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Ancient Egyptian Tech May Be Key To Printing 3D Ceramics
Zothecula writes "We like to think of technology as always being forward looking. It's supposed to be about nanoparticles and the Cloud, not steam engines and the telephone exchange. But every now and again the past reaches out, taps the 21st century on the shoulder and says, 'Have a look at this.' That's what happened to Professor Stephen Hoskins, Director of the University of West England, Bristol's Centre for Fine Print Research. He is currently working on a way of printing 3D ceramics that are self-glazing, thanks to a 7,000-year old technology from ancient Egypt."
One day, I shall print my own pyramid!
"We like to think of technology as always being forward looking. It's supposed to be about nanoparticles and the Cloud, not steam engines and the telephone exchange."
Those who think technology only means looking into the future should think again
For example:
Without compass, an ancient invention, we won't even comprehend the North from the South
There are so many things that we are enjoying now rely on old tech, some of the tech dates back thousands of years.
I guess the adage "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it"
And I guess re-inventing the wheel isn't exactly a very expedient act, or is it?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Isn't the world only 6000 years old?
Hmm ... and tis the year the world gonna end, right ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
All the artifacts and fossils were placed underground by God for us to find. Previously, we had thought it was a test of faith. But now we know he was trying to provide us with nifty 3D printing tech!
I grew up in south-west Virginia in the 80s, and I knew people in High School that said that dinosaur fossils, and other galaxies for that matter, were created by God as things for us to "discover".
It was very hard growing up as one of the few sane people in school.
A ceramic gun! Brilliant! This will go down in history along with other great inventions such as poison ivy underpants, gummi hammers, and the rice paper condom!
NASA had to resurrect fabrication techniques from the days of the gold rush gold mines to build some of their parts large enough for the rockets that went to the moon.
It seems that there's a lot of knowledge and skills that are getting lost as we "progress". Sure, some of it is useless since we truly have replaced things with better stuff, eg linotype. But then again, there are some technologies and skills that are dying off that would be good to capture somehow, such as how to build and work a foundary. I'm not sure of a good way to capture *skill*--it's usually passed on person-to-person.
In Stargate, they had cool helmets, but no time travel.
I think you missed an episode or two of the TV series. :-)
we'll get to print alien technology
I grew up in south-west Virginia in the 80s, and I knew people in High School that said that dinosaur fossils, and other galaxies for that matter, were created by God as things for us to "discover".
Well given an omniscient God he would know how to create a comprehensive mathematical model of a universe and be able to instantiate that universe at time t = 13 billion years into that model. :-)
So... who's going to patent this ~7,000-year-old technology?
I'd expect that the original patents issued by the Royal Egyptian Patent and Trademark Office have expired. So its public domain?
I know I am missing getting new stargate episodes. Even another direct to DVD movie would be nice.
Ahem... Glock.
'nuff said.
It only needs to work one time...
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
Glocks have a ceramic frame, but are not entirely ceramic.
There are no guns that have barrels of anything but metal(mostly highgrade carbon steel)
Make a man a fire and he will be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
Don't underestimate the Egyptians. I saw a documentary with Kurt Russell when I was small, the pyramids are the tips dug down space rockets.
You guys have no idea what you're talking about. There has never been or ever will be a Glock made out of ceramic materials. Ceramics don't have the necessary strength to maintain integrity for even a single shot of a round. They have a polymer frame and a steel slide and barrel. Stop getting your information from Die Hard 2. It makes you look pathetic to regurgitate the same ignorant shit people have spouted for the last two decades.
This strawman is really getting old. You guys should wake up from your self-righteousness every once in a while and realize that science is not served by criticizing non-scientists. Science moves forward through self-criticism. Unfortunately, since you decided to turn science into an 'us versus them' pissing contest, any criticism of science is wrongfully and automatically seen as coming from 'them' and truths run the risk of being rejected just because they look like they might have come from the other side. This is both lame and dangerous because it creates the same sort of untouchable and destructive elitism and blind despotism that organized religion is known for throughout history.
I'm not sure of a good way to capture *skill*--it's usually passed on person-to-person.
It's called "good documentation".
I recall reading that the F-22 production line was videotaped from start to finish, with workers explaining their jobs and going through the motions.
This was fleshed out with interviews in order to capture institutional knowledge that usually disappears when production lines are shut down and workers leave.
Ceramics enjoyed an extended period as a top tier technology and then continued on as a legacy, but still critical-for-civilization technology.
Once we reinvent their old technology, there's no reason for it to ever be lost again.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Civ 2 : England discovers Pottery?
I honestly think we underestimate our ancestors sometimes who should've been just as smart and tenacious as we are. They maybe appear primitive simply because we have the benefit of a long history of discoveries to build on. And where their technology branched off in ways we don't care about, there could be even more secrets to be had...
It's called "good documentation".
I recall reading that the F-22 production line was videotaped from start to finish, with workers explaining their jobs and going through the motions.
This was fleshed out with interviews in order to capture institutional knowledge that usually disappears when production lines are shut down and workers leave.
Ceramics enjoyed an extended period as a top tier technology and then continued on as a legacy, but still critical-for-civilization technology.
Once we reinvent their old technology, there's no reason for it to ever be lost again.
Sure, that can go a long ways, but I still think there's room for stuff to get lost in translation. "tricks of the trade" that really need to be shown/taught/critiqued in person. It's *really* hard for most humans to learn fine motor skills out of a book or video--having personal instruction for feedback/correction is paramount. There's a reason some skills were historically learned via apprenticeship for years before reaching "journeyman" status--there really can be a lot to it, and you can't easily capture it let alone reproduce it just from documentation.
There's lots of stories of cases where someone needs to use some older technology and despite understanding it (they have the knowledge) they still have to hunt down an old-timer to show them how to use it (skill).
We can capture the knowledge--but it's the skills I think we most risk losing.
That's also what they did with the F-1 Engine (the Saturn V first stage engine) production line. It's why rebuilding the line is a valid option for the next heavy lifter.
There was a company that claimed to have made ziconium (PSZ) gun barrels but they never sold any or made any available to a third party. Even a "tough" ceramic like PSZ that you can hit with a hammer is unlikely to be tough enough to be relied on for a barrel.
They've got the strength, but that's not the problem, it's toughness - the ability to absorb the energy of a shot instead of shattering like glass.
By work, you mean explode sending what is effectively self sharpening armor piercing fragments in all directions?
Then sure, ceramic barrels work.
Like the Captain of the submarine I was on often said, "If you want a new idea, read an old book."
Faience isn't really a ceramic anyway. It's silica fused with salts, more like a high-temperature cement or concrete.
It's never really been lost either, plenty of hobbyists still play with it, and you can buy it from art suppliers. It's not an ideal structural material, and is hard to work, but printing with it may reduce those limitations.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
And what of it? Nothing of what your people in high school has said in any way contradicts true science. I at first thought that you were talking about the Omphalos hypothesis which is a load of bullshit (but it is what the original posters were referring to), but reading what you wrote more carefully says that it's not what you are talking about at all. Your said that your high school people believed that the natural world as a whole was created by God as something for us to discover. Think of what that really means for a second. If you read it carefully, it actually says that the honest practice of science is nothing more or less than God's will for us! For what is science but an attempt to to discover and understand the workings of the natural world? Contrary to what many people around here seem to think, there is nothing inherently anti-science about religion and the belief in God in general. It is non-scientific to be sure, a belief in God and in science can be held without a whit of cognitive dissonance. Science is there to tell us the how of the world, religion is there to tell us the why. Granted, there are many religions out there that fail to grasp this essential fact and so rail about with creationism and all that because they wrongly believe that their religion is the only possible repository of all truth. The questions religion is supposed to answer are fundamentally meaningless for science, and vice-versa.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
"We can capture the knowledge--but it's the skills I think we most risk losing."
Even the 'simple' stuff. Watch a brick/block layer trim pieces to fit. Looks easy, and it is - until you try it for yourself. Had some related experience with this doing pattern-cut flagstone, working through caprock (nowadays, all bed is done with saws; cap is simply drilled and blasted off.)
The video for the story is worth watching, btw.
Pure ceramic, maybe not. Fibre-wrapped ceramic, maybe - if it maintains integrity sufficiently long for the bullet to leave in a straight line, and a tightly woven fabric catches the splinters trying to leave in a non-frontal direction, as a one-off device it could work.
Sadly it's against the law for me to experiment and find out in this country :(
sure it's good to capture that kind of stuff when possible but don't worry too much. almost nothing is ever lost forever. If master craftsmen 1000 years ago could figure it out then master craftsmen today can figure it out again.
there's a lot of mythology around many such things. having a few pints with an old master blacksmith can be interesting. there's a number of master blacksmiths who spent years figuring out how to make blades which were almost indistinguishable from wootz but the point to keep in mind is that the challenge was to figure out how they did it with tech of old. not how to make superior metal.
The best blades ever produced in ancient times wouldn't hold a candle to the best that could be made now by the best engineers now.
If you made a blade using single crystal superalloys like they use in jet engine turbine blades it would make a mockery of the best of the best in ancient times
Even if we lose the skills there's lots of bright people who'll either figure it out or figure out a better solution.
"Isn't the world only 6000 years old?"
Don't know about the earth, but the hippo from Metropolitan Museum of Art in the article is definitely not that old.
It's from Dynasty 12, 1961-1885 BCE.
...but 7,000 years and they can't put together a decent laptop?
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
yeah... I think there's a case for prior art, there.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
At least three episodes and one movie from SG-1: 2001, 2010 and 1969, and the movie Continuum. From Atlantis there's the one where Shepard is thrown 50,000 years into the future and Atlantis is abandoned, the sun is expanding and his only companion is a hologram of the Most Annoying Guy In The Universe. From Universe there's a story arc near the end of S2 where Destiny meets the descendants of her crew.
I am a geek.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
the helmets looked cool but they're not very comfortable unless you get yourself a Jarhead cut (or a Milan Mohawk). IIRC the only character to wear a Jar was Kowalski.
(source: I have one I wear when on my motorcycle, it's an Orlite M83)
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I find lately that commentators are more often referring to people from earlier eras as if they were stupid, when my interpretation is that they had an equal if not greater capacity for brilliance.
"...Also known as Egyptian paste, faience is one of those remarkable crossroads materials that occur now and again in the history of technology. It was invented 7,000 years ago in Egypt, when the Egyptians were still trying to get the hang of pottery and smelting metal. It isnâ(TM)t actually a ceramic, but rather a paste made of quartz or sand, calcite lime and a mixture of alkalis. Because of this, it can be applied directly to wet clay. When the pottery is fired, the paste turns into a brilliant blue-green glaze reminiscent of lapis lazuli, which the Egyptians used faience as a substitute for...."
Atrocious writing aside, this would be an excellent example - how much determined experimentation would it take YOU to develop something like this...at the available tech from 5000 BC? You don't have calculus, you don't even have a basic understanding of chemistry, microscopes, hell, even an accurate thermometer?
-Styopa
Which country would that be?
md5sum
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
The UK. I guess I could establish a business, acquire the appropriate permits, fill in the healthy & safety forms and pass the security clearances.
But the barriers to entry are just too high for someone as lazy as me, and having a bash in my back garden is indeed illegal.
Stop getting your information from Die Hard 2.
Yeah, just the "fax" ma'am!
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The UK. I guess I could establish a business, acquire the appropriate permits, fill in the healthy & safety forms and pass the security clearances.
But the barriers to entry are just too high for someone as lazy as me, and having a bash in my back garden is indeed illegal.
In related news, the evil socialist tyranny in the UK forbids people from experimenting with atomic weapons in their garden sheds too.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The problem is that at least the vast majority of religions come with "standard" texts that contain explanations for where, for example, humans and the Earth came from ("creation myths"). When science discovers information that conflicts the these texts, the texts are not typically discarded or revised, as would be the case in science. This sets up an automatic potential conflict between science and any religion that claims to provide real information about the physical world. (Except if a case was found where the "standard texts" of a religion actually were actually confirmed from genuine scientific research.)
A "religion" might exist without physical world predictions, but then it would probably be much more of just an ethical movement (e.g. such as vegetarianism) than a real religion. Possibly Unitarian-Universalism and some types of Buddhism could be such "light" forms of religion.
Science is there to tell us the how of the world, religion is there to tell us the why.
Philosophy is there to tell us the why. Religion is just a small subset of philosophy. You do not need to bring in deities to explain anything, they are entirely superfluous.
You may choose to believe in them if you like, but you do so on a less logical or testable basis than that of my six year old believing in the Tooth Fairy. At least she does actually get her shiny coin when she leaves a tooth under her pillow, even I can see that.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Who the fuck buys a home for such a precise figure as $578100?
I smell a rat!
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Myth or not, I can't help but think they could probably make a ceramic slide and a thin composite reinforced barrel and cut the steel down drastically if there was a demand. Even the springs could possibly be replaced with some kind of polymer.
It would be an interesting project, probably a sure way to get on some kind of watch list though.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Appalling coverage that we couldn't even put the word "faience" in the Slashdot preamble. What is this, MSM pity day? I still enjoy Slashdot, but all too frequently these days I loath the story submission.
there's a lot of mythology around many such things. having a few pints with an old master blacksmith can be interesting. there's a number of master blacksmiths who spent years figuring out how to make blades which were almost indistinguishable from wootz but the point to keep in mind is that the challenge was to figure out how they did it with tech of old. not how to make superior metal.
Wootz/Damascus steel was not created with "tech of old"
It came about because a certain mine in India had naturally occuring trace impurities in the steel.
When the mine went dry, so did the world's supply of wootz.
That's what took so long to figure out.
And when it comes to metal, "superior" depends on the application you have for it.
The best blades ever produced in ancient times wouldn't hold a candle to the best that could be made now by the best engineers now.
If you made a blade using single crystal superalloys like they use in jet engine turbine blades it would make a mockery of the best of the best in ancient times
And yet here we are trying to recreate techniques for firing ceramics from thousands of years ago.
Like I said, it depends on the application you have for it. Not everything can be made of diamonds, rubies and single crystal superalloys.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
no, strength is correct. more precisely, the parameter you want is "tensile strength", ie, resistance to being pulled apart, such as by expanding gases in the chamber of a gun. ceramics are very hard, very tough. like most other "rock-type" materials they are very good in compression, but not so good in bending or tension. for a gun, tensile strength to resist the expansion of gases at the chamber is what matters.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
he didn't say anything about testing faith. he simply said "discover". the "faith testers" are essentially "deniers". they deny dinosaurs actually lived and breathed etc, we all know the story there. but there is a 2nd school of thought out there, meant to runs counter to the "deniers", that explains the same things as not being intruments meant to test faith but rather as instruments meant to foster Man's curiosity, to push him to use this gift of intellect he's been given. it's obviously not a fundamentalist school of thought, and given his wording, don't be too quick to push him into a set category. (this is where caution against painting with too broad a brush come in).
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
thank you. that's what i try to tell people. the phrase i use is religion is a metaphysical (cannot always be seen and touched) explanation, science is a physical (can be seen and touched).
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Science is there to tell us the how of the world, religion is there to tell us the why.
Philosophy is there to tell us the why. Religion is just a small subset of philosophy.
Science is there to tell us the "how...", or equivalently the "why is...". That is a question of cause (or as the ancients would put it, "efficient cause").
The other question is not "why..." simpliciter, but "how come", or better put, "why ought...". That is a question of purpose (or as the ancients would put it, "final cause").
Ethics is there to answer that question. Ethics is just one branch of philosophy. Religion is one approach to philosophy (or a competitor to philosophy, depending on whether you construe philosophy as a subject matter or a methodology). Both religion and philosophy touch on the latter question of ethics, and the former question, the "why is".
Science is what we got once philosophy mostly settled on an answer to the question "how can we tell what is and what caused that to be?" and moved on to the "what is and what caused that to be?" directly. Religion still disagrees on the "how can we tell" version of that question and still puts forth its own answers to the more direct question. There is still minor quibbling among philosophers about how exactly to flesh out the "how can we tell" version, but in broad strokes we've collectively either settled on science more-or-less, or rejected it for religion.
The only reason why ethics is still seen as within the domain of philosophy (more so than science) is that philosophers haven't really settled on an answer to the question "how can we tell what ought to be and what serves that purpose?" There are religious and religion-like answers to that question and to the more direct question "what ought to be and what serves that purpose?", and more science-like answers to both of those questions as well. It hasn't yet settled down to a broad consensus plus some stubborn dissenters like the factual questions have, so this is the more active area of philosophy, but that doesn't make this the sole subject of philosophy.
Point being, the non-overlapping magesteria are not the scientific/factual and the philosophical/religious/normative:, they are the factual and the normative. Philosophy and religion both have things to say about both the factual and the normative; science is a philosophical position on the factual, generally opposed to religious positions on the factual; and there are philosophical positions on the normative opposed to religions positions on the normative, less refined but slowly approaching the normative equivalent of science.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
It wasn't just the steel but also some methods of treating the steel which became useless and were lost after the mine went dry. there could have been other mines with the same impurities which nobody ever realised were there.
"Like I said, it depends on the application you have for it. Not everything can be made of diamonds, rubies and single crystal superalloys."
in real terms the cost of making a turbine blade (tens of thousands) or a sword in a similar manner is probably lower than the cost would have been to make a really good sword back in the day. steel was insanely valuable and blacksmithing was slow. really really slow.
what have diamonds to do with anything? single crystal superalloys aren't made from some rare crystal. they're items made of a single metal crystal grown without flaws or weak points.
GPSes point north to the truth north, which is determined by rotation. I know I left out an intermediary step in my statement, but you're supposed to be able to infer it.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
WTF is it with you guys and certainty based on nothing but a gut feeling and misunderstanding? Even glass has the tensile strength for the job (stronger than the steels used) but is pointless because it is brittle - it cannot absorb the energy released without breaking. A gun barrel needs both strength and toughness.
Because I could be just anybody out here on the net, and you have nothing but my word that I was an engineer that was doing materials testing for a living in the 1990s and a member of the ASTM (athough any first year engineering student that can stay awake during class would give you the same answer), here's a link that may help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toughness
I hereby surrender my geek card, yes - they sent Teal'c back, didn't they....
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Quick trolls patent this 7,000-year old technology
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.