffee, preventing spillage. I think this is very interesting but in the interests of linguistic integrity, having words actually *mean* something through exclusion, I question the spin that 'Renaissance Potters Were Nanotechnologists'; that implies a level of conceptual or technological understanding of nanophenomena which simply wasn't there.
Were Renaissance Potters clever? Yes. Were they 'Nanotechnologists'? No.
It doesn't take too much technology knowhow to grind something up into very fine bits.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
Just goes to show how many "revolutionary" things we've come up with were adaptations or exact duplicates of something that already happened naturally. These alchemists had no idea that there were nanoscopic particles whose physics lead to the change in color, yet it happened, and we are only NOW finally realizing why and how it happened.
Some currency now has a "hologram" printed on it which appears to use the same principle.
For example, some of the newer Canadian bills have a hologram in the corner that was introduced to foil counterfeiters. My understanding is that these were created by crushing up the stuff used to make laser-cut holographic images and applying it to the paper as a printing process.
This process sounds similar to the one described in the article.
-- clvrmnky
I haven't RTFA, so I don't know if it was the author or the submitter who attached this trendy term to a story about ceramic glazes. But unless the potters in question were building microscopic robots, they weren't "nanotechnologists" in the generally understood sense of the word.
People have been using finely ground substances of one sort or another at least since the mortar and pestle were invented.
There is nothing new in the fact that even ancient processes can affect material on a very small scale (since they got a Nature paper, I am sure the particulars of this case are very intriguing).
The repeated beating of metal causes imperfections in the crystal structures which makes it harder. Japanese sword smiths knew what they were doing (or rather, did not know what they were doing) when they in a ritualistic manner repeadetely beat the metal, put it underground for a number of years, etc, etc.
Tor
...so what you're telling me is that the riced-out green iridescent Honda down the street is driven by a nanotechnologist?
Whoa.
...
Sensational discovery:
Prehistoric Particle Physics Experiment Discovered!!
Archeologiest find great hint for colliding experiments utilizing Atoms of Si,C and O in a compound material.
Only because incas used piss to etch a copper gold compound doesnt mean they knew about electron gases in metals or electronegativity.
Same goes here....
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Stained glass windows use a similar kind of nanoparticle emulsion concept to get their different colors (also based on particle size). We've known all of this for quite a while; it's nothing new.
I think the article's title is a bad (aka incorrect) attempt to make the story more relevant... buzzword compliant. It also has very little to do with the common understanding of the meaning of the word nanotechnology. But the title probably got it more attention than it would have otherwise received, but then again so did the boy who cried wolf.
I suppose we still do the same thing current day - people are ever searching for perpetual motion machines and researching anti-gravity. Every time someone puts together a device the layman can't figure out, funding pours in and our modern alchemists continue employment in various potentially unsolvable problems.
Myself, I prefer Feymann's approach: considering how likely you are to solve a problem as well as how valuable the solution is (not to mention how many others could solve the problem).
The only thing more dangerous than a file named -rf is renaming it -rf\ /
If you subscribe to the new marketing usage of the word "nanotechnology" which is used to include such material science feats as those Eddie Bauer khakis that have nano-sized particles to help make them water proof, then yes, you might as well say these potters are nanotechnologists too.
Science: The original open source.
Regarding the colloidal metals, which are nanoscale, referred to in this article, the Renaissance potters may have just been practicing, or re-learning, a skill that the Romans had used since at least the 1st century AD. There are several examples of ornamental dishes (goblets, plates, etc.) where the Romans applied colloidal gold or other metals to the surfaces to get the right appearance. They didn't know what it was they were making, they just knew how to make it. So while they were manipulating nanoscale particles to fabricate into a decorative coating - is it nanotechnology by today's definition? No, its not. However, it is impressive that such things have been around as long as they have, but we're just now beginning to understand what has been around for centuries.
I suspect when our descendents 1000 years from now look back, they'll say "look: Those 20th century yahoos were practicing picotechnology and they didn't even know it"
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
I didn't know Potter was that good with this stuff. Afterall, Snape nearly flunks him out of Potions every term.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Sorry, but that's not "nanotechnology". Nanotechnology mean atomically precise, self-assembling, nano-scale machines.
I suppose given the utter failure of nanotechnology to achieve anything to date, it's not surprising that people are retreating on their claims. Even the staunchest proponents are weakening the requirement for self-assembly, but to call iridescent paints "nanotechnology" is going too far for even the weakest definition.
Surely they meant Harry Potter is a nanotechnologist...
All those stench molecules! Wow! Im a nanotech engineer!
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I mean, I atmospherically deployed bioactive nanotechnology.
;-P
Buzzword alert!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Damascus steel? Which kind? The folded kind made from ingots of different kinds of steel? Or do you mean 'true' damascus steel, made from wootz, which was apparently an iron ore from a very specific area.
In either case, I don't know if the structures involved are down to a true nanometer scale, and I suspect they are not, since the patterns are quite visually obvious.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
I am dissapointed that the Nature article made no mention of the Islamic origins of lustreware. The process of lustre glazing predates the referenced Umbrian work by centuries.
Muslim potters invented the lustre process, which eventually worked its way into Spanish pottery in via the Moors. Only then did the process find its way to the Italian potteries of Umbria.
A very short google search turned up these interesting links:
Early Muslim Wares at artsofislam.org
11th century Egyptian lustre plate
but the actual title of the article is
And there's no reference to nanotechnologists in the abstract, so this seems more the submitter being poetic. Welcome to
Anyway, since Rennaissance artisans apparently viewed use of nanotechnology as magic, they would be more properly described as nanomagicians, which, incidentally, would make a good scifi title. (hint, hint
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