Physics in Ancient Weapons
With the deepening of human understanding of nature, people discovered copper, tin, and coal mines, thus entering the Bronze Age. The period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age goes through the Pottery Age. Archaeology does not seem to attach great importance to the Pottery Age. I believe that from a scientific perspective, the importance of the pottery age is no less significant than that of the bronze age. Pottery is related to human use of fire, where water and soil make mud, and mud and fire make pottery. The pottery age brought with it model making techniques, stove lining techniques, and high-temperature techniques, which laid the technical foundation for the smelting of bronze. Human beings used pottery jars to draw water and found that the jar could not be filled when the spout was perpendicular to the water surface, establishing that air is a real existence, which is a significant milestone in the future history of chemical and thermodynamic development. Pottery is still widely used today, but there are few instances of making bronze ware. Different ancient civilizations around the world entered the Bronze Age at different times. According to Erlitou culture, the Bronze Age in China began about 2000 BC, and there is no final conclusion at present. The casting technology of bronze ware was already very mature during the Shang Dynasty, as evidenced by a large number of unearthed cultural relics.
The so-called bronze is an alloy of copper with elements such as tin, lead, and zinc. Copper ore and relatively rare tin ore rarely appear together. How did the ancients burn copper ores and ores containing tin, lead and zinc elements (such as cassiterite, SnO, Cerussite, PbCO) together with carbon, thus discovering bronze and generally fixing its chemical composition? At present, there is no conclusive and convincing evidence. According to current accounts, bronze is a copper based alloy containing approximately 12% to 12.5% tin, small amounts of metallic elements such as zinc, aluminum, lead, manganese, and non-metallic elements such as arsenic, phosphorus, and silicon. Bronze has the characteristics of low melting point (usually below 1000 ℃, which can be as low as 800 ℃, much lower than the melting point of copper at 1083 ℃. Remember, at the extreme temperature that heating technology can reach in an era, a temperature lower than 1 ℃ is an advantage), high hardness, corrosion resistance, and suitability for casting. Therefore, it is used to make various vessels and weapons. In the Bronze Age, bronze was the hardest material, so it was used to make weapons such as spears, spears, swords, axes, halberds, and beryllium (also known as spears) for stabbing purposes. Of course, it was also used to make defensive equipment such as armor and masks. Due to the corrosion-resistant nature of bronze, we can witness the exquisite casting techniques of our predecessors over 3000 years ago (Figure 3). According to the "Records of the Grand Historian: Annals of the Yellow Emperor", "The emperor cast swords from the copper of Shoushan and inscribed them with astronomical ancient characters." From the unearthed bronze swords, these records are not empty words.
Around 1300 BC, with the continuous improvement of human ability to obtain high temperatures, human beings entered the Iron Age. Although the Vickers hardness of bronze is about 60-260, higher than 30-80 of cast iron, and the bronze is corrosion resistant, the Bronze Age finally gave way to the Iron Age, because the lack of tin ore makes bronze smelting unsustainable, while iron ore is abundant. Especially important is that later blacksmiths mastered the technology of steelmaking, and the mechanical strength of steel was superior to that of bronze. A short steel sword was once unearthed from the tomb of Guo State in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which was made of block refined carbon infiltrated steel, indicating that China had already mastered the techniques of ironmaking and steelmaking at that time. Unfortunately, iron and steel at that time were not corrosion-resistant, and the iron or steel products found in unearthed cultural relics were often completely corroded. Stainless steel (alloys containing chromium, nickel, manganese, and many other trace elements, each with different components) only emerged in the 19th century. Due to the large supply of iron, a large number of iron refrigeration weapons appeared (Figure 4). Due to the hardness and toughness of (steel) iron, it is widely used in the manufacturing of cutting tools. Especially, iron is also used to manufacture various agricultural tools, such as hoes, plows, picks, shovels, pickaxes, etc., greatly promoting the development of agriculture.
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