Metal and Flesh

Metal and Flesh
Author: Ollivier Dyens
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2001-10-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780262262422

A poetic exploration of the new world created by the collision of the biological body with technology and culture. For more than 3,000 years, humans have explored uncharted geographic and spiritual realms. Present-day explorers face new territories born from the coupling of living tissue and metal, strange lifeforms that are intelligent but unconscious, neither completely alive nor dead. Our bodies are now made of machines, images, and information. We are becoming cultural bodies in a world inhabited by cyborgs, clones, genetically modified animals, and innumerable species of human/information symbionts. Ollivier Dyens's Metal and Flesh is about two closely related phenomena: the technologically induced transformation of our perceptions of the world and the emergence of a cultural biology. Culture, according to Dyens, is taking control of the biosphere. Focusing on the twentieth century—which will be remembered as the century in which the living body was blurred, molded, and transformed by technology and culture—Dyens ruminates on the undeniable and irreversible human/machine entanglement that is changing the very nature of our lives.

The History of Metals in America

The History of Metals in America
Author: Charles R. Simcoe
Publisher: ASM International
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1627081461

The History of Metals in America chronicles the development of metals as both an industrial activity and a science. Progress involving structural metals made possible the air, land, sea, and space travel of today, skyscrapers reaching over 100 stories high, and many other engineering accomplishments that continue to shape modern society. This lively book takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the evolution of metals and metallurgy from the beginning of iron production in colonial times with the first iron plant in 1645 to the prevailing metals of the 21st century. Each chapter describes the development of a metal or series of metal alloys, industry growth, and modern uses in manufacturing. It includes chapters on cast iron, wrought iron, alloy steels, tool steels, stainless steels, nickel-base superalloys, aluminum, and titanium. Other chapters cover the science of metals as it developed from 1890 to 1950 and the biographies of the pioneers of metals research. The final chapters cover the formation, growth, and decline of the integrated steel industry and the rise of a new industry in steel minimills. The History of Metals in America will appeal to readers in all sectors of the materials industry, students and faculty of engineering programs, middle and high school American history students, and anyone interested in the history of technology, travel, tools, and machinery in the U.S. The author, Charles R. Simcoe, wrote more than 40 articles for ASM International’s Advanced Materials & Processes magazine, including a monthly series entitled “Metallurgy Lane,” which became the basis for this book.

Technology: A World History

Technology: A World History
Author: Daniel R. Headrick Professor of Social Sciences and History Roosevelt University
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2009-02-25
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0199713669

Today technology has created a world of dazzling progress, growing disparities of wealth and poverty, and looming threats to the environment. Technology: A World History offers an illuminating backdrop to our present moment--a brilliant history of invention around the globe. Historian Daniel R. Headrick ranges from the Stone Age and the beginnings of agriculture to the Industrial Revolution and the electronic revolution of the recent past. In tracing the growing power of humans over nature through increasingly powerful innovations, he compares the evolution of technology in different parts of the world, providing a much broader account than is found in other histories of technology. We also discover how small changes sometimes have dramatic results--how, for instance, the stirrup revolutionized war and gave the Mongols a deadly advantage over the Chinese. And how the nailed horseshoe was a pivotal breakthrough for western farmers. Enlivened with many illustrations, Technology offers a fascinating look at the spread of inventions around the world, both as boons for humanity and as weapons of destruction.

Handbook of Materials Structures, Properties, Processing and Performance

Handbook of Materials Structures, Properties, Processing and Performance
Author: Lawrence E. Murr
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 1500
Release: 2021-01-14
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9783319019055

This extensive knowledge base provides a coherent description of advanced topics in materials science and engineering with an interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary approach. The book incorporates a historical account of critical developments and the evolution of materials fundamentals, providing an important perspective for materials innovations, including advances in processing, selection, characterization, and service life prediction. It includes the perspectives of materials chemistry, materials physics, engineering design, and biological materials as these relate to crystals, crystal defects, and natural and biological materials hierarchies, from the atomic and molecular to the macroscopic, and emphasizing natural and man-made composites. This expansive presentation of topics explores interrelationships among properties, processing, and synthesis (historic and contemporary). The book serves as both an authoritative reference and roadmap of advanced materials concepts for practitioners, graduate-level students, and faculty coming from a range of disciplines.

Gilded Metals

Gilded Metals
Author: Terry Drayman-Weisser
Publisher:
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2000
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Through this lavishly illustrated volume, readers will discover how various cultures, ranging from ancient societies to more recent Western cultures, created gilded surfaces and how the allure of gold inspired new and ingenious technologies. Among others, practical techniques covered include foil and leaf gilding, depletion and diffusion techniques, fire gilding and electroplating. Conservation issues are also addressed.

History of Technology

History of Technology
Author: Ian Inkster
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2012-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1441152792

This volume examines the connections between technological change and its knowledge base, focusing in particular on Europe during the Industrial Revolution.

History of Metals in Colonial America

History of Metals in Colonial America
Author: James A. Mulholland
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 1981-07-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0817300538

In the struggle to create an indigenous industry, in the efforts to encourage and support the work of metals craftsmen, in the defiance of British attempts to regulate manufacturing of metals, the colonial society developed a metals technology that became the basis for future industrial growth.

The History of Stainless Steel

The History of Stainless Steel
Author: Harold M. Cobb
Publisher: ASM International
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2010-01-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1615030115

The History of Stainless Steel provides a fascinating glimpse into a vital material that we may take for granted today. Stainless steel, called "the miracle metal" and "the crowning achievement of metallurgy" by the prominent metallurgist Carl Zapffe, is a material marvel with an equally fascinating history of people, places, and technology. As stainless steel nears the hundredth anniversary of its discovery, The History of Stainless Steel by Harold Cobb is a fitting perspective on a vital material of our modern life. Aptly called the miracle metal by the renowned metallurgist Carl Zapffe, stainless steel is not only a metallurgical marvel, but its history provides an equally fascinating story of curiosity, competitive persistence, and entrepreneurial spirit. The History of Stainless Steel is the world's first book that captures the unfolding excitement and innovations of stainless steel pioneers and entrepreneurs. Many new insights are given into the work of famous pioneers like Harry Brearley, Elwood Haynes, and Benno Strauss, including significant technical contributions of lesser known figures like William Krivsky. This fascinating history of stainless steel exemplifies the great push of progress in the 20th Century. From the stainless steel cutlery of Brearley in 1913, stainless steel burst on the modern scene in many tangible ways. Excerpted text by William Van Alen, architect of the Chrysler Building, describes the early architectural use of stainless steel. Another historic application of stainless steel is the revolution in rail travel by the Edward G. Budd Company, which built the first light-weight stainless steel passenger trains--with an astounding 90% reduction in fuel costs. This remains recognized today as one of the technological marvels of the modern world. Harold Cobb, a metallurgist who has spent much of his career in the stainless steel industry, uncovers many interesting stories and insights, including a special perspective on the prominent role of stainless steel in the activities of emerging technical societies such as the American Society for Metals and the American Society for Testing and Materials. Amply illustrated and with a 78-page timeline, this publication truly evokes the inspirations created by and from stainless steel.