Base Metals facts
While investigating facts about Base Metals, I found out little known, but curios details like:
The first Zildjian cymbals were created in 1618 by Avedis Zildjian, an alchemist who was looking for a way to turn base metal into gold. He made an alloy of tin, copper, and silver into a sheet of metal, which could make musical sounds without shattering.
Isaac Newton was so obsessed with turning base metal to gold that samples of his hair showed mercury levels up to 40 times higher than average. This is considered to be the reason he went mad in his later years.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 35 of the best facts about Base Metals I managed to collect.
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Base metals like Lead can be transmuted into gold using particle accelerators. The process is so expensive that it is not economically viable. Gold can also be turned into base metals.
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One of the primary goals of alchemy - transmuting a base metal into a noble metal - was achieved as early as 1924 when gold was produced by neutron bombardment of mercury.
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The Zildjian, the cymbal company, is one of the oldest companies in the world (nearly 400 years old). The company began when Avedis Zildjian, an alchemist, was looking for ways to turn base metals into gold.
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A 14 year old boy in China was killed anally after the gas cylinder in the base of his office chair (the part that allowed the user to adjust the seat up and down) exploded and sent chunks of the metal seat up his rectum, causing him to bleed to death.
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The Eiffel Tower gets taller by 6 inches in the summer. Extreme heat causes the metal at the base to expand, increasing the height of the Eiffel Tower.
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He mixed metals with strong acids and created hydrogen, he combined metals with strong bases and created carbon dioxide and he captured the gases in a bottle inverted over water.
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Based on observation of trace particles, mendelevium is believed to create a divalent metal.
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Hoss Delgado (from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy) and Solid Snake (from Metal Gear Solid) are based off of Snake Plissken from the "Escape from New York" franchise.
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Rob Halford of Judas Priest is the first openly gay Heavy Metal singer. He based his leather look that became standard Heavy Metal style on the gay BDSM subculture of the time.
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Bars on the glockenspiel are arranged from largest to smallest on a keyboard like base but it has two rows of metal bars.
What is true about base metals?
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Mining iron ore is a high volume low margin business because the value of iron is predominately lower than other base metals. As a result, iron ore production is largely concentrated into the hands of a few major extractors, with Australia being the largest.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt portrayal of a troubled heavy metal fan in the movie "Hesher" was based on late Metallica bassist Cliff Burton. The band liked it so much they gave a rare permission to include a few of their songs in the movie's soundtrack. - source
Manfred von Richthofen, known as The Red Baron, had a silver cup made for every enemy craft he shot down. When silver supplies in Germany had been depleted, after he had 60 such cups, he stopped the practice rather than accepting cups made of base metals.
Many types of non-carbon/water-based life can exist. For example: metal and oxygen based complex compounds, alternative solvents like ammonia, and dust and plasma-based life. - source
A kilogram, the international SI unit for mass, is based on the mass of a cylindrical metal called the Le Grande Kilo, which is locked away in a vault in Paris. It is the last of the SI units to be still based off a physical object rather than a universal constant
The legend of the Golden Fleece from Jason and the Argonauts is based on an ancient method of gold extraction, which utilises the same hydrophobic properties of metals as froth flotation, the major modern minerals processing method of mineral separation.
Transmutation of base metals into gold is possible. More than 30 years ago nuclear scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory succeeded in producing very small amounts of gold from bismuth, a metallic element adjacent to lead on the periodic table.
The New York-based mock metal / glam metal band Satanicide replaced their bassist when they became aware that he "secretly liked Billy Joel.
Warcraft-based song called 'Loktar Ogar' by revered black metal band 'Rotting Christ' - all lyrics are actual orcish.
