Simple heating

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Abstract

In the twentieth century, researchers learned to expose materials to tremendous extremes of temperature using lasers, highly specialized ovens, and other techniques. Yet materials researchers still required more modest means of raising temperature: Bunsen burners, hot plates, blowtorches, and so on. These techniques and their precursors go back centuries if not millennia. Indeed, controlled production and application of heat was one of the technologies that enabled the emergence of complex societies, if not our species itself. The editors have therefore chosen to place discussion of forms of heating with ancient roots in this section of the volume and label them “Simple Heating” in contrast to the techniques discussed in Part 3 under “Complex Heating.” This is, however, something of a misnomer; some of these ancient techniques are not very simple, and all of them continue to evolve.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationBetween Making and Knowing: Tools in the History of Materials Research
EditorsJoseph Martin, Cyrus Mody
Place of PublicationSingapore
PublisherWorld Scientific Publishing Company
Pages43-52
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9789811207631
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2020

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