Metallurgy as a human experience
- PDF / 7,617,289 Bytes
- 21 Pages / 612 x 792 pts (letter) Page_size
- 59 Downloads / 218 Views
Metallurgy as a Human Experience
CYRIL STANLEY
SMITH
The entire history of materials is examined with emphasis upon the structural differences at stages of discovery, development and mature adjustment in analogy with the S-curve of a phase change. The earliest discovery of almost all useful materials or techniques occ u r r e d in m a k i n g d e c o r a t i v e o b j e c t s . A l l o y i n g , s h a p i n g a n d w e l d i n g t e c h n i q u e s b e g a n i n jewelry and sculpture; crystallization, spinodal transformation, and interface energy equilibr/um were sensitively u s e d in c e r a m i c g l a z e s ; o r i e n t a l l a c q u e r a n d c e l l u l o i d t r i n k e t s are precursors of the plastic industry. Far from being an applied science, practice in materials was far in advance of physical and chemical theory until less than a century ago, and even today intuitive understanding cannot be disregarded. The alchemists built their mystic concepts upon the coloring techniques of ancient artisans. Chemistry came from dying, pot making and particularly the quantitative separatory reactions of the assayer. But, once developed, science became highly effective in controlling and improving industrial practice. T h e d i s c o v e r y o f e l e c t r i c i t y g a v e a n e w t y p e of p r o p e r t y t o b e s t u d i e d , and the richness of today's approach to materials came from the subsequent joining of the physicist's approach with the other threads that had been maturing through the ages. Techn o l o g i c a l c h a n g e a l t e r s t h e p a t t e r n s o f h u m a n i n t e r a c t i o n a n d it u n d e r l i e s m o s t s o c i a l u p heavals. Technology is a rich part of the human experience a n d it d e s e r v e s f a r m o r e a t tention than it has hitherto received by historians.
Dr, Cyril Stanley Smith came to the United States from England in 1924, following his graduation from the University of Birmingham. He took his graduate work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1927 he joined the metallurgical staff of American Brass Company and organized a research department which provided the tonic that was needed by the brass indust,;y at ~ a t time. As an avocation he translated, in collaboration with Martha Teach Gnudi, the Italian foundryman Biringuccio's "Pirotechnia," a work antedating Agricola and mote original. In 1942 Dr. Smith went to Washington as research supervisor of the War Metallurgy Committee. In 1943 he went to the newly forming Los Alamos Laboratory of the Manhattan District, to take charge of the metallurgical end of designing and building the atomic bomb. Dr. Smith left Los Alarnos at the beginning of 1946 to found the Institute for the Study of Metals at the University of Chicago and to serve as its Director and Professor of Metallurgy, Under his leadership this Institute became one of the outstanding research organizations of the nation. His researches on intercrystalline interfaces and the influence of interface energy and topology on the structure of poly
Data Loading...
