The single fact that organises the subject is that magnetism is produced by moving electric charge, and every electron is both moving and carrying an intrinsic property that behaves like…
The useful distinction is between materials that store energy in their shape and materials that store it in their disorder. A spring does the first and rubber does the second,…
Source: Wikipedia
Technologies are usually lost for identifiable reasons. A market disappears, a cheaper substitute arrives, a war interrupts a supply chain, or the last people who knew a process die…
The whole subject rests on one transformation: heat driving water out of the clay structure in a way that cannot be undone. Here are sixteen consequences.
1. Clay Works Because…
The useful way to think about paint is as a delivery system. The colour cannot stick to anything by itself, so the entire technology is about getting it onto a…
Sand seems like the least plausible thing to run short of. It is the archetype of abundance — the thing in the metaphor about counting grains, covering deserts and beaches…