Iron: From Mythical to Mundane | Hacker News Reader

Iron: From Mythical to Mundane

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74 pointsotikik37 comments

I'm unconvinced that metal smiths of the iron/steel age did not "understand how it worked." That certain smiths and geographic regions produced consistently high grades of steel suggests they did have an understanding, albeit it an understanding grounded in a world model that differs substantially from our own modern framework. If, for example, an alchemical world view sufficed to describe and predict the results of forging a particular metal or alloy then it was sufficient for understanding within the constraints of what was needed. Plenty of modern bladesmiths have no deeper understanding of metallurgy than "this is good for X, this other is not according to experts or experience."

Aristotelian physics was sufficient in the time and geographic area in which he operated (friction as primary) but was insufficient in a larger domain compared to Newtonian physics (force has primacy). Both served to bring us to and through the industrial age, but then the domain expanded and quantum physics was needed.

Don't discount the genius of our ancestors regardless of archeological age. We may feel smugly superior playing with our tools of the silicon age but get magically transported to the stone age naked and with no access to external knowledge and try and achieve in the basics of food, clothing, and shelter... let alone tools such as hand axes, skinning knives, arrow and spear points, etc.

Broscience that happens to produce results is still broscience.

> If, for example, an alchemical world view sufficed to describe and predict the results of forging a particular metal or alloy then it was sufficient for understanding within the constraints of what was needed.

I strongly doubt alchemy predicted any significant aspects of steelmaking. All alchemical reasoning that I've seen has either been post-hoc trying to explain an observation, or has been quaintly incorrect (see the typical description of how to produce a basilisk, for example).

The point is these techniques were determined by trial and error, they never understood the reasons why one technique worked and another didn't.

I'm sure there were many geniuses among our ancient ancestors! The fact that they had no science doesn't mean they weren't smart.

Our age is superior in the sense of more advanced; that doesn't mean that we individually are superior to them as individuals, except in the sense of being more knowledgeable.

No smugness implied or intended.

There are all these stories like Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court where someone goes back in time.

If someone went back in time with sword and armor made using modern metallurgy, would they be considered magical? The armor would likely be lighter and more maneuverable while still providing protection. The sword would likely be lighter, sharper, and more durable.

Just an interesting thought experiment.

I enjoyed this story of a family that was disconnected from society for 40 years, from 1938 to 1978. When found, the technology that most amazed them was... plastic!

> "Lord, what have they thought up — it is glass, but it crumples!"

The family also noticed "moving stars" (which were of course satellites) starting in the 1950s.

> The Lykovs had noticed them as early as the 1950s, when “the stars began to go quickly across the sky,” and Karp himself conceived a theory to explain this: “People have thought something up and are sending out fires that are very like stars.”

It's a fun read. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-rus...

Cellophane interestingly enough exited in 1938 - perhaps not in the hinterlands of the Soviet Union however.

I doubt it. If an alien species came to Earth and gave us a plastic that was 100 times as strong as standard plastic, we'd just go “wow, that's some strong plastic."

Well, we live in age where rapid technological progress is considered normal, or even mundane.

I don't want to imply that there was no new technology developed in the middle ages, but I don't think your average medieval lord expected to see notable technological advancements from generation to generation, let alone year to year.

I suspect that’s our biases talking. For a recent example, tend to think of vacuum tubes as a single thing, but they had vast investments in R&D and got much better over time. And that’s for something invented in 1904.

Similarly, I suspect a huge range of technical innovation that occurred throughout medieval time gets compressed into a few simple ideas like swords or plows. However, if you’re actually using these things day in and say out, what seems to us as a minor change could have been thought of as revolutionary at the time.

And there's vacuun tube innovation today still! For guitar amplifiers.

i don't know, there's a sibling comment demonstrating that titanium has managed to enter the popular consciousness as a near-magically strong metal, when there's still plenty of uses for steel, and aluminum (even ignoring cost).

so, like vantablack, and titanium, i think the excitement around the wonder-plastic would depend on marketing.

I always thought it's a fascinating idea to see if you could make something using modern metallurgy that looks identical to medieval arms and armour, but has much better properties. So kevlar is out, but how would modern steel fare? Tungsten? Titanium?

Some SCA armor is titanium, so we have an idea.

I think sword made of alloy tool steel would put divots in a medieval one. I have a tungsten steel knife blade I made. You can use it whittle a regular knife. It's also not brittle in the least.

There was an interesting bit of anachronism in Good Omens where the angel and demon of the piece show up in early medieval England in VERY anachronistic full plate armor - and then the camera pulls back to the mere mortals in splint mail and studded leather, and I realized the plate was part of their supernatural-knight personas.

By "they" do you mean the weapons and armor or the person? The person would be just as likely to be killed or detained indefinitely quite quickly than not IMHO. The armor and sword would be considered an oddity and perhaps go into legend as something more.

The thought occurred to me while reading this article, something like this must have happened "accidentally on purpose" in these medieval forges and smiths - a steel becomes fortified with just the right amount of tungsten to and forged to armor and blades far superior to the usual fare, and goes on to become armor of kings and the stuff of legend. Excalibur, perhaps.

And this probably happened a fair bit, and many people told the stories and continued the legends.

Now, when we play an RPG video game and discover a "Legendary gauntlets, +12 damage +14 resilience" - it sort of triggers an innate feeling within us because of our shared history in which legendary loot was actually a real thing? Fun thoughts.

Full plate armor only weight about 30-35lbs and was extremely maneuverable.

As far as sword steel goes then while some modern steels are superior as far as edge retention and or corrosion resistance goes they aren’t that much better than some of the ancient high quality steels as far as the final product goes to appear magical.

Modern blade steel is more about mass production and consistency so you don’t need to hammer the impurities for 50 days out of your billet.

Sure you might be able to go with titanium instead of steel for the armor but I’m not actually sure it would provide better protection. Plate armor was tempered steel it provided protection by deflecting blade blows and by being able to absorb crushing blows trough deformation instead of shattering.

Yeah you could design a full plate armor with composite materials today that might be better but then it’s well beyond modern steel and even then I’m not sure if many people would think it’s magic.

It's funny.

The ancient iron-smiths. They devised dozens of techniques for making iron harder and tougher. But they didn't know "how it works".

But now we know how it works. That is to say, we have a nice body of thought that describes what we observe going on there. Good thoughts. Useful thoughts.

But how does that work, with thoughts describing observations? I dunno.

Maybe we're like the ancient iron-smiths, except with thoughts.

Thought smiths.

Reminds me of Damascus steel, which we still can't recreate with complete accuracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel

> It can also be coated with other materials: a thin sheet of steel coated with an even thinner layer of tin makes the light, sturdy, and non-corrosive tin cans that now hold much of our food.

Are tin cans still used? I was under the impression they'd been replaced by aluminum...

Here in the UK, most food cans are steel. I checked several with a magnet, and the only ones that didn't stick were sardine cans. All the cylindrical food cans stuck. But canned drinks are usually aluminum.

Most food cans are Steel in the United States.

Aluminium (sorry, Brit) is lighter than steel but more expensive, so food cans are usually steel because the contents are fairly heavy anyway. Drinks cans are smaller with a lighter contents weight, and are often held in the hand while drunk so weight is a bigger issue.

So, the battery age is about where the iron age was 200 years ago.

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