The Chemistry Timeline

Jake

How did scientists discover the atom? Where does our understanding of metals and the material world come from? And how did we get from fire and rocks to smart phones and satellites. The Chemistry Timeline casts your mind back, telling you the story of the origins of Chemistry and our understanding of the world.

Episodios

  1. 10 jul

    Episode 6: Glasses and Glazes - Turning Sand into Sophistication

    Today, we venture back to the point where we started turning boring sand into beautiful glass. How did we turn this common ingredient into a clear crystal? What problems did they have, and why was coloured glass the original idea? References: Degryse, P., Scott, R. B., & Brems, D. (2014). The archaeometry of ancient glassmaking: Reconstructing ancient technology and the trade of raw materials. Perspective, (2), 224–238. https://doi.org/10.4000/perspective.5617 Gherardi, F. (2022). Compositional and morphological investigations of Roman glass from cremation deposits at Birdoswald Fort on Hadrian’s Wall, UK. Heritage, 5(1), 362–377. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage5010021 Jackson, C. M., Paynter, S., Nenna, M.-D., & Degryse, P. (2016). Glassmaking using natron from el-Barnugi (Egypt); Pliny and the Roman glass industry. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 10(5), 1179–1191. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-016-0447-4 Lü, Q.-Q., Henderson, J., Wang, Y., & Wang, B. (2021). Natron glass beads reveal proto-Silk Road between the Mediterranean and China in the 1st millennium BCE. Scientific Reports, 11(1), Article 2911. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82245-w Muros, V. (n.d.). Down in the dumps: Analysis of glass production debris from Petrie's excavations at Amarna. Smithsonian Research Online. Rasmussen, S. C. (n.d.). A brief history of early silica glass: Impact on science and society. Firenze University Press. Shortland, A. (n.d.). Glass production. UC Berkeley: eScholarship. Script writing, recording and editing done by me, Jake. Sound effects and backing music from Pixabay. Noticed a mistake? Let me know at thechemistrytimelinepod@gmail.com Fancy making a shiny new cover art, or a unique theme song, reach out to me using the email above to discuss. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:17) Act 1 - The Vitreous State: What is a glass? (07:15) Act 2 - The Magic of Flux: The Ancient Egyptian Recipe (12:04) Act 3 - Colour, Clarity and the Roman Factory (15:25) Conclusion

  2. 12 jun

    Episode 2: Harder, Faster, Stronger - The Dawn of the Bronze Age

    In our second episode, we look at how humans went from simple stones, to magnificent metal. How did we come to use copper? Where did we get it from? And what were the challenges of creating bronze? Find out in this latest episode. References: Kradradjee, B., & Charles, J. A. (1980). The first metallurgists: Smelting and alloying in the ancient Near East. Journal of Archaeological Science, 7(3), 211–230. Pernicka, E. (2014). Provenance determination of archaeological metal objects. In Roberts, B. W., & Thornton, C. P. (Eds.), Archaeometallurgy in Global Perspective (pp. 239–268). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9017-3_10 Radivojević, M., Rehren, T., Pernicka, E., Šljivar, D., Brauns, M., & Borić, D. (2010). On the origins of extractive metallurgy: New evidence from Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science, 37(11), 2775–2787. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.06.012 Roberts, B. W., Thornton, C. P., & Pigott, V. C. (2009). Development of metallurgical technologies in the ancient world. World Archaeology, 41(4), 512–522. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438240903345134 Wertime, T. A. (1973). The beginnings of metallurgy: A new look. Science, 182(4115), 875–887. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.182.4115.875 Script writing, recording and editing done by me, Jake. Sound effects and backing music from Pixabay. Noticed a mistake? Let me know at thechemistrytimelinepod@gmail.com Fancy making a shiny new cover art, or a unique theme song, reach out to me using the email above to discuss. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:50) Act 1 - Extraction Chemistry: The Smelting Breakthrough (07:46) Act 2 - The Crystal Lattice & The Arsenic Gamble (12:19) Act 3 - Enter Tin: The Geopolitical Atom (15:32) Act 4 - The Collapse and the Chemistry of Yesterday (17:56) Conclusion

  3. 9 jun

    Episode 1: Sparking Civilisation - The First Chemical Reaction (Fire)

    In the first, inaugural episode of the Chemistry Timeline, we travel back to the first time hominins harnessed chemistry. How did fire come to be part of our everyday lives, and how did it change our biology, our social skills, and our understanding of the material world? References: Attila, Y. (2018). The history of fire use and its effects on human sociality. DergiPark, 4(2), 112–125. Gowlett, J. A. J. (2016). The discovery of fire by humans: a long and convoluted process. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1696), 20150164. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0164 Huang, C., Li, J., & Gao, X. (2022). Evidence of fire use by Homo erectus pekinensis: An XRD study of archaeological bones from Zhoukoudian Locality 1, China. Frontiers in Earth Science, 9, Article 811319. https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2021.811319 Marin-Monfort, M. D., Shaw, C. L., Natalio, F., Grossman, L., Andrews, P., Campos, J., & Fernández-Jalvo, Y. (2026). New evidence for Early Pleistocene use of fire at Wonderwerk Cave (South Africa). PLoS ONE, 21(6), e0347480. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0347480 Roebroeks, W., & Villa, P. (2011). On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(13), 5209–5214. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1018116108 Wiessner, P. W. (2014). Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(39), 14027–14033. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1404212111 Wrangham, R. (2009). Catching fire: How cooking made us human. Basic Books. Script writing, recording and editing done by me, Jake. Sound effects and backing music from Pixabay. Noticed a mistake? Let me know at thechemistrytimelinepod@gmail.com Fancy making a shiny new cover art, or a unique theme song, reach out to me using the email above to discuss. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (03:03) Act 1: The Microscopic Mosh Pit (The Science of Combustion) (09:05) Act 2: The Pyrophilic Primate & The Muddy Evidence (14:02) Act 3: How Cooking Rewrote the Human Anatomy (18:07) Act 4: The Fireside Social Network (21:33) Conclusion

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How did scientists discover the atom? Where does our understanding of metals and the material world come from? And how did we get from fire and rocks to smart phones and satellites. The Chemistry Timeline casts your mind back, telling you the story of the origins of Chemistry and our understanding of the world.