Things You Didn’t Know About China’s Terracotta ArmyRead
newsfeed.time.com
newsfeed.time.com
"While he awaited a tonic, Qin turned to mercury tablets."
and then a map where:
"rivers of quicksilver represent the kingdom’s waters"
finally some modern evidence:
"Modern investigations have been able to corroborate this legend with some chemical evidence. In 2005, a research team led by Chinese archaeologist Duan Chingbo took 4,000 samples from the earthen mound to test for Mercury, and all of the samples came back highly positive."
Which legend would you think that should be supporting?
Sometimes I just don't understand the thought process going into an article.
Assuming all three forms of that technology are identical as the article makes it sound, that's awesome.
Search for chrome plating plastic and you'll see - I didn't find any processes at all that did not require electricity. Usually they will plate with something conductive first, then chrome on top.
They may have plated it with other things and Time doesn't realize it's not all called "chrome".
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroless_nickel_plating for an example method - although probably not the one they used. And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plating for a larger list of metals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinplate seems most probable due to its long history and that tin is one of the earlier metals that humans mined.
To put it in modern terms, China of old had amazing engineering skills but terrible execution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_ship
The world would be a radically different place today if this fleet hadn't been scrapped. The ability of the colonial powers to conquer large parts of the world virtually un-checked would've been seriously impeded.
Or, to put it in terms I prefer more, China had amazing engineering skills but wasn't obsessed with exploiting each every thing for financial gain and milking inventions.
Most of the things were invented "for fun" and when that worse off (for example the emperor lost interest) they were forgotten.
I guess it's one drawback to the patronage system - it lets you jump ahead of the curve and invent amazing things (due to all the funding), but you don't look for economic reasons to do it - all you care about is making your patron happy, and when he looses interest the project is canceled.
Going to the moon is a modern example of this. We went to the moon because the patron (the Government) wanted it, and funded it. But there was no actual reason to do it. So someday when there is a huge economic reason to go to the moon (if I knew what it was I'd be rich :) people will wonder how the US squandered the opportunity.
I don't think they were stupid (the inventions prove it in the first place).
They were perfectly capable of seeing how they could be if they focused on that dimension. They just didn't focus on that dimension, which is what I'm saying.
>Most of the things were invented "for fun" and when that worse off (for example the emperor lost interest) they were forgotten.
Which corroborates what I'm saying. They didn't event them to exploit them in the first place, but with a playful attitude towards them.
You are trying to imply they did things purely for the fun and interest in them, and that is completely not true.
If the emperor wanted to sell the things, they would have jumped at that. Don't try to imply they had some "noble" mindset with an implied criticism of those with a more mercantile mindset since that's simple not true, and it's just a form of the "noble savage" fallacy.
The main criticism you can read into my text (if you want) is that when the emperor lost interest they did not just stop making the item - they also forgot how to make it, they did not record the inventions for future generations. They apparently were not interested in collecting knowledge, only in amusing or impressing the emperor.