Materials
Copper
Also Known As Cu IUPAC chemical symbol, from the Latin cuprum; used as the common short form in engineering and materials contexts.
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Copper is one of the first metals worked by humans, hammered into ornaments and tools from native deposits as early as 9000 BCE and smelted from ore by around 5000 BCE, discoveries that gave the Chalcolithic, or Copper Age, its name. Alloyed with tin, it yields bronze, harder than either parent metal, and bronze tools and weapons defined the Bronze Age across the ancient Near East, the Aegean and China. Copper conducts electricity better than any metal except silver, at a fraction of silver cost, and that property, combined with good ductility for drawing into wire and natural resistance to corrosion, made it the standard material of electrical wiring and motor windings from the birth of the electrical power industry in the late nineteenth century onward.
Facts
Disputed
Origin YearWorked native copper ornaments are attested at Anatolian sites such as Cayonu from roughly the ninth millennium BCE; copper smelting from ore came later, from around the fifth millennium BCE. Primary UseElectrical wiring, motor windings and plumbing, chosen for high electrical conductivity, ductility and corrosion resistance. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Copper windings carry the current in nearly every practical motor design.
In Field
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Science Atlas: Copper, the same subject.
Sources
1. Technology: A World History
Daniel R. Headrick, Oxford University Press, 2009
2. A History of Technology
Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors, Oxford University Press, 1954
Copper (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationIntroductionQuote, Introduction
Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity.
Copper (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationHistoryQuote, History
It was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, c. 5000 BC; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, c. 4000 BC; and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, c. 3500 BC.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.In Field: Electrical Engineering
Electric Motor (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: The Electric MotorView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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